Brotherly love key to success
IN the hit HBO miniseries ‘Band of Brothers’ officer Richard D Winters summed up what the group of men he had served with in World War II’s Easy Company meant to him by quoting a story his comrade Staff Sergeant Myron ‘Mike’ Ranney once shared with him.
Ranney’s grandson in the years after the war asked him ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?’
His response was: ‘No... but I served in a company of heroes.’
Dundalk didn’t quite go to war with BATE Borisov but after their historic 3-0 victory over the Belarusians in Tallaght Stadium on Tuesday night, centre half Paddy Barrett attributed the success to a similar brotherly bond.
Stephen Kenny’s men certainly showed they were willing to fight in the trenches for each other with a spirited display that has left them 180 minutes away from becoming the first Irish team to qualify for the Champions League group stages.
For Barrett, it was particularly momentous given that he had been very much a fringe player until recent weeks before being thrust into the first team after Brian Gartland suffered a broken wrist in the second qualifying round first leg draw with FH Hafnarfjordur in Oriel Park.
While Europe was an undoubted step up for a man who had started just one league game since mid-March, the 23-year-old like the rest of his team-mates put in an heroic performance against BATE to secure a victory of David vs Goliath proportions.
He insists though that it was only possible due to the bond in the Lilywhites’ dressing room.
‘A lot of other teams you go into the dressing room and they are just team-mates but here all of us are friends rather than teammates,’ said the Waterford native.
‘We play for each other and if there’s someone in bother on the pitch we know there’s someone there to dig us out.
‘When I first came into the club this group of fellas made me feel welcome from the very start and I felt part of the team after the first day.
‘It’s a credit to the boys as well for what they’ve been doing before I came here. We’re a family in there and we’re very close.
‘They’re my brothers and long may that continue,’ he said.
That family feeling was backed up by the sight of former Dundalk players Mark Rossiter and Ruaidhrí Higgins, league winners at Oriel Park in 2014, in the tunnel after Tuesday’s game.
The two highly decorated veterans could only have been envious of their former team-mates, who can now look forward to at least eight more European matches and the guarantee of Europa League football no matter what happens in their fourth qualifying round double header later this month.
Barrett couldn’t quite get his head around that prospect either though.
Having returned from Scotland three summers ago after spells with Aberdeen and Dundee United, he had given up all hope of ever playing in Europe. And after spells in the First Division with both Waterford Utd and Galway Utd, where he often went weeks without pay, he couldn’t quite believe he is now guaranteed football right through to December at the very least.
‘It hasn’t really sunk in yet what we have achieved,’ he said.
‘It will go down in history but at the minute I actually don’t know what’s going on. I was sitting beside Dane Massey in the dressing room and I said to him ‘we’re guaranteed to be in the Europa League here, what’s going on?’
‘When I came back to Ireland I thought it would be all down hill from there. If you had told me two years ago that I would be even winning leagues and cups let alone competing in Europe I’d have told you to stop talking sh*te.
‘It’s just an incredible feeling, especially from where I’ve came from, playing with Waterford in the First Division and then Galway. Then Stephen Kenny came along and he has brought my career and happiness up a lot of levels to where I am now and it’s incredible and hard to believe.
‘It’s just unbelievable to think that there’s no off-season for us now but we’re very happy about that.
‘There are a few fellas who might have booked stuff but I don’t think they’ll mind cancelling because there’s a lot better things to look forward to.’
The next stage in an incredible journey for Dundalk takes them to the rather appropriately named Polish Army Stadium
Legia Warsaw are the new enemy but after Tuesday night Dundalk’s current heroes, the club’s very own Band of Brothers, will be confident of emerging victorious.