Musical McGlade hopes Cork City are finding their rhythm

Midfielder Dylan McGlade says City are aiming to dominate possession and play attacking exciting football

Thu, 08 Apr, 2021 - 14:01

Martin Claffey

Cork City midfielder Dylan McGlade has a little chuckle when his passion for making music and playing records comes up.

"I think the neighbours next door are getting a bit tired of it as well but what can you do? It's the only thing keeping me happy at the moment!" says McGlade.

That and the return to football. McGlade is part of a bubble within a bubble at City during the Covid lockdown.

"I live with a couple of the lads — the new lad Jonas (Hakkinen), Cian Bargary, Cian Murphy, Ronan Hurley. We’re all quite tight-knit together and kind of look after each other. I'm the older one in the house but I'm not really the dad.

"We are all kind of tight. And you have to be. Everybody needs social interaction, and we're in a lucky position that we can come in every day and do our job, relatively normally — obviously we still have to follow a lot of guidelines and stuff like that while we're here, but we can get our social interactions that we need, to keep people sane really. So it does definitely help that you have the lads in the house and you have your bubble here that you can interact with and have a laugh at the right times."

McGlade admits he has found lockdown difficult. living away from home.

"It has been hard. I think this time last year before lockdown and stuff I'd gotten home pretty much every two or three weeks in the preseason, and obviously the first five or six weeks of the season as well, and I got to stay up a couple of times after we played in Dublin.

"Obviously now you're not able to do that at this time so I haven't seen my family as much as I would have liked. It's more just kind of keeping in contact on FaceTime and stuff like that so it can be difficult and you can feel a bit lonely, but I'm fully concentrated on what we have to do down here.

"I want to make sure that this club has a good season and goes back to where we need to be and where we should be, so that's kind of where my concentration is. That's how I'm dealing with it."

In 2019, while at Bray Wanderers, McGlade made the First Division Team of the Year. But he endured a frustrating season in Cork in 2020, with goals hard to come by and only showing flashes of his undoubted talent, as City suffered the pain of relegation. The 25-year-old winger is determined to draw on both experiences in the club's promotion push under manager Colin Healy in the coming months.

"Last year we were kind of going into games pretty much on the back foot from the get-go. This year we are looking to really dominate possession and really create chances to play good attacking exciting football, which I think will benefit me. I scored 16 goals in this division before so it's something that I really want to make sure that I'm getting back to again, which is hitting the net consistently and creating as much as possible."

A bold aspiration, and one that City have been stop-start in achieving so far this season. The Turner's Cross men won their opening game 2-1 against Cobh Ramblers but were brought back to earth by last weekend's defeat to Cabinteely. The DJ in McGlade would agree the Leesiders have yet to hit their rhythm.

"I think we’re still kind of finding our feet," he admits. "Against Cabinteely, I think definitely there were improvements. We created a lot more chances we were better on the ball. We just maybe need to do things a bit quicker and maybe play with just a bit more intensity, probably — the chances are definitely there, we just need to finish."

On Friday night, City come up against an Athlone Town side who followed up an opening-round draw with UCD with an eye-catching 3-1 win over fancied Galway United. Striker Stephen Meaney has already scored three goals this season, netting two against Galway.

The sides last met in the second round of the FAI Cup in 2017, with City running out 7-0 winners at Turner’s Cross. It will be a first league meeting between the sides since August 2014, when goals from Billy Dennehy and Mark O’Sullivan earned City a point in an 2-2 draw in Athlone.