Cork's Week Of Woe

Many in the media thought that Friday night’s soccer action was headlined by Ireland’s game against Nigeria in London. Yet, for a competitive game of football, the best place to be was surely Turners’ Cross. Cork v Bohs for the top of the table – League of Ireland football at its finest. As we all know, Bohs went home with all three points and that was a blow that the City fans didn’t need. It began a week they’ll certainly want to forget.

The 5,500+ attendance will have helped with the club’s financial issues, but the home crowd were no doubt left with a ‘Byrne-ing’ feeling after Bohs snatched all three points. ‘Bohs On Top Of The World’ screamed The Star on Saturday, obviously deciding that the League of Ireland Premier Division table was now a barometer for the globe as a whole. Bet let’s think of the Turners’ faithful here. The defeat came on the day that the famed Beamish brewery on South Main Street shut and it’s probably ironic that City are sponsored by the makers of the Other Black Stuff; no doubt many of the Rebels will have needed a drink after their loss to Bohs. And about ten drinks after Tuesday.

Drogheda’s 2-1 win over City is like the Leaving Cert, in that it involved events in Louth that angered a lot of people. However, we should have seen it coming. Cork’s former boss Alan Matthews left City in acrimonious circumstances and there’s some Corkonians who aren’t sorry to see the back of him. Judging by the horrible picture of him holding up his index finger in the game’s preview in the Cork Irish Examiner Matthews was either ready to declare himself as a number one of something or he was snapped just as he was getting set to pick his nose. Either way, flattering it was not.

The 2-1 win for Drogheda didn’t surprise Roddy Collins either. Speaking on Newstalk on Wednesday night, Steve’s brother said he wasn’t shocked by the result. Not that he saw the game, oh no. Roddy is on his holidays this week, and was working on his tan as presenter Eoin McDevitt told us. Repeatedly. We had to wait until McDevitt asked Collins about his tan three times before an answer was forthcoming. Either there was a problem with the pre-recorded segment that the Off The Ball team were trying to play us, or Roddy has gone somewhere very odd for a sunny break. Not that it would be the first time Roddy’s summer holidays would have caused a problem. Just ask Bohs.

Newstalk’s piece with Roddy and Daniel McDonnell of the Indo finishes up with both pundits predicting the forthcoming week’s matches. Speaking of Cork, Daniel predicted that they’ll draw against Shamrock Rovers while the ever-ballsy Roddy said predicted that ‘Cork will win...possibly.’ We’ll forgive Roddy his ambivalence; he is after all on holidays. And for the sake of the Rebels, let’s hope that his right, or else they’ll have to console themselves with a pint of Beamish. That just won’t taste the same, not if it’s not out of South Main Street.