THE WAY JOHN Finnegan sees it, he is making the most of being able to do his time.

He is 56 years old now, has raised a family and is just four years away from retirement in the ESB after more than 30 on the job.

Not that he will be putting his feet up and taking things easy anytime soon, so long as there are matches to be played, cities to visit and songs to sing.

“If the Reds should play, in Rome or Mandalay, we’ll be there, we’ll be there…”

In a previous life the Wicklow native was also a semi-professional footballer, lifting the FAI Cup with Bray Wanderers in 1990 the undoubted highlight of his League of Ireland career.

“I was one of Pat’s [Devlin] soldiers,” Finnegan says. “He just didn’t like the team I supported.”

He had a spell as a coach with the club’s Under-21s when he hung up his boots but there was always something else gnawing away at him.

So, when the time was right, Finnegan was able to focus solely on what made him become obsessed with football in the first place.

“Manchester United,” he beams. “It’s either in you or it’s not. You feel the joy inside you or have that knot in your stomach. And you know if it’s there whether you are in the stadium or watching at home, I’ve just been lucky for the last number of years that I can be there.”

John Finnegan with his son, Peter, for United's game in Belgrade earlier this season.

It took hold when Finnegan was 7, not long after his father passed away. “Some of my family put the obsession I had for United at that age down to losing my dad, that I was filling some kind of void in a different way because there was no other connection to the club in my family then.

“I just read everything about United; magazines, newspapers, I got books for Christmas and birthdays. It was all about reading in those days because there was no internet and very rarely on television.”

He was 12 when he visited Old Trafford for the first time. “The 28th of February, 1976,” he says instantly. “We beat West Ham 4-0… It’s all still in my head from that day and no matter what has happened over the years, it will stay there. You never lose that passion for your first love, your main love.”

Finnegan is now, as he says himself, in ‘the lucky position’ to be able to share that grá with his own son. Peter was born 12 days before Bray lifted the FAI Cup and 17 prior to United defeating Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final replay at Wembley that same month.

“He’s 29 now and we have been to games umpteen times together. That means a lot to me. It’s the only real time I get to spend quality time with him. We have been in Bruges and Belgrade together this year. It was great.

I’m not much of a drinker but I might have a few with him when we’re away just to have that chance to be together and be away from whatever problems there are for people at that age. It’s a great thing.”

Bit Finnegan was flying solo from Dublin on Thursday morning when he was one of around 50 United supporters that got as close as they could to watching their team face LASK in the last-16 of the Europa League in Austria.

With the first leg played behind closed doors as a result of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe, Finnegan travelled knowing the stadium was off limits.

That didn’t deter him, so he boarded the red eye flight to Vienna before taking a 90-minute train west to Linz.

“We got to the stadium early to see if there was any hope of getting in. We had a look around, we spoke to some of the security guards. It was more casual during the day,” he recalls.

Some of the other United fans in Austria on Thursday. Bradley Collyer Bradley Collyer

“We looked around for different vantage points that were close by and then once it got closer to kick-off we went back after being in the town for some food. There was a heavier police presence by that point but at the back of the stadium there was a general gathering area behind one of the goals.

“We were behind these corrugated sheets of metal that had holes in them but when you stood back 30 yards or so you could see through them and the action on the pitch. We weren’t exactly in the stadium but we could see who was attacking and defending, just not exactly who scored.”

That was soon sorted out by searching for the goals online and watching on the mobile phone of one of the other dozens of United supporters that were alongside him.

“There were also what I suppose you would call 30 of LASK’s ‘Ultras’ too. It was good craic, it was well worth doing because it felt like we were at the match.

A couple of the lads did jib into the stadium but they got kicked out and arrested,” Finnegan, who slept in Vienna Airport after the game before making it back to Dublin in just enough time to start work for 9am on Friday morning, adds.

United's Odion Ighalo celebrates scoring his side's first goal on Thursday. Bradley Collyer Bradley Collyer

It was while in Austria that he also got word through from United that, as one of the season ticket holders who secured his ticket through the club, he would be credited £350 from as a gesture of goodwill after the decision was made to play behind closed doors.

“Fair play to whoever made the decision at United because it’s hard to please all the fans. The club get stick, and rightfully so, for a lot but that was something they deserve credit for.

“The way I see it, there have been so many fans before me and there will be many more after me. I’m doing my stint, that’s how I look at it. There will be someone along after me but at the moment I am able to do it.

“When you immerse yourself in it, it never leaves you. It’s a drug, really, you’re addicted to going. You’re in rehab when you can’t go to games but you just know it’s a matter of time before you fall off the wagon and are going again.

“Everyone follows their team in their own way. Why I say this is my stint is because there was a time when I couldn’t go. You’re working, you’re younger and starting a family. You can’t have it all.”

But you can make the most of your time.

Originally published at 07.00