Game 18

Dundalk 2-1 Derry

I’m not sure what to do with this feeling. Friday night was the first time all season where it felt like a proper positive night. I know Chris Shields leaving raises alarming questions but that was a good performance against a good team. Something to build on at the very least.

And don’t worry, one or two or six good results won’t distract me or any of us from the madness behind the scenes and the potential apocalypse coming down the road. But this season has legitimately been exhausting and it was nice to see potential progress in the performance and to have a relatively quiet few days around the club.

The performance and the result were accompanied by the incredible scenes on the Carrick road after the game as Chris Shields made his final exit from Oriel Park. If anyone deserves that type of send off its him.

I looked for it but I can’t find it now but I read a tweet that said something about how if we had known Dane Massey was going to be leaving he too would have been given a proper send off and I’d like to think that’s the case. It’s been an unprecedented period of success for the club and it’s important to show appreciation for the players that have had such a massive hand in that.

Sean Gannon can fuck off.

There’s a lot about football I understand and a lot that I don’t understand. One of the things I don’t understand is when fans feel the need to send abuse to players on twitter or, worse, in person or threaten families and loved ones. I do not understand that. Why would you do that?

There have been examples of this in the past week or so that are so confusing to me including around Alvaro Morata, Rafa Benitez and people connected or not connected to Dundalk fc. I don’t know what the benefit is of sending abuse to someone online.

Sure, you may have a problem with the job that they’re doing and obviously not every case is the same but there is a line that you just should not cross.

I try not to put anything negative on twitter and, honestly, I know how hard it is not to. I did tweet about how Kenny Cunningham absolutely baffles me last night so every once in a while a negative tweet will get out.

Maybe I went too far, maybe Kenny read that tweet and he was upset that someone thinks he’s baffling. I doubt it. But I still felt bad about saying it and will continue to feel bad about criticizing anyone, anywhere for anything.

You might be thinking “wait, you just told Sean Gannon to fuck off” and you’re right, I did that but that’s not a negative, that’s a positive.

It was nice to have a few days of mostly positive energy around the place. If we can win on Friday night in Tallaght that positive energy might just explode into overdrive. For that reason it feels like a massive game. It always is against Rovers but the potential knock on effects of a win are massive.