Doolin praises players after hardest week

CORK CITY manager Paul Doolin hailed his team’s professionalism in earning a valuable three points at Turner’s Cross last night — after all, as he pointed out, they didn’t know if they would be taking the pitch until 5pm yesterday.

The match with Bray Wanderers was a mere subplot to another soap opera week on Leeside but Doolin insisted his players deserve praise for first deferring wages and then overcoming the Seagulls last night.

“The main thing is the club is saved and everyone’s delighted because Cork needs a soccer club. So again we got the three points and that’s the important thing but the players deserve great credit from everyone,” he said.

“We were waiting all day for news and to be honest it was only 5pm that we heard we were going to be okay. It hasn’t been easy, [Thursday] was a very, very tough day as you can imagine. The cliché is that its déjà vu and it’s very like that here.

“The players and staff have deferred their wages and they deserve praise for that. The main thing is that the club is okay but going forward we might have to have another look at things.”

The High Court ruling that gave the club a stay of execution, saw the playing squad line up after a hampered preparation. But the fact that they didn’t perform like dead men walking was down to the squad’s resolve, Doolin said.

“I didn’t do anything special [to motivate his side]. The players have been brilliant, I’ve said this already. You look where we are — we’re right behind the leaders Bohs and that’s fantastic.”

And the Dubliner issued a rallying call to the Cork public to show their support for the city’s soccer club as the fight for survival continues.

“It hasn’t been easy here; it’s not just this year, there’s been a lot of leading problems all along. I’ve always said that it would take a bit of time. There’s silly people, ex-players, managers maybe that I feel have other agendas down here. I’ve been assaulted personally myself. I think people just now need to get behind the club whether it’s Tom Coughlan or whoever it is. But the main thing is we get behind the club and drive on.

“It’s not going to be easy — when you look at the players we’ve lost — Colin Healy, Pat Sullivan, Denis Behan. With them, we could challenge for this league title.

“But it’s a great result for us and we play Bohs next week. That’s a massive game for us now,” he added.

Earlier as kick off approached, the mood around Turner’s Cross was of confused relief.

Sonya O’Neill, spokesperson for the fans group FORAS, was quick to warn against any repeat of this week’s drama. “We’re still trying to get our heads around it obviously but this seems to be a good thing,” she said.

“It would be nice to know the full details of the deal but if it gives us a chance to get ourselves together and be more sure about how we operate from here.

“We can’t go through this again. It has been such a tough week and we simply cannot let it happen again. It’s a timely reminder of the need for the FORAS supporters trust. It’s something we need to keep building so that, if the football club was ever threatened again, we’d have the potential to get involved.”

Other Cork City supporters around the ground were relieved but still showed the scars of a traumatic week. “The news is just sinking in now,” said Gary Collins of Ballincollig. “It’s been a really crazy few days for everyone and no one was sure what was going to happen at the end of it. And we’re still all trying to kind of figure out what this means now.

“I only really started believing we were in trouble when the tax guys wouldn’t budge. I’m not sure many of us realised how serious it was. The important thing is we’re still here.”

That sentiment was echoed by Phil O’Leary, from the Douglas: “We didn’t even know if the match was going to go ahead tonight, like everyone. But we’re here and God knows there’s a lot of changes need to be made and hopefully they will sort themselves out and we can move on and get the good days back soon.”