Savouring an incredible success
Fifteen, as it happens. Surprisingly low for the City of Light but there you go. Maybe it was a Tuesday morning.
I often imagine that any given moment of sporting ecstasy is isolated, concentrated in one relatively tiny pocket of the world while the rest of humanity bolts upright, alarmed by the sudden outpouring of emotion.
It’s the sort of thinking that has led to the well-worn ‘shot heard round the world’ line being applied to a range of sporting moments, most famously when Bobby Thomson’s game-winning home run secured the National League pennant for the New York Giants 60 years ago this autumn.
And now I believe, without fear of contradiction, that it should be applied to Graham Cummins’ 94th-minute header which won the Airtricity First Division for Cork City in Tolka Park on Saturday.
It remains incredible, undiminished by its humble stage. So impossible that it’s not a stretch to imagine someone felt a gust of wind in the Peruvian Cordilleras.
We were in the spotlight, it seemed; no one on Earth could possibly be feeling that same rush that same second, no one anywhere could be happier than the 1,500 or so City supporters. Nobody, nowhere.
Earlier in the day, Arsenal fans were experiencing several different layers of satisfaction at Stamford Bridge. Later Bristol City would enjoy their own injury-time winner at Barnsley, while there was triple overtime drama in LA where Stanford had an astonishing college football victory over USC.
But the stakes were so much higher in Dublin’s northside where Tommy Dunne and his Cork City players were creating their own little bit of glory, making true on their promise that they would go all out for victory even though a draw would do. Risking everything to shock the world.
During the week, Dunne had been privately asking those around him at the club what he should do if it was a draw with 10 minutes to go. No one could offer him a case against testing the Shels rearguard. So he brought on Derek O’Brien, while Alan Mathews took off Philip Hughes.
The message was clear. Despite the Shels players openly congratulating each other during breaks in play, despite the home fans chanting “champeones” as the seconds fell away, despite the three bottles of champagne sitting in the Shels dugout, it was there for the taking.
Poetic justice, redemption and survival, the final stanza needed one final couplet. O’Brien’s inch-perfect cross from the left flank to the back post; Cummins’ well-executed header causing the Riverside Stand to explode.
The full name of that aforementioned film is The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie. Two seasons of ups and downs brought this supporter-owned club to that glorious moment.
Only in dreams do 94th-minute winners secure a league title. I still can’t think of a better way to realise an incredible ambition.
