Drogs hoping Cup win is start of something special

BY yesterday afternoon the party had swung from the town centre to the comfort of the clubhouse at United Park.

On Sunday evening, 6,000 of the town's inhabitants had hailed their heroes on West Street, a fitting tribute for a group of players that had finally broken the club's trophy duck after 43 years of asking.

Today, and for the rest of the week, the players will have to curb the celebrations during daylight hours at least as they tour the local schools, trophy in tow.

Winning hearts and minds is a daily battle for eircom League clubs and Drogheda are determined to strike while the iron is hot.

Within minutes of their 2-0 Carlsberg Cup final win on Sunday, players, management and club officials were speaking of how this was to be merely the first rung of the ladder and not their summit.

"I'm still trying to take it all in," said chairman Vincent Hoey. "It's been fantastic for the club. We've waited a long time for something like this, but we don't want it to end here.

"We want to get to a stage where this club is playing in the best possible stadium. We want to be at a stage where we are rubbing shoulders with the elite on a consistent basis."

While it was a first sweet taste of success for many involved over the weekend, it was far from anything new for manager Paul Doolin and his assistant coach Tony Cousins.

During his own playing career, Cousins won a cup and league double just up the N1 at Oriel Park with Dundalk, but that didn't make him in any way blasé about what Drogheda had just achieved.

"We said to the lads before the game that they had the chance to go down in history. In 40 years time these lads won't be forgotten. It was important for us to win our first trophy but what we have to do now is move on."

Though the onus is already very much on the future, no-one would begrudge Drogheda if they wallow in their victory for a few days longer.

Though Cork rightly entered the final as strong favourites, it is worth remembering that they never enjoyed the run of the park on the three occasions they had met United in the league earlier in the season.

Drogheda won the first encounter 1-0 at Turner's Cross back in April with the scoreline being reversed for the next two encounters at United Park.

Drogheda fed on that knowledge eagerly as the big day loomed.

"It was important for us not be afraid of Cork," said Cousins. "Anyone who saw us play Cork this year will have known that we played particularly well against them. Really, we didn't set out to complicate things.

"We just told them to go out and play like they'd done against them before. With the pitch being that bit bigger you had to make sure that the likes of O'Callaghan and Gamble didn't get the space to dictate the game."

The occasion certainly seemed to get to Drogheda early in the game.

They looked very insecure in the first quarter, before slowly getting to grips with the job at hand.

"The first 15 minutes was very rocky for us with the conditions and everything else. It took us a bit of time to get into the game. We started to weather the storm after 15 or 20 minutes then and got our passing game going. We settled down and, after that, we never looked back.

"The lads showed real character. In cup finals you have to have the character to get on the ball and not be afraid. We had a lot of players out there who were prepared to do that."