ARDENT DERRY CITY fan Kevin McDaid recently got a ‘Save the Date’ for next summer.
Immediately, he informed his wife he could not attend the upcoming wedding.
“She’s like: ‘What do you mean?’” McDaid tells The 42.
“‘Well, that’s the first week of Europe.’
“She’s like: ‘What?’
“I just know, that date in July — there’s no way I’ll be going to a wedding.”
It is an anecdote that will resonate with other devoted football fans.
And it is days like this afternoon when the long-suffering, intensely loyal supporters get their reward.
Your team doesn’t get to play in a cup final at the Aviva Stadium every season, though McDaid hopes to see Derry beat Drogheda and triumph in the showpiece event for the second time in three years.
While the League of Ireland has seen its popularity accelerate in recent seasons, McDaid has followed Derry for the long haul.
Many of his favourite memories are of past FAI Cup finals. In 1995, he was a ball boy along with his cousin as Derry faced Shelbourne.
Then, as now, the club had narrowly lost out in the league, with Athlone goalkeeper Shane Curran crucially saving Stuart Gauld’s penalty on the final day.
At the old Lansdowne Road, the two youngsters were behind Derry goalkeeper Dermot O’Neill’s nets when Tommy Dunne conceded a penalty down the other end.
Memories of Gauld’s costly missed spot kick two weeks previously inevitably recurred as the same player stepped up to take another crucial penalty.
“Dermot O’Neill has his hands down on the advertising hoarding, and we’re four or five feet away from him, and he’s just praying that this penalty goes in, and he can’t look. He’s turned away, so we’re looking down. He says to us: ‘Just tell me, boys.’
“The goal goes in. And even as a young child, you can see the relief that went across [his face] and they to go on and win it.
“The team stayed in the Palmerstown House [hotel], we went back… Great night. You were around it for an FAI Cup final.
“And the year before, we were fully expected to beat Sligo and had lost on a wet day at Lansdowne.
“But as a child, do I remember many things about that match? I remember the goals — Peter Hutton scored. But it was that experience, and if I texted my cousin now and said ‘I was just chatting about that,’ he’ll tell you crystal clear, the same things, and that’s [nearly] 30 years on.”
McDaid’s love of Derry City goes back even further than those mid-’90s cup finals. His dad was an important figure during a seminal moment in the team’s history.
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The early 1970s had been a traumatic time for the city, owing to tragedies such as Bloody Sunday during the Troubles, with other Irish League teams refusing to travel to the Brandywell around this period due to the threat of violence.
The Candystripes played home games at Coleraine for a year before dropping out of the division.
A compromise was reached over a decade later, and McDaid’s father was on the board when they earned a 3-1 win over Home Farm on 8 September 1985 — the date of their first-ever League of Ireland match.
“I have a younger brother born a week before our first game against Home Farm. My dad was still at that match,” he recalls.
“We have lots of random memorabilia in the house. The letters from Uefa and the IFA, releasing or approving Derry to play in the League of Ireland.
“We’ve got gifts that European teams will give when they visit the club, random shirts and stuff.”
McDaid can remember as far back as the 1989 FAI Cup final, though “probably a bit more because it was the first time I’d ever been taken to McDonald’s”.
Currently, he is based in London and McDaid’s job requires him to travel regularly.
But it has not stopped him from attending many games in the end-of-season run-in, which included a dramatic but unsuccessful title challenge.
He flew in yesterday for today’s game and cut short a business trip to Los Angeles so he could get home for the semi-final match against Bohemians at Dalymount Park.
“My carbon footprint over the last six to eight weeks wouldn’t impress the environmentalists, but when you have the chance of maybe a league and a cup, you’re not going to miss out on those games,” he says.
“My work’s pretty flexible, and, with the world changing now, many places let you work from home on a Monday or a Friday. So I can make most games.”
While McDaid occasionally misses Derry matches these days, when he was in college, there were a few “perfect seasons” in which he attended every game home and away with a group of like-minded friends.
As a child, he went to most home matches and in his mid-to-late teens, he began travelling on supporter buses to away games on the occasions when his father could not make it.
After college, McDaid moved to Dublin for work so “it was pretty easy for me to get to most of the games”.
Over the years, he has become accustomed to trips to places like Cork, a roughly six-hour drive each way. So depending on traffic and other factors, you might not get home until after 4am on Saturday for the late Friday kick-offs.
“You’re always hoping that Obama Plaza [a motorway service area in Tipperary] isn’t too busy, or they still have food left by the time you hit it in the middle of the night or just other places that you know that there’s a 24-hour petrol station that you can get a sandwich or something.
“I’m sure Sligo fans are the same, you’ll have various favourite chip shops, or other places you know that you’re going stop.
“There’s a pub in Carndonagh called the North Pole. And then Tom Crean has the South Pole pub. So we decided we would do both of those in one day — to get a photo outside of the two of them.
“It was shameful for the club, but when they were demoted to the First Division in 2010 we tagged that as the ‘Discover Ireland’ year because it took us to places we would never have gone to.
“And at that stage, Salthill Devon were in the First Division. We’d never been to Wexford. Mervue were still in the league.”
McDaid has been a regular at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium for decades. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
McDaid is also more than just a hardcore supporter. He has helped the club on a volunteer basis in a variety of roles.
Around 20 years ago, when League of Ireland coverage was not as extensive as it is now, along with a friend, McDaid set up an unofficial radio commentary linked to club message boards on the burgeoning world wide web. They continued that endeavour for several years.
“So the vast majority of games for the vast majority of seasons I’ve been at for the last 20 years,” he adds.
McDaid has also recently helped with the club’s social media but spends most of his time in another role.
“About seven years ago, we were away playing [the Danish club] Midtjylland in the Europa League, and we just sat one night and we’re like: ‘The club is not doing what it could do with merchandise.’ So we told the club: ‘Look, we can just take over merchandise and run it for you.’
“So that takes up the majority of our time. We meet for an hour during the week. Before you called, I was on the phone with a Chinese supplier to figure out where some night lights we’ve ordered for Christmas are and whether they will be here in time.
“Yesterday, we emailed a guy in South Korea who had ordered a [Derry] shirt. ‘We need your South Korean Tax ID number because it won’t be released by customs.’ Did I know three or four years ago that we would need South Korean tax IDs to post Derry City shirts? Not really.”
McDaid and co also consult with sportswear manufacturers O’Neills about the club’s jerseys and training gear, providing feedback on the players’ preferences, jersey size et cetera. In addition, he also helps with the selling of season tickets, which has become more of an online enterprise in recent times.
The hard work put in by McDaid and the countless other volunteers that help the League of Ireland punch above its weight is paying off figuratively at least.
At the time of writing, today’s game at the Aviva Stadium is close to a sell-out. McDaid estimates around “15 to 20%” of the city will attend the match.
By comparison, in 2008, Derry played Bohemians in a final hosted by the RDS, with approximately 10,000 supporters in attendance, or the 1994 final, when 13,800 fans descended on Lansdowne Road. Today’s game is expected to eclipse the 2022 final, which saw 32,412 people congregate at the Aviva.
“Every six or seven-year-old that was there in 2022, they’ll never forget that. The number of kids that have started coming to the Brandywell — because the age demographic was worrying — has been huge. Another day out cements those memories.”
Derry City players celebrate winning the 2022 FAI Cup final. Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
McDaid has experienced enough bleak periods as a supporter to appreciate the good times.
The 2000s were an especially turbulent era with the Candystripes accumulating significant debt at the beginning and end of the decade, and being close to going out of business.
McDaid is one of the many people in this country who finds it hard to conceive of a life without his regular League of Ireland fix.
“I can walk into the stadium and there are people in their late 70s to kids under 10. I don’t have anything else in common with them, apart from that football club.
It is that sense of: ‘This is something you’re part of.’
“And yes, it will break your heart and maybe you’re doing something [club-related] at 12.30am, and going: ‘Is this worth it?’
“But then you get times like the 2022 cup final, where you’re winning, and you just know, with 20 minutes left, you’re going to win that match, and you can just enjoy it. Or like last year against KuPS in Finland where they scored all those goals away from home and you’ve one of the greatest European nights in your life.
“And you get to share those moments with people. Will you remember in 10 years, who played what pass or who gave something away? Probably not. But you remember you were there with those people. You remember the experiences that you had.”
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One of Ireland's most devoted football fans on a lifelong obsession
ARDENT DERRY CITY fan Kevin McDaid recently got a ‘Save the Date’ for next summer.
Immediately, he informed his wife he could not attend the upcoming wedding.
“She’s like: ‘What do you mean?’” McDaid tells The 42.
“‘Well, that’s the first week of Europe.’
“She’s like: ‘What?’
“I just know, that date in July — there’s no way I’ll be going to a wedding.”
It is an anecdote that will resonate with other devoted football fans.
And it is days like this afternoon when the long-suffering, intensely loyal supporters get their reward.
Your team doesn’t get to play in a cup final at the Aviva Stadium every season, though McDaid hopes to see Derry beat Drogheda and triumph in the showpiece event for the second time in three years.
While the League of Ireland has seen its popularity accelerate in recent seasons, McDaid has followed Derry for the long haul.
Many of his favourite memories are of past FAI Cup finals. In 1995, he was a ball boy along with his cousin as Derry faced Shelbourne.
Then, as now, the club had narrowly lost out in the league, with Athlone goalkeeper Shane Curran crucially saving Stuart Gauld’s penalty on the final day.
At the old Lansdowne Road, the two youngsters were behind Derry goalkeeper Dermot O’Neill’s nets when Tommy Dunne conceded a penalty down the other end.
Memories of Gauld’s costly missed spot kick two weeks previously inevitably recurred as the same player stepped up to take another crucial penalty.
“Dermot O’Neill has his hands down on the advertising hoarding, and we’re four or five feet away from him, and he’s just praying that this penalty goes in, and he can’t look. He’s turned away, so we’re looking down. He says to us: ‘Just tell me, boys.’
“The goal goes in. And even as a young child, you can see the relief that went across [his face] and they to go on and win it.
“The team stayed in the Palmerstown House [hotel], we went back… Great night. You were around it for an FAI Cup final.
“And the year before, we were fully expected to beat Sligo and had lost on a wet day at Lansdowne.
“But as a child, do I remember many things about that match? I remember the goals — Peter Hutton scored. But it was that experience, and if I texted my cousin now and said ‘I was just chatting about that,’ he’ll tell you crystal clear, the same things, and that’s [nearly] 30 years on.”
McDaid’s love of Derry City goes back even further than those mid-’90s cup finals. His dad was an important figure during a seminal moment in the team’s history.
The early 1970s had been a traumatic time for the city, owing to tragedies such as Bloody Sunday during the Troubles, with other Irish League teams refusing to travel to the Brandywell around this period due to the threat of violence.
The Candystripes played home games at Coleraine for a year before dropping out of the division.
A compromise was reached over a decade later, and McDaid’s father was on the board when they earned a 3-1 win over Home Farm on 8 September 1985 — the date of their first-ever League of Ireland match.
“I have a younger brother born a week before our first game against Home Farm. My dad was still at that match,” he recalls.
“We have lots of random memorabilia in the house. The letters from Uefa and the IFA, releasing or approving Derry to play in the League of Ireland.
“We’ve got gifts that European teams will give when they visit the club, random shirts and stuff.”
McDaid can remember as far back as the 1989 FAI Cup final, though “probably a bit more because it was the first time I’d ever been taken to McDonald’s”.
Currently, he is based in London and McDaid’s job requires him to travel regularly.
But it has not stopped him from attending many games in the end-of-season run-in, which included a dramatic but unsuccessful title challenge.
He flew in yesterday for today’s game and cut short a business trip to Los Angeles so he could get home for the semi-final match against Bohemians at Dalymount Park.
“My carbon footprint over the last six to eight weeks wouldn’t impress the environmentalists, but when you have the chance of maybe a league and a cup, you’re not going to miss out on those games,” he says.
“My work’s pretty flexible, and, with the world changing now, many places let you work from home on a Monday or a Friday. So I can make most games.”
While McDaid occasionally misses Derry matches these days, when he was in college, there were a few “perfect seasons” in which he attended every game home and away with a group of like-minded friends.
As a child, he went to most home matches and in his mid-to-late teens, he began travelling on supporter buses to away games on the occasions when his father could not make it.
After college, McDaid moved to Dublin for work so “it was pretty easy for me to get to most of the games”.
Over the years, he has become accustomed to trips to places like Cork, a roughly six-hour drive each way. So depending on traffic and other factors, you might not get home until after 4am on Saturday for the late Friday kick-offs.
“You’re always hoping that Obama Plaza [a motorway service area in Tipperary] isn’t too busy, or they still have food left by the time you hit it in the middle of the night or just other places that you know that there’s a 24-hour petrol station that you can get a sandwich or something.
“I’m sure Sligo fans are the same, you’ll have various favourite chip shops, or other places you know that you’re going stop.
“There’s a pub in Carndonagh called the North Pole. And then Tom Crean has the South Pole pub. So we decided we would do both of those in one day — to get a photo outside of the two of them.
“It was shameful for the club, but when they were demoted to the First Division in 2010 we tagged that as the ‘Discover Ireland’ year because it took us to places we would never have gone to.
“And at that stage, Salthill Devon were in the First Division. We’d never been to Wexford. Mervue were still in the league.”
McDaid is also more than just a hardcore supporter. He has helped the club on a volunteer basis in a variety of roles.
Around 20 years ago, when League of Ireland coverage was not as extensive as it is now, along with a friend, McDaid set up an unofficial radio commentary linked to club message boards on the burgeoning world wide web. They continued that endeavour for several years.
“So the vast majority of games for the vast majority of seasons I’ve been at for the last 20 years,” he adds.
McDaid has also recently helped with the club’s social media but spends most of his time in another role.
“About seven years ago, we were away playing [the Danish club] Midtjylland in the Europa League, and we just sat one night and we’re like: ‘The club is not doing what it could do with merchandise.’ So we told the club: ‘Look, we can just take over merchandise and run it for you.’
“So that takes up the majority of our time. We meet for an hour during the week. Before you called, I was on the phone with a Chinese supplier to figure out where some night lights we’ve ordered for Christmas are and whether they will be here in time.
“Yesterday, we emailed a guy in South Korea who had ordered a [Derry] shirt. ‘We need your South Korean Tax ID number because it won’t be released by customs.’ Did I know three or four years ago that we would need South Korean tax IDs to post Derry City shirts? Not really.”
McDaid and co also consult with sportswear manufacturers O’Neills about the club’s jerseys and training gear, providing feedback on the players’ preferences, jersey size et cetera. In addition, he also helps with the selling of season tickets, which has become more of an online enterprise in recent times.
The hard work put in by McDaid and the countless other volunteers that help the League of Ireland punch above its weight is paying off figuratively at least.
At the time of writing, today’s game at the Aviva Stadium is close to a sell-out. McDaid estimates around “15 to 20%” of the city will attend the match.
By comparison, in 2008, Derry played Bohemians in a final hosted by the RDS, with approximately 10,000 supporters in attendance, or the 1994 final, when 13,800 fans descended on Lansdowne Road. Today’s game is expected to eclipse the 2022 final, which saw 32,412 people congregate at the Aviva.
“Every six or seven-year-old that was there in 2022, they’ll never forget that. The number of kids that have started coming to the Brandywell — because the age demographic was worrying — has been huge. Another day out cements those memories.”
McDaid has experienced enough bleak periods as a supporter to appreciate the good times.
The 2000s were an especially turbulent era with the Candystripes accumulating significant debt at the beginning and end of the decade, and being close to going out of business.
McDaid is one of the many people in this country who finds it hard to conceive of a life without his regular League of Ireland fix.
“I can walk into the stadium and there are people in their late 70s to kids under 10. I don’t have anything else in common with them, apart from that football club.
It is that sense of: ‘This is something you’re part of.’
“And yes, it will break your heart and maybe you’re doing something [club-related] at 12.30am, and going: ‘Is this worth it?’
“But then you get times like the 2022 cup final, where you’re winning, and you just know, with 20 minutes left, you’re going to win that match, and you can just enjoy it. Or like last year against KuPS in Finland where they scored all those goals away from home and you’ve one of the greatest European nights in your life.
“And you get to share those moments with people. Will you remember in 10 years, who played what pass or who gave something away? Probably not. But you remember you were there with those people. You remember the experiences that you had.”
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