Cork City signing O’Connor in Twitter row with Jewell

Cork City’s latest signing, Shane O’Connor, has become embroiled in a Twitter controversy with former manager Paul Jewell.

After leaving Ipswich to join his hometown club, O’Connor tweeted: “Can’t wait to get started now, hopefully be successful, get back to England and prove all them doubters wrong #c**tjewell!Ill be back ha :-).”

He later said the reference to Jewell had been created by mistake and while his former manager was not his favourite person, he had respect for him.

The 21-year-old had a loan spell at Port Vale before Christmas in which he didn’t play a game and trial spells at Southend and Yeovil, where he failed to win a contract, and Jewell wondered whether they might receive similar treatment: “I don’t know who’s next, Port Vale, Yeovil, Southend, they’ll be getting it because that was where he went and he couldn’t get a game there. Maybe he needs to have a pop at them.

“Maybe he spends too much time on Twitter and not enough worrying about his football.”

Jewell says he had no issue with O’Connor while he was at Portman Road: “I had no problem with him when he was here. The only problem we had was trying to get him fixed up somewhere.

“If Shane O’Connor’s having a pop at me on Twitter, it’s the least of my worries. Did he spell it right?”

O’Connor, a 2009 Roy Keane signing, played only 16 minutes of football for Jewell, which the Tractor Boys’ boss says was purely down to football, as it would be with any player, and says in any case, he always got on with the former Liverpool trainee: “The only reason anyone wouldn’t get picked is football, it’s nothing personal. I thought he was a nice lad. I’m disappointed, no, not disappointed, I’m surprised he’s on Twitter, to be honest.”

Having been signed for Ipswich by Keane, whom O’Connor described as his idol at his unveiling by City yesterday, the Corkman found himself frozen out when Jewell took over at Portman Road.

Selected just once by Jewell in a competitive game, the former Liverpool trainee left the club by mutual consent during January.

Meeting the media at the SilverSprings Moran Hotel yesterday morning, he was diplomatic about the circumstances surrounding his departure and declared himself to be looking forward to his time at Cork City.

“Managers come in and they don’t like you or they bring in their own players,” he said.

“I’ve been really low on confidence for the last six months, so coming to a place you feel wanted and can really go an express yourself, that’s what I want to do here.”