End of an era for Derry City

It was the last hurrah for Derry's championship-winning team. A three-goal victory which, combined with UCD's defeat at Dalymount Park, saved the club from having to walk the financial high-wire of the relegation play-offs ensured that the season ended on something of a high.

But just 12 months after the bulk of the same squad had brought the championship title to the Brandywell and narrowly missed out on the double, Felix Healy sent his players home with the message that many of them would not be playing together again.

The reasons behind the changes, just as they were for the less serious tinkering earlier this season with a highly successful team, are of course primarily financial. The crowds have continued to decline at the club's home games and with City possessing few alternative methods of raising money - they pay £12,000 a year to the council for the use of their ground and do not have a bar of any description - the out-goings have to be cut to match.

"We're not like any other club here," said Felix Healy after the game, "but we just don't bear any comparison with the likes of Shelbourne. They have a wage bill of something like half a million pounds, we have one of £150,000 and we'll be cutting ours by anything up to 50 per cent before the start of next season."

How many players will depart as a result, he's not quite sure and at the moment, he insists, Tom Mohan is the only man definitely on his way out of the club. But despite the fact that nearly all of the rest are still under contract to the club, the general feeling amongst the players themselves is that anything up to half of the current panel will be on their way out.

"Felix had a word with us tonight alright," after leaving the City dressingroom for what may be, he realises, the last time in his career "but nobody really knows what's going to happen. I've just signed a three-year extension to my contract here but, especially these days, contracts are made to be broken, if you know what I mean, so I'll have to wait along with everybody else to see what comes out over the next couple of weeks."

An announcement of the club's plans will be made during that time, says Healy, who sees an increasingly locally-based team as one way of further reducing costs. That would suggest that City's players based in Sligo, Enniskillen, Dublin and, particularly, Scotland are the most likely to depart and the manager admitted last night that plans for Scots-based midfielders Craig Taggart and Robbie Bell to move here during the summer are now doubtful, while Dubliner James Keddy, for one, is currently having talk with other clubs.

It's a sad end for a team which was widely hailed as the most balanced championship-winning side in many years and Healy concedes that it's success will be difficult to replicate with what will undoubtedly be a cheaper outfit. Others, however, are more optimistic with Hegarty, hopeful that he will be in the centre of midfield next season, confident that the man who turned the team around over the last three years can achieve success after starting from scratch again.

Upbeat talk from a man who had already booked this Friday off from his employers in order to play in the relegation play-off against Limerick. "Yeah, well, I thought we'd win and Harps would be okay, but the problem was I didn't give Bohs much of a chance of beating UCD. Thank God I'm wrong, though, it's such a relief."

Not nearly such a relief, however, as it was to city's commercial manager Jim Roddy, a jovial man at the worst of times, who seemed to be walking on air after Saturday's victory. "It's a massive weight off out shoulders," he said "and it means that we can try to move ahead now without being in a position where we're fighting for our survival."

Certainly, they will need to do better than attract the 1,200 or so spectators that showed up to see City in what was undoubtedly a terribly important game on Saturday. Perhaps, like Healy, the club's supporters were simply convinced that whichever of the three Premier Division sides ended up playing Limerick would simply prove too good for Dave Connell's team and that the threat was therefore somewhat overstated, but they desperately need to improve on this season's average gates even when they are challenging for the double.

As for the win, well, it had, said the City boss afterwards, been a game that reflected the key differences between City's last two campaigns.

"The first half," he observed, "was like last year in that we didn't play all that well, but had no problem scoring. The second half was like the last six months with us being all over them but just not able to put the ball in the back of the net."

United actually held their own through the first half in every area of the pitch except their own box and after Coyle had set up the first for Bell in the 13th minute, he added a slightly comical second himself four minutes before the break.

A delicate chip from the 29year-old striker made it 3-0 two minutes later.

Derry City: O'Dowd; Doherty, Curran, Dykes, Brunton; R Coyle, Heggarty, Bell, Hargan; Beckett, L Coyle. Sub: Gilmore for L Coyle (71 mins).

Drogheda United: Byrne; J Reid, Impey, J Carroll; Murphy, Kelly, De Khors, Fox, Coady; Irwin, N Reid. Sub: Collins for Irwin (half-time).

Referee: G Perry (Dublin).