Murray back to ‘far better-run club’

RETURNING Cork City captain Dan Murray is happy to be back at a far better-run club than the one he was forced to leave just under two years ago.

On Friday, January 29, 2010, Murray was the spokesperson for a group of City players who issued a statement claiming they had gone unpaid by former owner Tom Coughlan.

“We came to a conclusion that the morale of the club is so low that we have to do something now,” he said at the time, before joining Shamrock Rovers when the club was wound up.

But, having captained Rovers to two league titles and a Setanta Cup, he is back on Leeside and can already see the differences.

“The club’s on a proper, sound footing now, they’ve had to build it up from the ground again,” he said at his unveiling at Turner’s Cross yesterday.

“To come back now when the club is in the Premier Division is a great honour. It’s where they should be. It’s what the fans and the people running the club deserve.”

Looking back on the circumstances surrounding his departure, he is glad that such days are well behind him.

“It was a horrible time, really. The club was all over the place financially.

“Most of the players had no option but to leave and look for new things, which is hard because they had a good bond with the club and the supporters.”

While successful as Rovers skipper, he found himself surplus to the requirements of new manager Stephen Kenny, leading to his return.

“I enjoyed my couple of years with Rovers,” he said.

“It was a good club to play for, good people are running it and I played for a good manager.

“It was probably coming down to a mutual thing, but the new manager decided that he wanted to go in a different direction.

“He pretty much said that he wanted to sign other players before he signed me so I didn’t want to hang around any longer.

” I spoke to Tommy a couple of times and it made sense to come back.”

And, while talk of a third league title in-a-row for the defender is probably fanciful, he doesn’t expect City to be merely making up the numbers in the top flight in the coming season.

“It probably is a little bit [optimistic] but I don’t think we’re going to set any goals like that too early, we’ll have to take it as it comes.

“It’s a tough division to play in and there are a lot of tough games but I’ve no doubt that we’ll be competitive.”