St Patrick’s Athletic end FAI Cup hoodoo with win over Derry City

Liam Brady once admitted to being shocked that Celtic fans took until well into the following week to pick themselves up and get their lives back on track when their team lost a big game. It might be a somewhat similar story around Inchicore these next few days although for altogether happier reasons.

Seven times since 1961 St Patrick's Athletic have gone to cup finals with high hopes and come back empty handed and Keith Fahey was already seeing one potential downside to their victory at the eighth attempt as he emerged from the dressing to meet the press out at the Aviva Stadium.

“It gives you less to talk about if they get to another final,” said the midfielder who had played such a key role in ending the run. Actually, it’s not entirely certain that he was being sympathetic to the downcast group on the other side of the fence who had just witnessed the passing of one of Irish sports journalism’s truly great statistics.

Fahey was sent off in the 2003 final which the club lost to Longford but he has perhaps hit enough highs in the years since not to worry about his own FAI Cup redemption. Even after last year's league success, though, this mattered to the club and all those who follow it and the 31-year-old knows it better than most.

“So the hoodoo, the voodoo, all that is finished,” he said with a smile. “I’m just delighted. Happy happy happy.”

They all were in truth with captain and long-time supporter, Ger O’Brien, looking even more pleased than most as he reflected on another big finish to a season at the club.

"It felt good lifting that trophy," he said though a slightly broader than normal trademark grin. "Everyone knows the history. I spoke to Brian Kerr and he just said two words: 'Thank You.' There are grown men in their 60s and 70s crying out there. But I think if any team was going to win it, it was going to be this team."

And if any man was going to score the goals that won it, then Christy Fagan would have seemed like a pretty good bet.

“What a feeling!” exclaimed the striker, whose roots as a Bohemians fan made him an unlikely, and in some parts, perhaps, an unpopular man to win a cup for St Patrick’s and, while he was at it, put Shamrock Rovers into Europe.

Penned in

“To score is a bonus, but to finish the season off with a trophy like that is great. I had a few chances early on and I was disappointed I didn’t score in the first half, one or two of touches got away than me.

“Then we scored, Derry came into it in the second half, threw everything they had and kept us penned in but luckily we got the second goal.”

So too was Garrett Kelleher who described this as his best day since starting to back the club in 2007.

Amongst them all somewhere, Peter Hutton quietly worked his way through the local and national media accepting the disappointment with dignity. “Yeah, it came down to fine lines,” he said, “small margins and that’s a credit to our players who went into as underdogs but still put it up to St Pat’s, particularly after we conceded.

“I’m immensely proud but unfortunately it just wasn’t to be on the day so good luck to St Pat’s, they’re a good side and they’ve waited long enough for this.”