‘It’s so good to be top of the tree’
JOHN CAULFIELD may be a bubbling ball of emotion on the touchline but the Cork City manager knows there is no place for sentiment in this game.
Sean Maguire and Kevin O’Connor, two of the club’s prodigal sons who departed for Preston North End at the midway point of this season, will be at Aviva Stadium tomorrow hoping to see their former teammates complete an historic double for the club.
The pair were instrumental in building an insurmountable points gap in the Premier Division — Maguire finished the season as top scorer with 20 goals despite leaving at the end of July — but Caulfield understands the fly-bynight nature of professional football and has no problem dealing with things in a pragmatic manner.
It is why the pair will not be welcomed to the team hotel or the dressing room as Cork’s epic rivalry with Dundalk continues with a third successive Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup clash.
‘No, no, not all. They’re not our players. Sure we’d be bringing players back from last year and the year before,’ Caulfield insisted. ‘It’s professional football, these are brilliant guys, you shake their hands and we’re thrilled with them how they’re going.
‘But we’re in the Cup final, it’s nothing to do with them, the boys have got to the Cup final without them. If they’re there afterwards well and good but no, not at all.’
That may seem cold and clinical from the outside, yet it has become perfectly clear since Caulfield took the reins ahead of the 2014 campaign that he knows exactly how to tap into the hearts and minds of not just the Turner’s Cross faithful, but also those throughout the county.
‘The team has put the club back to where it should be, with total respect. That is very difficult, it’s unique down here and you can’t understand it unless you live down here or move down here,’ the New York-born former striker, whose 455 appearances and 129 goals are still club records, added.
‘I didn’t realise until I moved here. You look at other sports, look at the Dubs, they’re a phenomenal team and known all over. Are Shamrock Rovers known all over Dublin? No, they’re not. Are their players? No, they’re not.
‘You have to be at the top because Cork people just want to follow successful teams. We’re top of that tree and it’s a great place to be. I have said to the players that we have to get back to where we were and seen to be the top team around the city and county. We have to earn our own right to get back there. If you wrote seven years ago that 1,700 people would turn up to a family day here they would say you’re bonkers.
‘But that’s what you’ll get if you’re in the football final, the hurling final, now the public have rowed in behind saying “these are a serious team and a great team to follow”. Ultimately, Cork soccer is back where we need it to be, at the top in Cork sport, showing we’re serious people, a serious club winning trophies and we want to stay up there.’
Until last season that wasn’t the case, and despite turning Cork from a club floundering in midtable to title challengers in his first three seasons, it was victory in this competition last year which helped propel them from perennial nearly men to champions.
‘Ultimately, fantasy football management is what’s out there nowadays, everyone wants instant success. I suppose, in lots of ways, we’ve been corrupted by the whole Premier League because people assume you can go out and sign anyone you want,’ Caulfield feels.
‘From the outside a lot of people were trying to say that if the team didn’t win the cup last year maybe there should be a change of management, which is nasty but, at the same time, that’s the way it is nowadays.
‘So there’s no doubt winning last year did a few things. It showed the management that we were on the right track. Winning silverware definitely takes a bit of the monkey off the back. You can see that in other sports, teams that can’t get over the line and how it affects them.
‘And I suppose winning the league has stabilised the fact that people can see that things are being done right.
‘I always say that no matter what had been said on the outside, if there was a bit of negativity on the outside, I always feel that when you walk into Turner’s Cross every week — our average crowd this year was 4,700 — and they’re supporting you, you’re not in a bad place then.
‘No matter what’s being said on the outside, these people are still coming through the door and they think you’re doing the right thing. There’s no agendas in our club because all the people involved in the management have all been with the club.
‘Everyone knows where we’re from, they trust what we’re doing is right and when you walk out in front of that crowd, you know you’re not too far off.’
But Caulfield knows he will have to keep delivering success and tomorrow is a new day, another chance of glory.