VIDEO: Things can only get better for John Caulfield the pragmatist

There’s a pragmatic side to John Caulfield and it emerges when you ask what winning tomorrow’s FAI Cup final would mean to him on a personal level, writes Liam Mackey

Everyone knows that John Caulfield is Cork City through and through.

Notwithstanding the inconvenient facts that he was born in New York and – whisper it – actually made his League of Ireland bow in the briefest of cameos for Athlone Town, Caulfield is synonymous with the club, a Hall of Famer who holds both the appearance and (jointly) the league goal-scoring records at Turner’s Cross.

Ask people to sum him up in one word and, recalling his exploits as a player and noting his still livewire demeanour on the touchline as manager, many will opt for ‘passion’ – passion for football, passion for the club, passion for the city in which he has made his home for 30 years.

But there’s a pragmatic side to John Caulfield too and it emerges when you ask what winning tomorrow’s FAI Cup final would mean to him on a personal level.

Resisting the temptation to talk up the historic significance of what would be only a third cup final victory for the club, Caulfield’s thoughtful response instead reveals he has eyes fixed firmly on the future.

“It’s a funny thing to say... as a player you want to win trophies, you want to win medals,” he reflects. “From the minute I came in, I just wanted to make us better.

“I wanted to do my best. I felt the club were under-achieving and I wanted to get them back in there. When Sunday night’s over and Monday morning comes, I’m totally focused on making sure that next year we’re better.

“And I’m working as hard as I can on that. I know this year, I’d have preferred for us to be there at the end of the season in the league. In certain areas of the pitch we just weren’t good enough or consistent enough. But they’re areas that I’ve got to address for next year.

“Yeah, Dundalk are a great side but, at the end of the day, we were 45 minutes away from winning the league last year with a bum team – so everyone thought (laughs). To be fair to them (Dundalk), the win gave them the confidence to kick on this year to another level and teams couldn’t stay with them. And that’s the level for us to get to next year now.”

Caulfield is in a position to think long-term by virtue of the fact that the Cork City board were willing to extend his contract for another two years even before the big two trophies in Irish football were finally decided. That show of faith was important to the manager.

“I’m very practical,” he says. “I’ve been in work, in business, for 30 years. At any club, even non-league clubs, if you don’t want me, just tell me and I’ll go away home. There’s no controversy. And when we had the conversation about the extension, I did say to the board: if you don’t feel I’m going in the right direction, tell me now. I can go back to a day job if I have to – but I prefer to be putting on my tracksuit.

“I love the League of Ireland, I love being involved, I love managing. That’s my passion. I wanted to do this for a reason and that’s why I had a cut off it. And I’m loving every minute of it even though it’s difficult and the criticism is severe.

“And it’s particularly severe on your family, not so much myself, because after a while you become thick-skinned and if you believe you’re on the right track, fine. It’s your friends and family that take the criticism (to heart) because they don’t like you being slated. But that’s part and parcel of it.”

Caulfield’s critics tend to highlight deficiencies in the team’s style of play but, frankly, it seems absurd and, to say the very least of it, not a little unfair that the manager of a cup final team which has also finished runners-up in the league two years in succession, should be on the receiving end of concerted flak.

“I suppose the uniqueness about Cork,” he offers, “is that Cork has a fantastic sports following but it’s not like others places where they only follow hurling or football. In Cork everyone follows everything but they all follow the winning team. Soccer is doing well – we’ll follow that. The gah is doing well – we’ll follow that. Munster rugby – we’ll follow that. That leads to the fact that they just want success. And they want success now.

“So it’s not about fairness – that’s the reality. It’s nothing I didn’t expect coming in. I didn’t think everyone would be patting me on the back. I knew the scenario.

“The good thing that happened this year is a lot of people probably thought we’d fall away. But we haven’t. And I have to make sure now that next year we’re up there again.”

For John Caulfield, then, the close of one season is just the beginning of the next – and what better way to manage than transition tomorrow than by helping deliver the sporting success that the club, city and county crave?

“The support we are getting is phenomenal and that is the brilliance of Cork,” he said this week. “People from all of the other codes are supporting us in the game. It is just who we are and what we are all about: Cork is sport.”