After The Dust has Settled - looking back on magic.

I thought I'd give it a bit of time before committing my thoughts on Sligo Rovers FAI Cup win to the blog. Recently I've been cutting out articles about the win over Shamrock Rovers, saving them for when all the commotion had died down. We're getting their now... and recent economic developments have played their part in quenching the euphoria, but not too much.

Eamonn Sweeney's wonderfully written 'Hold the Back Page' is probably the last significant article we're have written on our most recent of cup triumphs. It was published 2 days ago in the Sunday Independent of Nov 21st, I'd planned saving it for a few days, then rationing it over the duration of a day or two. There's probably about 2000 words there so I could enjoy it over two sittings, morning and evening, maybe a paragraph or two during the afternoon, or strategically place it in the downstairs toilet for when nature calls. 

I even thought there was a slight chance I might have been referenced in Sweeney's column in question, having spoken to him in the D4 Hotel after the game. I use the word 'spoke' loosely... There were time's I was so overcome with the day's emotions words failed me. I have recollections of Mr. Sweeney looking at me puzzled, trying to make sense of my sentences - punctuated with yelps of joy and yahoos of happiness. 

All the articles and photos collected over the last week or so from local and national newspapers will be put into a folder and stored away for future reminiscing. I have a folder in my parents house, filled with articles, match programme and ticket stubs from the 1994 Cup win over Derry City in a very different Lansdown Road. The faded, slightly blurred, pre-digital age photographs that appeared in the Sligo Champion and Sligo Weekender export me back to that wet miserable day in '94 when Gerry Carr cemented my developing love of Sligo Rovers, with that all important headed goal. 

16 years later and it's Mayo man Ciaran Kelly who's the unlikely hero. The at times maligned 'keeper of Paul Cook's squad did what's as close as you can get to the impossible in a game of football, save every spot kick in a shoot-out. Mayo has traditionally looked North for a team to support in the League of Ireland and Kelly's heroics will act as the perfect tonic to stoke up the interest that may have faded in the Bit O'Red in the last 10 years from gaelic games strong-hold. 

Two friends of mine came some distances to attend the cup final. One from Edinburgh and the other from San Francisco. It's amazing that people felt this was an event that they had to attend, 36 thousand people showed up for a game involving our Sligo Rovers; a team that average about 2,000 fans for a home game in the Showgronds, as Eamonn Sweeney says in his article in the Sunday Independent "there is affection for the League out there, it's just a question of tapping it". 

Joseph Ndo after the final

The friend who traveled from Edinburgh is a Manchester United fan, a die hard. after the Cup final win, in the delirium of the night that followed, surrounded by Rovers fans and players alike, I said to him when United win the League, or the Champions League, you'll never have the satisfaction of going back to the hotel after the final to celebrate with the players and management. This is what makes supporting a League of Ireland team so special. The days of winning cup finals may be few, but when they occur you feel you're every much as part of the history making as the players and managers who create the magic.

I look forward to the years and decades to come when I happen upon the Sligo Rovers related articles from the double cup winning team of 2010 in some dusty folder.