Close, But No Cigar

by Brian Kennedy

(first published in the June 2011 New Ross Celtic FAI Cup match programme)

Does the 24th of October 2004 mean anything to you? Does the date ring a bell at all? Well if you’re a Waterford United fan (or maybe an Arsenal one) it should. If you’re a supporter of the Premiership giants you’ll remember it as the day their 49 game unbeaten run came to an end thanks to a Wayne Rooney dive and a goal by Martin Keown’s favourite player Ruud Van Nistelrooy, but collectively about 3,000 Blues fans remember it as the day of two balls on a football field, an ex-Waterford player called Kirby, and the worst ending to an FAI Cup Final in our 80 year history.

Yep – it’s THAT final against Longford!

I still find it astonishing in all our long, illustrious history that’s included six League of Ireland titles, that we’ve still only lifted the Blue Riband of Irish football twice in 80 years. Practically nobody at the ground today will have been around for our first success in 1937, when goals from Timmy O’Keeffe and Eugene Noonan gave Waterford the 1937 Free State Cup, in a year we did the double by winning the League of Ireland Shield as well, but there are a few at the RSC tonight that were about when a 22 year old Preston-born player called Brian Gardiner scored a 22nd minute winner against Charlie Walker’s St Patrick’s Athletic on the 20th April 1980.

In between winning it those two times we’ve had a couple of close calls. In 1941 Cork United were the opponents in a tie that was eventually won by the Leesiders after a replay. The first game saw a pulsating 2-2 draw in front of 25,000 at Dalymount with the Blues scoring through Jackie O Driscoll and Johnny Johnstone, and though Johnstone did net in the replay, Cork ran out 3-1 winners.

1959 will always be a year remembered as well, with the Blues reaching their first FAI Cup final in almost 20 years, but going down, again after a replay, this time to St Patrick’s Athletic. Alfie Hale missed the final through injury and brother Dixie would miss a penalty in the replay to compound the family’s misery. Mind you, St Pat’s have only won the Blue Riband once since, and that was 50 years ago this year, so maybe they know how we feel!

A League of Ireland Championship had been clinched before our next final in 1968. Unfortunately for the Blues they came up against arguably the greatest Cup side in League of Ireland history in the shape of Shamrock Rovers. The Hoops had already won four straight FAI Cups in a row, and steamrolled the Blues that day 3-0. To many it will remain a mystery how a side with the names of Hale, O’Neill, Casey, Morrissey and Matthews didn’t win a Cup medal with the Blues.

Another decade passed and few remained when Waterford took to Dalymount Park again in the final of the 1979 FAI Cup. Standing in their way this time a Dundalk side that had begun to dominate League of Ireland football. Under Jim McLaughlin the Lilywhites would break the dominance of Dublin clubs in both League and Cup and unfortunately Waterford couldn’t break that stranglehold that day, going down 2-0 to goals from Sean Byrne and Hilary Carlyle.

Obviously a year later a 43 year gap was bridged with Gardiner’s goal and Al Finucane lifting the famous old trophy in 1980 but we returned to the final six years later, this time against our old enemies Shamrock Rovers. The crowds might have dwindled and football in Ireland was on a downward spiral of sorts but that didn’t stop the rivalry being any less fierce. Even now Rovers evoke many memories, good and bad. And it would be the latter that April afternoon as again we failed to score in a final against our great nemesis, losing 2-0, though it did secure European football and the visit of Bordeaux to Kilcohan – the last time we have tasted football on the continent.

And so to 2004. We’ll it’s been written about so many times that it still pains me to have to jot it down again. The story of course still touches a nerve. 1-0 up through Willie Bruton and just three minutes left, only for ex-Waterford United player Alan Kirby to equalize and then a complete implosion sixty seconds later when Paul Keegan scored the winner to astonishingly not only win but retain the Cup for Alan Matthews’ Longford Town.

There have been close calls since; most recently the semi-final defeat to Sligo under the now departed Stephen Henderson, so who knows what today’s game will bring. We have everything to lose, New Ross everything to gain, but let’s just hope this time next year I won’t have to write another “Close but no Cigar” section and the FAI Cup is residing in our trophy cabinet!