Pippa arrived Friday, November 26th, 2021. That Sunday evening, her dad lifted the FAI Cup after an instant classic at the Aviva Stadium. The wonder is how Ian Bermingham coped on the Saturday.
“We knew we were going in to have the baby on the 26th. It was planned. Once everything was all good with Leaha and Pippa, it was all systems go for the final.”
Bermingham returned to the Coombe Hospital on Saturday morning to double check on the family before linking up with his St Patrick’s Athletic teammates for the game of their lives. All the while, Pippa was enjoying the only day she ever knew.
The usual cup final nerves evaporated.
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“After going to see them, I was on such a high meeting the lads that afternoon. I was coming to the end of my career, it was probably going to be my last final, I was the captain, so I wanted to enjoy every bit of it.
“Pippa being born, I was just so happy, I wanted to take everything in – the hospital, being in the hotel, travelling to the game, the dressing room, going out on the pitch before the game – every little thing I soaked it in. We wanted to win, that was the objective, but there was a big smile on my face. I said it at the time: All my dreams came true over a weekend.”
It was Georgie Kelly’s last match as a Bohemian.
“The lights, the noise, the music, it was savage,” remembers the Donegal man, who left for Rotherham United in January 2022.
The FAI Cup final encapsulates what the domestic game can become, or is becoming. Only time will tell. For a record 37,126 crowd inside the Aviva, the 2021 edition delivered as Bohs and St Pat’s produced a riveting affair.
Scoreless after 90 minutes, two goals landed in extra-time as a Chris Forrester masterpiece was rubbed out by a Rory Feely header. Come the penalty shoot-out, Robbie Benson’s strike guaranteed an outpouring of joy and misery, just blades of grass apart.
St Pat’s prevailed but that’s only half the story. The first final of the Dublin clubs between the canals, by Monday morning neither group existed any more. St Pat’s manager Stephen O’Donnell was away to Dundalk and about to face legal proceedings from club chairman Garrett Kelleher.
Now employed by the club, Bermingham has not seen most of his team-mates since that Sunday night/Monday morning as only Jamie Lennon and Forrester, who started the final, remain at Richmond Park.
“We had such a good year, such a close group of players, that I didn’t expect the turnover we had. Ultimately, only two went with Stevie to Dundalk.”
Robbie Benson and Alfie Lewis are currently at Oriel Park.
“The manager created a brilliant environment. It was one of the most enjoyable years I have had in football. Stevie contributed massively to that.”
Of the Bohs starting XI, only James Talbot, Ali Coote and Keith Buckley stayed. Waterford came in for manager Keith Long this season after he left Bohs when results, predictably, fell off a cliff in 2022.
Shamrock Rovers picked off Andy Lyons for one campaign. The Ireland under-21 wing back went to Blackpool, making an instant impression in the Championship under Mick McCarthy before relegation to League One slowed his progress. Liam Burt also switched to Rovers but the Scottish winger has yet to light up Tallaght as he did Dalymount.
Life after the League of Ireland comes with no guarantee of success. Robbie Cornwall is currently at Hailstrom FC in the third tier of US soccer, Ciarán Kelly went to Bradford in League Two, Tyreke Wilson is a regular at Damien Duff’s Shelbourne.
Ross Tierney and Dawson Devoy, the talented tyros that drove Bohs to unexpected heights, are earning a wage in the fourth tier of English football with Tierney operating as Walsall’s second striker while Devoy is at MK Dons.
“A lot of times players look better in the Championship than down in League Two, where you can get dragged into it,” says Kelly. “Relegation or a change of manager can alter your career. Football changes so quickly.
“If we’d won the FAI Cup it would be easier to look back at how good that Bohs team was. Look at our bench, we’d some outstanding young lads, like Promise Omochere, who is at Fleetwood Town now. Promise has a load of potential; power, pace, he has the whole lot. He’s still young. Still learning. In a couple of years, he could be anywhere, at a real high level if he keeps his head screwed on. And I’m sure he will.”
Kelly had a phenomenal start at Rotherham, needing only two minutes and 46 seconds to score, on his debut, a goal worth tens of millions as it secured promotion to the Championship in April 2022.
“Bohs copped on to the value of signing players to long-term deals, like Dylan Connolly. They have shifted that narrative of players jumping ship every year.”
Like Bohs, the ex-St Pat’s men are learning all about the ruthless nature of football. Darragh Burns, at 21, is struggling for minutes at MK Dons. Lee Desmond also went stateside, joining Sacramento FC. The Quails remain a second tier franchise after plans to join the MLS were waylaid by investor issues during the pandemic. Sam Bone returned home to Maidstone, a club operating in the sixth tier of English football. Matty Smith and Paddy Barrett are thriving at Shels while Vítězslav Jaroš, whose reflexes dragged Pat’s to penalties, is on Liverpool’s books.
Bermingham retired last year with 452 appearances, a club record, and future employment as St Pat’s football partnership manager.
“We have the partnership with Cherry Orchard so we are trying to get the best young players in there and progress them into the academy at St Pat’s at under-14. I’ve taken on more of a coaching role with the 13s at Cherry Orchard, as they are the next group that will move into the League of Ireland.
“It is my job to develop these players. They are better technically now. The work being done at Pat’s academy, along with schoolboy clubs, is producing Mason Melia, Adam Murphy, Sam Curtis. They are still young and there are more coming.”
Curtis, who turns 18 in December, has the potential to become an international right back.
“Sam’s getting a brilliant education playing first-team football. He probably could have gone [abroad] before now but playing in European games and a cup final will help him massively.”
Like James Abankwah, who played in the 2021 decider aged just 17 before moves to Udinese and currently Charlton Athletic.
“I felt we were building something really special,” says Bermingham. “I felt that team would have challenged Shamrock Rovers in the league. Obviously it didn’t happen.”
Georgie Kelly can never forget 2021 as that single season at Bohs launched his professional career in England. Count them: 21 league goals and one in the semi-final to see off Waterford, his finishing captures a moment in the Phibsboro club’s history. No silverware to show for it but dual European and domestic cup runs kept the pandemic misery far from Dalymount’s door.
It was supposed to end in glory but Kelly limped into the final. On soft Lansdowne grass, he lasted an hour.
“I’d a bad tear, a Grade C tendon in my calf, which was supposed to rule me out for eight weeks. The cup final was in 4½ weeks. I made it back in the sense I could run. I was nowhere near the capacity to last 90 minutes.
“The pain was fine but I had not kicked the ball, had not ran in the weeks beforehand. I was on the bench [for the last league game] against Sligo, and it didn’t help me that I came on and scored.”
That was his last goal for the club. The Aviva was nine days away.
“That convinced Keith that I would be fine. I wasn’t! But you don’t get many occasions like a cup final, walking out at the Aviva in a cup final. Maybe once in your career. I was not going to say ‘I am not right.’ Looking back maybe I should have, who knows.”
What was Georgie Kelly telling Georgie Kelly as the teams walked out at the Aviva, into a cloud of banger smoke? “Block it out. You’re grand. I could have pulled up after 20 minutes. They rathered that then bringing me on and having to take me off again.”
Regrets? “Ah it was a cool day. The build up was really good. Everyone handled it well. Philly McMahon was working with us at that stage. I remember what we talked about, there were family messages, stuff like that. We were all raring to go.
“Looking back, I thought Stevie O’Donnell had Pat’s set up very well. But we managed it. In cup finals, tactics and analysis does not really matter. Everyone is cagey. Nervous. It’s the biggest crowd most lads have ever played in front of. It’s always scrappy. We didn’t miss a beat, we just came out the wrong side of it.”
Forrester’s goal will stand the test of time.
“I seen him running,” says Bermingham, “he received the ball near the halfway line..” – leaving his old pal Keith Buckley for dust – “ . . he jinked inside, beat their centre forward [Omochere] who was chasing him back and he jinked inside him again. To see it hit the back of the net was such a buzz. I felt comfortable we would go on and win. It was an amazing goal to score in a cup final.”
Kelly: “I thought Chris was brilliant that day. Rory Feely’s header was unreal as well. I remember sitting on the bench with Bucko thinking we lost it. Then Rory scored. Carnage.”
Bermingham: “When I saw Keith Buckley was taken off, I thought they were dead and buried. I could see their body language. I thought they were beaten. Obviously, I wasn’t right. They came back into it. To be fair, only for Jak Hickman clearing the ball off the line, Bohs could have won at the end.”
On to penalties. “I had an Achilles problem. Obviously I wasn’t going to let a ‘keeper go before me. I was the 10th taker.” They only needed five.
Listed as the club masseuse, Christy O’Neill is a folk hero around Inchicore.
“I made a decision to get Christy to come up and lift the trophy with me. First time I said it to him was on the pitch after the shootout. I had to convince him. I remember walking up, I felt on top of the world, like everybody was watching me, it was a moment that will live long in my memory.”
The aftermath was bittersweet for almost everyone involved. Kelly knew that it was the last time this Bohs side would be together.
“We had a do out in Phibsoro, just friends and family, then a lock-in in Dalymount. After that the lads went their separate ways. That is how football works. You could be close to someone and, like that [flicks fingers] you barely speak to them again. It’s a transient life.”
For all the problems that afflict Irish football, the FAI Cup final has retained its romanticism. It’s value too.
“God, I wouldn’t miss it,” says Kelly. “We’ve the international break so I’ll be flying home Sunday morning. Hopefully I’ll get a ticket.”
