Higher profile would give Sporting chance

FAI CUP SEMI-FINALS: EMMET MALONEhears how Sporting Fingal have worked hard at getting things right both on and off the pitch

THAT POINTS mean prizes has been somewhat starkly highlighted by the slight sense of desperation at Dalymount Park as the title race nears a conclusion. As Sporting Fingal prepare for tomorrow’s FAI Cup semi-final, meanwhile, it is profile the club is chasing, its leading officials insist, rather than monetary gain. That Fingal could make a cup final in just their second year of competitive football says something about the league and the huge difficulties many of its more prominent members are encountering.

But, Fingal manager Liam Buckley maintains, it also says something about the way the people behind the club have done their work in the frantic first couple of years of their existence.

“I think we’ve gone about things in the right way,” says the former Shamrock Rovers boss whose involvement with the project started when he was approached by Fingal County Council about helping to put together a football development plan.

“I’ve seen the other side of things. When I was at Rovers we got to the stage where people just weren’t getting paid, it was the toughest time of my professional career. We had big plans for the club but you were trying to look at the long term while training and preparing for games in a situation where nobody, the players or staff, were getting any wages and it was just impossible really.

“People talk all the time about how much we’re spending, or how they think we are, but the reality is we worked out a budget and we’ve stuck to it. There haven’t been any issues with players not getting paid and I haven’t gone back for more money to sign another player or two. We’ve just got on with it.

“I don’t want to be critical of anybody else but really, if they end up having to cut wages or leave lads without money altogether then they’re doing something wrong. And it doesn’t just damage them, it has a knock-on effect on clubs like ourselves that are trying to build credibility, get sponsors and establish a support base.

“The reality is everybody knocks the First Division but the problems this year have been at big Premier Division clubs.”

Professional Football Association of Ireland general secretary Stephen McGuinness agrees, suggesting, “If we had 10 UCDs in the Premier Division we’d have a great league and over their first couple of years Sporting Fingal have been like UCD; we’ve never had an issue with them.

“I think that’s a large part of the reason they got players of the quality they did at the start of the season. In a lot of cases, the lads had other options but they were impressed by Liam and the fact the club looked to be rock-solid.

They took less money in some cases because they believed it would be paid and the club has also worked hard on other things, like helping some of the players pursue their education.”

Stephen Paisley is one such player with the former Longford and St Patrick’s Athletic defender choosing Fingal over Shamrock Rovers a year ago. “I had to weigh up my options, so it was a difficult decision initially,” he says.

“But Sporting Fingal allowed me to do a Masters programme in Finance in DCU, and that was a big reason why I signed. Dropping down a division was a difficult decision but then I saw the players here as well, a lot of experience had come into the club and when I sat down with Liam, and he told me the plans for the place, in the end it was an easy enough decision.”

Like everybody else’s, their plans have been affected by the economic downturn with a proposed €10 million multi-sports facility in Lusk, at which the club was going to base itself and for which much of the funding was in place, held up by a ban on new capital spending by local authorities.

John O’Brien, the head of Fingal Council’s Community, Culture and Sport Department and also Sporting’s club secretary, admits there are hurdles to overcome but insists the club remains ahead of schedule in terms of the five-year business plan it put together prior to launch a little over two years ago with the possibility of a cup final providing an unexpected lift.

“Clearly there are issues with regard to the planned facilities that are beyond the control of the club but we remain hopeful they can be sorted out in time,” he says. “On other fronts, though, the club is making a lot of progress. We’re still in with a chance of winning promotion and reaching a cup final would be a great bonus in terms of the profile it would bring. The money would be welcome too but what we badly need is profile because the First Division doesn’t get much of a look-in in terms of the media.”

The club has, he feels, ticked many of the boxes it had hoped to by this stage. No other league club runs power wheelchair or Special Olympics teams, and the club’s ability to reach sections of the community often ignored by the more established clubs is a key reason for the council’s involvement. It does not, O’Brien is at pains to emphasise however, fund the club other than for the time of some of its staff, like him, and, assuming it happens, the provision of facilities. “That, though, is intended to be used for the benefit of clubs from across the whole Fingal area and we are very open to the idea of having teams from other sports play under the umbrella, basketball seems an obvious example.”

The first team is essentially bankrolled by a combination of developer Gerry Gannon’s largesse and various other sponsorships including a significant one from Keelings, suppliers of fruit and other fresh food. Gate receipts have yet to become a very major factor in club funding although O’Brien and Buckley take issue with reports that only 32 fans travelled to Tallaght to see the quarter-final replay win over Shamrock Rovers.

“Well, we would have had people we got in on a list as well,” says O’Brien, “but really that’s not the point. We don’t have many supporters at the moment . . . it’s a long-term project and part of the idea is we will fire the imaginations of young people in what in a rapidly expanding area.

“That’s easier to do if you’re playing at the highest level possible and that’s why getting promoted is important to us, and this cup semi-final too. We are in this for the long haul and we believe we can build a solid support base over time.”

The club is better placed to do it than Ronan Seery’s Dublin City which lacked either Fingal’s financial backing or its infrastructural support. Alan Kirby, another of the club’s DCU student brigade, insists he and the other players believe it can work. “But,” he says, “it’s unrealistic to talk about getting the average Joe Soap to come in off the street at 20 or 30 and start supporting the League of Ireland if they haven’t been doing that all along. If you can get their kids in, though, and as time goes on they bring their kids along, I think that can work.”

That might be a more long-term view than the club’s central figures are looking to take but the basic message is the same. If you build it right, they will come and Buckley and co insist the cup run is just another one of the many building blocks required to construct a solid and, they insist, sustainable future.

TEAM NEWS

Sporting Fingal v Bray Wanderers

BRAY Wanderers skipper Derek Pender will miss tomorrow's semi-final at Morton Stadium due to suspension while Derek Foran (groin), Gary McCabe (ankle) and Gary Cronin (calf) all face late tests after missing the midweek defeat.

"We've got our problems in the league," says manager Eddie Gormley, "but talk of the cup being a distraction is rubbish. It would be fantastic for the players and everybody at the club to get to a cup final and we'll certainly give it everything we've got."

The home side are without Darren Quigley and Gary O'Neill, both of whom are suspended while Lorcan Fitzgerald and Kevin Dawson (both ankle) look set to miss out too.