I don’t envy Dundalk’s cash, insists Caulfield
FOR John Caulfield, the fortnight after the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup final is the worst time of the year as manager of Cork City.
Because when contracts run their course, players are free to leave whether Caulfield wants to keep them or not — he lost five of last year’s City crew after they won the cup.
But this week is different; this week is the best.
Everyone, from gnarly old grey beards like Alan Bennett to the whippersnappers, are bursting a gut to make Caulfield’s matchday squad and cross the white line in Aviva Stadium on Sunday.
Whether it’s 90 minutes, or nine, being involved in the showpiece occasion for Irish club football matters.
‘It’s the one week that is different to any other,’ acknowledged Caulfield yesterday.
‘The league is week in, week out, but the cup final is different. It’s the biggest week of the year in our football calendar.’
As a player, Caulfield felt privileged to be involved in three cup finals for Cork, in 1989, 1992 and 1998. Not that he brings his playing career up much inside the City dressing room.
‘I don’t talk about myself to the lads as I’m an old man to them and they don’t remember the era,’ quipped the 54-year-old.
As City manager, this will be his fourth on the spin since 2015, all against Dundalk and he still gets ‘a buzz’ out of the occasion.
That was evident yesterday as he indulged in a spot of mind games about the fitness of Patrick Hoban, Dundalk’s leading scorer, for Sunday’s decider.
‘I don’t believe the injury is half as serious as reported and we’re planning that he (Hoban) will be playing. I’ll give €100 to Marymount if he’s not,’ he joked.
Five years since he left a secure job with Diageo for the precarious world of football management, Caulfield is on the brink of joining Liam Tuohy and Jim McLaughlin as men who led teams to three successive FAI Cup wins.
‘If I wasn’t here, I’d be enjoying the Jazz Festival because I’d have been working for Diageo for the last three days,’ he grinned.
‘But I’m much happier where I am. Five years ago, I went into professional football with the objective of growing the club, making it competitive and seeing where we’d go from there. It’s what we’ve done,’ he said.
Along the way, he has led City to a title (2017) and into Europe for a fourth successive season, with a record high number of points.
And yet there are grumbles from corners that City have underachieved in 2018.
Under-achieved? Perhaps, the complainants were unaware that the club was on life support before the supporters’ group, FORAS came to the rescue in 2010 and turned to Caulfield five years ago.
It explains why Caulfield bristles slightly when asked if his team’s season will be defined by Sunday’s outcome.
‘It depends on how you look at it. We have been phenomenally successfully and qualified for Europe but there are a small few who say this, this and this should happen. Look, we cannot go out and buy players like (Jose) Mourinho.
‘We have been incredibly consistent over five years even though the team has changed so much.
Would we like to win the cup? ‘Absolutely, but we may not. We’ll still have had a fantastic season,’ he said.
‘We had three bad weeks which cost us the league, but these things happen.’
At City, Caulfield does not have the cash to splash as Dundalk, but there is no envy. Rather he sees having less to spend as a challenge to keep up and remain competitive.
‘I don’t look at other clubs because we are doing it the way we need to do it, and we’re running it well.
‘As we’re seeing across the world if a team invests heavily and hugely, the chances are they’re going to dominate.
‘We don’t take outside investment and that’s fine. So, do I envy other clubs for getting that investment? No. But it does change the goalposts.
‘Financially we are not near their market. In fairness to them, they have decided they are monopolising the Dublin market.
‘They are even buying players that they don’t really need, which is their choice because they have the money.
‘And to be fair, with their new investors, they are being clever because they just want to monopolise it — they want to do a Rosenborg.
‘What we’ve got to do is keep overachieving, keep working as hard as we can do, keep bringing players through. Can we sell a fella, one player a year? Can we get into Europe and keep our wheels going?’
Europe is already secured. A win on Sunday would grease the financial wheels that bit more and further heighten Caulfield’s reputation as a manager of impressive mettle.