‘Name one popular chairman of a football club?’

WITH a background in property development and politics, Tom Coughlan will be the first to admit that he’s on a steep learning as the new owner/chairman of Cork City FC.

The 40-year-old business man, who took control of the club after it came close to going to the wall last season, says that, “like most Cork people” he has always read the paper “from back to front.” As a northside youngster, he’d played hurling for Glen Rovers and Sarsfields and later played soccer in college but, while always keeping an eye on the football results, he confesses that he would only have ever attended a few games at Turner’s Cross before he took over Cork City following its emergence from examinership last season.

“I don’t know is that a negative or a positive but that’s where I’m coming from,” he says.