{"id":679528,"date":"2026-11-09T13:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T13:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/679528\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T13:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T13:34:10","slug":"derry-city-emerge-through-the-fog-as-fai-cup-final-gets-a-smoky-start-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/679528\/","title":{"rendered":"Derry City emerge through the fog as FAI Cup final gets a smoky start \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s a sturdy old pitch in the Aviva Stadium. On Friday night, it played host to a combined 30 rampaging Irish<\/a> and Argentinian men, some of them with the physique of a double-decker bus, and come Sunday, it had 44 Derry<\/a> and Waterford feet skipping all over it. Yet it still looked like a snooker table, when most lawns resemble The Everglades this weather, even after just pitter-pattering over them to get to the washing line. <\/p>\n

Met \u00c9ireann had been handing out status yellow fog alerts all weekend, and after flares were let loose as the teams emerged from the tunnel for the FAI Cup<\/a> final, our commentator Des Curran must have thought the warnings had been upgraded to red for the Ballsbridge area. <\/p>\n

In fairness, if the haze had hung in the air for the entirety of the scoreless first half, Des and ourselves wouldn\u2019t have missed much. Derry old boy Gareth McGlynn had predicted \u201clots of goals\u201d in the game, so felt a bit contrite at the break, but the decisive breakthrough finally came on 69 minutes, when Darragh Burns did his nifty thing. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can only apologise for how it was on the eye,\u201d Derry\u2019s interim gaffer Mark Connolly told the RT\u00c9 panel at full-time. But the sizeable Derry contingent in the stands didn\u2019t seem to be complaining.<\/p>\n

Connolly also paid a gracious tribute to Waterford captain P\u00e1draig Amond, who also elicited no end of praise from Gareth prematch when we were shown a clip of him scoring with a highly acrobatic overhead kick earlier in the season. \u201cHe\u2019s 38! 38! Me, Stuey and Alan couldn\u2019t tie our laces at 38,\u201d he said. Stuey Byrne and Alan Cawley looked mildly offended, but didn\u2019t demur.<\/p>\n

Derry hadn\u2019t found their rhythm at all in the first half, a little like Crossmaglen Rangers in the Ulster senior club football quarter-final. At one stage, they trailed Gowna by 11 points and looked well and truly buried, but then won it at the death with a Rian O\u2019Neill two-pointer. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow did you do it?\u201d RT\u00c9\u2019s Damian Lawlor asked Cian McConville. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t very scientific,\u201d the Cross forward replied, \u201cwe just got stuck in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ManchesterManchester United fans hang a banner with the words ‘We Don’t Want A New Stadium, We Want New Owners’ during Sunday’s Premier League fixture against Aston Villa at Old Trafford. Photograph: Martin Rickett\/PA <\/p>\n

And d\u2019you know, much the same could probably be said of Manchester United<\/a> after they maintained their non-winning streak in the Premier League<\/a> on Sunday. Even those with no gr\u00e1 for the club are now enjoying their outings immensely, concluding they\u2019re akin to a blend of Only Fools and Horses and Apocalypse Now. <\/p>\n

Two down to Aston Villa after four minutes, level after 44. Two down again after 53 minutes, level again after 96. Say what you like about them, and the mean among you probably will, but come on now, never a dull moment. And put it this way, Arsenal have only scored one more league goal than United this season. True, they\u2019ve conceded 14 fewer, but who is the more entertaining \u2013 the scientific Arsenal, or the kamikaze United? Exactly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my,\u201d said our Sky co-commentator Alan Smith when the stadium bellowed its thoughts on the club\u2019s ownership after Nicolas Jackson made it 2-0 with just under four minutes gone. All the while, the pitchside boards were urging attendees to report any unpleasant abuse in their earshot. The hotline must have been crammed with complaints about the Glazers being called something that rhymes with anchors.<\/p>\n

Roy Keane\u2019s beard had a salt and pepper-ish look prematch. It was silver by half-time, and white by the end of it all. \u201cThey\u2019re nowhere good enough to get towards the middle of the table,\u201d he said of the relegation contenders. In his day, middle of the table would have been a capital offence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to play like Manchester United,\u201d said man of the match (hello?) Matheus Cunha after the game. To be honest, that\u2019s the last thing they need to do. <\/p>\n

Roy wiggled his white eyebrows, as he did when Michael Carrick shared his thoughts on the contest. \u201cHe talks a lot but doesn\u2019t say much,\u201d said Keane. \u201cHe\u2019s like a politician. He keeps saying we need to tighten up and there are things we need to work on \u2013 he better get moving on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only upside, really, is that United have saved a fortune on win bonuses this season, so the coffers will be jammed come January, allowing them to make more cataclysmic transfer choices. Always look on the bright side of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s a sturdy old pitch in the Aviva Stadium. On Friday night, it played host to a combined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[14646,43174,49721,61,60,1449,917,112,136433],"class_list":["post-679528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-derry-city","tag-fai-cup","tag-gaa-club-football-championship","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby","tag-manchester-united","tag-sports","tag-waterford-fc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}