Late Hindmarch goal saves Cork's season

THE SOUND of silence portrayed the depth of Home Farm's disillusionment more powerfully than words in injury time in yesterday's FAI Cup tie at Whitehall.

Except for a group of travelling supporters nobody shouted, let alone moved, after Rob Hindmarch had dramatically rescued this, most troubled of all seasons for Cork football.

The game was in its 91st minute and Home Farm were counting down the seconds to a significant victory when the Cork player manager joined 20 other players in Farm's penalty area.

Hindmarch is by no means the quickest or most mobile importation to arrive in this country from Britain but his heading ability put him in a different class to everybody else on the park.

Thus, the home defence can scarcely have been unaware of the danger as the big central defender trundled forward to join the search, by now frenetic, for an equaliser the visitors scarcely deserved.

For all the forewarning, however, there was nothing much they could do when Hindmarch comfortably cleared the closest defender to him, to meet Garret Cronin's corner kick and head past Brian O'Shea at the near post.

From a situation in which their season was in ruin and jobs on the line only seconds earlier, Cork had been thrown the lifeline of a replay at Turner's Cross on Wednesday and the evidence of escape was in evidence everywhere.

"I thought we were gone - we certainly left it late enough," said Hindmarch. "Had we gone out today, our season was finished but this draw keeps us alive and gives us something to play for.

Home Farm must be given credit for a good performance but I think we, too, showed a lot of character by the way we kept passing the ball about, at a stage when the game looked to be drifting away from us."

Predictably, the post match setting was markedly less convivial in Home Farm's dressing room. For the second consecutive occasion in this competition they had fought the good fight but unlike their first round game against Temple United when they came from two goals down to win, they, themselves, were caught at the post this time.

"I reckon we got the shakes a bit at the end," admitted their player coach, Martin Bayly. "We thought we were there but then the nerves began to fray and we were suddenly in trouble.

Having already gone to Turner's Cross and won there in the competition, the replay doesn't hold any fears for us. But if I'm honest, I have to say this was the result I didn't want. With two important championship games coming up, we could have done without a cup replay."

By Wednesday, new signings, Roddy Collins and Martin Duffy, neither of whom played yesterday, will be eligible to assist Home Farm and the hope is that at least some of the four players ruled out through injury will be back in action.

Things have changed and are changing a lot, down at the Farm these days. For one thing, the famous blue and white hoops have been discarded, at least temporarily, to be replaced by Everton's blue and the traditionalists are not enriched by the change.

And for a club which once prided itself on its conveyor belt of youthful skills, the age limit appears to be on the way up. Gifted youngsters like Owen Heary at right back and Erie O'Neill are testimony to a long cherished philosophy, but yesterday it was the maturity of Derek Murray, Martin Bayly, Brian O'Shea and, not least, Fran Hitchcock which took them close to a coveted win.

To Hitchcock went the disappointment of the miss of the match when he blasted a penalty kick high and wide in the 60th minute after Cronin had fouled Heary but to his credit, he produced a brave recovery to plot the opening goal for John Kelly just seven minutes later.

A fine run down the left wing took him clear of Colin O'Brien and Dave Hill and his precise cross found Kelly who scored from the edge of the six yard area.

Cork looked the more dangerous side in the opening exchanges but failed to take the lead in some hair raising incidents in Home Farm's penalty area in the ninth minute.

Cronin, quite the brightest prospect at the club, twice headed against the crossbar, then saw his shot taken off the line by Ian Woods and as Tony Connolly, closed in for the kill, Stephan McGuinness somehow managed to hack the ball clear.

. Alan Sugar yesterday predicted the demise of British football if leading clubs join a suggested European Super League.

The Tottenham chairman, whose club is likely to be invited to join Europe's elite should the league be introduced, claims the domestic game could suffer if the glamour clubs join up with their Continental rivals.

Sugar, speaking on the BBC's Money Programme last night, also claimed the Office of Fair Trading's suggestion that the Premier League were effectively acting as a cartel was practically impossible to enforce.

He also revealed his support for the House of Lord's amendment seeking to ensure television access to eight specific sporting events and claimed the increased sponsorship attracted by the game has hindered rather that helped its progress.

But his most stinging criticism was reserved for a proposed European League, which would pitch the top clubs against each other, on a league basis.

"I think suggestions of a super league are simply greed on behalf of a certain so called elitist cubs," insisted Sugar.

Asked how he thought the extra games, which would inevitably be created by a European League, would affect the British game, Sugar replied: "If those extra games are more lucrative than, say, British games they'll be advocating that they want to play less games in England."