Cryan seeks Roman holiday for Boro

EVEN if Scarborough score this afternoon, there will be no blue moon.

The FA has scuppered plans for the Conference team to make money should they breach the Chelsea rear-guard by displaying their own rears.

Such an event would have enhanced the party atmosphere in the Yorkshire seaside resort today, but there will still be plenty of fireworks. This is the biggest day for a club who have a tendency to carve unique places in English football history - they were the first club to be promoted into the football league from the Conference back in 1987.

Chelsea, the most fashionable club in European football, are something different. Colin Cryan has barely slept all week, thinking about the possible scenarios that will transpire come noon. You mightn’t know too much about Cryan, but he is one of the hundreds of Irish footballers trying to climb from the lower reaches.

A former Sheffield United trainee, frustration at being unable to break into the first team in Bramall Lane saw him move across the county of Yorkshire. He has played for Ireland at underage level, but the past couple of seasons, he has been an outsider in Neil Warnock’s mini-revolution in the steel city, watching from the gallows of reserve team football.

Like many others on his team, he sees this afternoon as his big chance. Sky cameras travel as a shop window in matches like this. Cryan was superb in the replay against Southend, rightly being accorded man of the match. He will look to repeat that performance against the West London millionaires.

“This is a big opportunity for me. My contract with United is up in the summer and I have to start looking elsewhere for my career because at this stage, I can’t be playing reserve team football anymore.

“That is why the move to Scarborough has been so good for me and if I can put in a good performance against Chelsea, it will make people sit up and take notice,” Cryan says.

Those watching the game on this side of the pond will be pleasantly surprised that Damien Duff won’t be the only Irish talent on show (Cryan is adamant that Duffer’s jersey has his name on it). Apart from Cryan,

Sligo-born Keith Gilroy, a winger of some promise, ex-Sunderland defender Stephen Capper and striker Keith Graydon all play for the Conference side. No wonder the club has an association with Cahir. The seaside resort is twinned with the Tipperary town, so expect all of Cahir to be tuned to Sky Sports.

“Yeah, there are a few Irish lads here now, which is great. It sort of helps, but each of us are still looking to build a career, to play at a higher standard. It is not easy with the football league the way it is at the moment, financially, to find new clubs, but you have to keep the faith.

“I have great belief in my own ability, I know I can do a job for someone. But, there are a lot of players like that in this league. Look at Keith [Gilroy], he has the ability to go all the way. It is just a question of getting a break. I think we have the chance against Chelsea to show how good some players in the Conference really are,” Cryan says.

No other game this weekend has caused such a stir. Roman Abramovich has already donated £25,000 grand to keep Boro’s youth academy alive, while the club secured a £50,000 shirt sponsorship from the Sun. The involvement of the red-top purveyors of journalistic integrity has left a sour taste, with some reports suggesting the paper hijacked Scarborough’s press day on Thursday, whisking players and management away in a big red battle bus and dispatching a press officer to keep other papers away.

This is a match that has re-ignited all the old passions of the oldest club competition, but while Cryan has been caught in the whirl this week, he remains realistic about the game itself.

“The realists will say we are going to get trounced in a side with so many world class players.

“You look at their team, and it scares you, Duffer, Mutu, Makalele, Hasselbank. But that is what we become involved in football for, to play against these guys. I mean, you would need to stagger into a bookies from a pub to put money on us, but I’d say Chelsea won’t be looking forward to the trip.

“Ranieri was giving out about the state of Stamford Bridge last week, but wait until he sees the pitch here. It is pretty bad, we have had a canopy over it all week to keep the rains off it, but that will work to our advantage,” says Cryan, who has played five times for Ireland under-21s and who will return to Bramall Lane after the fourth round tie unless his loan spell is extended.

The perfect send-off would be victory over Chelsea. Or at least, Damien Duff’s shirt.

The extent to which Chelsea missed their mercurial attacker was visible over the Christmas period, as they slipped behind in the three-horse race.

However with Mutu finding his scoring touch again and Duff prepared to torture the Conference side down the flanks, it could be a long afternoon for Cryan and his team-mates.

“They are in a different world to us, they are among the cream in Europe and for all of us here, this is going to be a dream come true.”

They might have to abstain from baring their backsides, but Scarborough will cause some fraught moments for Roman’s millionaires this afternoon. Colin Cryan is sure of it.

He didn’t expect to get much sleep last night.

This week has just been like those weeks as a kid when he had a big game for Home Farm or the Irish underage teams.

A fixture that sheds the skin of old cliché from the beauty, oft-talked about, in the Cup.

The ramshackle non-league club against the rich kids of West London.

And an Irishman on either side who may have a big say.