Hughes: We were ready to kick on
Gartland: Nobody worried about us 2008 Kiev misses still haunt former Boynesiders
ADAM Hughes believes the pain of that heartbreaking result in Kiev could have helped Drogheda kick on in Europe the following summer had financial problems not split the squad up.
The midfielder, who scored the Drogheda goal in the first leg at Dalymount Park before missing that late chance in Kiev, moved back to his native Australia with Adelaide United months later.
He said: “It was just unfortunate that we weren’t able to continue that journey.
“I think that team would have been able to compete in the A-League in Australia.
“If you take it to the UK, it was a squad that would have possibly been able to compete at the top of League 1, gain promotion and play in the Championship — that type of level.
Rotate
“The depth that we had and the calibre of players that were all over the park. You could rotate players in and out at the drop of a hat and you weren’t losing quality across the park. There were goals everywhere.
“It was just a great group to be around and it was hard to take when that financial crisis came because I really thought we were just in the midst of building something big as a club.
“I think if that group stuck together another two years and got another Champions League run, I think the hurt of the previous year would have really given that experience to everyone to kick on and go on and maybe take that next step to go through, but you never know.”
TODAY marks 14 years since Drogheda United came agonisingly close to pulling off one of the greatest ever results for a League of Ireland side in Europe.
The Boynesiders ultimately bowed out of the Champions League qualifiers at the second-round stage after a 4-3 aggregate defeat to Dynamo Kiev as they missed a number of late opportunities to go through — but it could have been a very different story.
Victory would have brought them a step closer to where no Irish team had gone before — 180 minutes away from the Champions League group stages and even had they lost that game they would have still qualified for the UEFA Cup.
Kiev won the first leg 2-1 at Dalymount Park and also took the lead in the 13th minute in the return fixture.
A goal from a Shane Robinson penalty minutes before halftime brought Drogheda back into it before Kiev went 4-2 ahead on aggregate from a penalty of their own in the 73rd minute.
Angle
The tie looked to be over before Graham Gartland, a rock in the heart of that Drogheda defence, got on the end of a Robinson free three minutes from full time.
Gartland recalls: “The ball was coming in and I’m thinking I can get to this. I sort of go with my foot and when you see
GRAHAM Gartland (below) can understand the frustration at the recent exodus of some of the League of Ireland’s top talents to Scotland and League 1 on cheap deals.
But he can’t understand why there was not the same noise as players left the country when the likes of Drogheda, Shelbourne and Bohs hit financial troubles.
He said: “We were allowed to go to the wall and nobody came to help. Nobody came to help the players, nobody came to help the club and I’m not saying the club needed help but it needed to be financially more prudent.
“It was just real
‘ah another club gone... good luck’ and all the players ended up leaving.
Adam Hughes and
Johnny Tambouras ended up drifting over to different parts of the world, Joe Kendrick went to Azerbaijan, I went to Scotland, Brian Shelley ended up going to Australia and New Zealand when Bohs went to the wall.
“There was a mass exodus of talent out of the country around that time as well but nothing was said because it was like ‘clubs are going bust’.
“Now they’re worrying about young players leaving and I’m going ‘where it from a different angle it looks dangerous but the goalkeeper is probably two yards behind me expecting to catch it into his stomach, whereas if he actually comes and catches it at head height it probably would have been a free out for a high foot.”
Moments later, the ball dropped to Adam Hughes, who scored in the first leg, right in front of goal but his effort somehow went over.
It’s a miss that haunted the Australian for sometime afterwards.
He explained: “It just wasn’t to be in that match. We were so close and on another day the luck is there with you, a couple of goals go in.
“Unfortunately we weren’t were you then to help?’
“Now you’re saying we need to give them longer term contracts, secure things and you do, but the FAI actually need to invest in clubs and when these clubs’ players start doing well and the facilities come well, they’re going to benefit from it because they’re the future internationals of the country.
Facilities
“We just need the facilities to produce, and not produce top players sporadically, but to produce them on a constant level.”
Gartland also stressed that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, something he learned after taking a paycut to join Scottish Premiership side St Johnstone from Drogheda. “If I had a chance of going back to Scotland looking back would I have taken it at the time? I took a paycut to go, the facilities weren’t that great. Looking back, if Drogheda had stayed going I probably wouldn’t have left. “The facilities in Scotland weren’t great so I actually missed that side of it and I know a lot of other people who joined other clubs did too.” able to capitalise on a couple of those chances. I remember I had a chance late on that usually I would bury and that’s one I look back on and really wish it went in.”
Gartland describes the miss as “surreal”, while Stuart Byrne, who was Drogheda captain at the time, thought Hughes had scored.
Gartland said: “He had done really well in the first leg scoring the goal and you’re just hoping he gets his knee over the ball, even if he scuffs it into the ground. It’s a great chance for him to score and it’s a little bit surreal.”
Byrne added: “I was just looking straight up the pitch at it and I saw it dropping. I knew he was only six yards out or whatever and I couldn’t see the goalkeeper. I could see the goal and I just said ‘this is going in’.
“And even when he hit it, I still thought it was going it. Even though it was going up high, I was thinking it would hit the roof of the net.
Post
“Then it just went over and I just dropped to my knees.”
But yet another chance came before the final whistle when Robinson’s effort from a tight angle on the right hand side of the box hit off the inside of the post before rolling across the line to a Kiev defender who cleared.
Byrne asks: “How does that not go in? It hits the front post and just trickles across