Sligo on the right track for success

They won't exactly be counting their chickens around the Showgrounds ahead of this evening's League Cup final first leg against Shelbourne. They've learned the hard way around Sligo over the past couple of seasons that they should take nothing for granted.

The match may mean less to Shelbourne than it does to this evening's hosts, but Damien Richardson's side have made a knack of winning in cup competitions recently, and nobody in the northwest will have forgotten the final of two years ago when the clubs met at this stage of the competition and Sligo had to settle for the runners-up position.

This time, however, there is a feeling about the club that a win could kick off an exciting spell for Sligo. Things have improved, considerably, in the league of late, a tough but winnable FAI Cup quarter-final in Cork looms on the horizon and, most importantly, from a long-term perspective, a programme of fundraising and club restructuring seems set to allow redevelopment work at the ground to begin. The first National League club in the country to be based on a co-operative, Sligo are currently recruiting an additional 500 members, each of whom will be asked to contribute £500 to the club. A deal with Rovers's bankers allows them to receive the bulk of the funds up front, while those who sign up pay just £15 per month. Around 100 people were recruited last week and it seems possible that the initial target will be close to being achieved before the official launch of the scheme next month.

A year ago the club's officials felt let down by the powers that be at the National Lottery, who gave them one fifth of the £250,000 they sought. Now, with the £50,000 received still available to them, the chairman, Ray Gallagher, sees the whole thing as something more akin to a mixed blessing than a kick in the teeth.

"It was disappointing at the time, all right but we've learned to do things for ourselves as a result of it and that's the basis on which we're going forward now," he says. "We've started work already and we hope to have a lot more done over the coming summer, and we're confident that when we look to the corporate sector up here (after the individual membership drive is concluded) that they will give us a great deal of support." Aside from spectator facilities, the club, which has 12 acres of land at the Showgrounds, aims to put in an all-weather pitch, and a new clubhouse - with gym that will be open to the public - are also in the plans, developments which, they hope, will be started over the coming months.

On the pitch, too, things are changing. It hasn't been an entirely smooth ride for Nicky Reid this season, and there were times when some of the supporters made their displeasure known. But things have taken a turn for the better, much better; they have not been beaten since their 5-0 rout by Dundalk in Oriel Park on December 4th.

The team is, few would argue, short a couple of players, but Reid has done well considering he hasn't been in a position to pay a single fee out, while there is, unusually, the backbone of next year's team in the current one with around six of the better players, including Marcus Hallows, Neil Ogden and Reid himself, all on two-year contracts.

The emergence of local youngsters, like Conor O'Grady and Sean Flannery (another couple are on the margins of the first team), has been a boost and, with the help of Pat Devlin and Bray Wanderers, the club is planning to develop a football academy to nurture talent from around its catchment area.

With all of these plans outstanding, the League Cup final takes on a symbolic importance which greatly outweighs the real worth of the much-tinkered-with competition. If his team wins, Reid says, he will consider the season to have been a success (their hopes of winning the cup and managing a top four finish in the league notwithstanding). Denis Clark, who departed Galway United despite leading them to the cup last season, may wish he could agree with the assessment.

In the longer term, Reid may always have to battle to ensure that team-strengthening remains high on the list of priorities. But at least, it seems, he will be at a club where it ranks among the options there is money for. A Sligo Rovers that is going so much closer to achieving their enormous potential.