After the disappointment - Tipperary's Saints will 'go marching in' again

There were no words needed or wanted after last Saturday’s FAI Junior Cup final when St Michael’s dream of a fourth FAI Junior Cup crown was heartbreakingly torn from them in a penalty shootout at the inconclusive end of 110 minutes of football. The agonising pain on the faces of the players and backroom staff said it all. Sport can be so cruel.

“Small margins can be decisive” is a cliche bandied about a lot these days, but never did it more appropriately apply than at the conclusion of events in Jackman Park. One kick of the ball was the deciding factor at the end of an epic journey that required eight victories by both sides along the way up and down the length and breadth of the country. One kick of the ball earned Newmarket Celtic’s players a lifetime of honour in their home patch in county Clare, while that same proverbial kick left the St Michael’s players to deal with the memories of the what-ifs-and-buts for years to come, long after their footballing careers have come to and end.

The winners’ dressing room on Saturday rocked to the thumping beat of loud music as Newmarket Celtic celebrated a first-ever success in this competition. Right next door, in a steam-filled guarded sanctuary, the crestfallen Saints bonded together, alone, attempting to come to terms with reality and to stem the bleed of the open-wound of disappointment.

It’s another sporting cliche that “there is no worse place than a losing dressing room after a final.” That sporting cliche, for one, is very true.
But St Michael’s AFC have been here before, previously losing four FAI Junior Cup finals, including two in-a-row in 2010 and 2011. Besides their nationally recognised and deserved place at the top table of junior football in Ireland, the Tipperary Town club are famously acclaimed also for their ability to bounce back. They never dwell too long on setbacks to the point where it affects future performances; they will do that once more again now.

St Michael’s are not just any soccer club, they are, simply, St Michael’s, a club with an exceptional pride in their home town, and in what they do and stand for, both on and off the field. The links go back generations, with last Saturday’s team an example, managed by John Cremins (a son of club legend DD) whose own son DJ and nephew Donagh Hickey lined out against Newmarket Celtic. And that green and white inter-weaving thread has gone through many families of players and officials “at the back of the chapel” for generations.

Perhaps the first St Michael’s supporter into Jackman Park, good and early, on Saturday last was a still sprightly Seamus Houlihan, who was there to cheer on his side, as he did in Tolka Park, Dublin in 1974 when the Saints won their first FAI Junior Cup on a day when a 22-year-old birthday boy, Mickey McDonnell, scored an amazing goal that put the Saints ahead in extra-time. A marching band present that day struck up “When the Saints go marching in,” recalled Seamus.

Seamus has been there on all the big days since over the decades, good and bad. He, as much as anyone could, epitomises the spirit of the club, and what it is to be of St Michael’s. He fondly remembered that team of ’74, as if they were family, and, especially, the departed three from that famous team, Mick Flynn, Christy Egan and the above-mentioned Mickey McDonnell. Even when they are gone, St Michael’s never forget their own.
Despite the disappointment of Saturday’s result this brave team won’t be forgotten either. “The Saints will go marching in” again, for sure.