Seventh Heaven
Coleraine survived more than a few scares to lift the Irish Cup for a seventh time and cap off a memorable season.
I’m glad to report that my weekend trip home was a success and I did not spend a significant sum of money on flights just to end up disappointed.
In the week leading up to the final, I experienced an unusual feeling, confidence that we’d win. I didn’t much like it.
I’d never felt properly confident going into an Irish Cup Final before. For our victory in 2003, no on gave us a chance, Glentoran were going for a clean sweep and we hadn’t beaten them all season. A year later against the same opponents, we were in dreadful form and had barely won since Christmas outside of our cup run. Playing Linfield in 2008, simply being there was the victory, though on the day, a patched-up team pulled out a great first half performance and arguably could have led by more than a single goal before Linfield scored twice early in the second half and killed it.
Nine years later, Linfield again. I almost dared to be confident until, two weeks before the final, they went to The Showgrounds and hammered us 5-1. In 2018, I couldn’t even dare be confident against Cliftonville because the fear that losing the league on the last day of the season would haunt the players too much. What could be more Coleraine than going so close to a double, but ending up with nothing?
This time, we were the overwhelming favourites, an expensively-assembled full-time team, on an incredible run of form, top goalscorers in the league. There were a few nagging doubts, not least the identity of the last team to beat us, but I was confident that this would be a good trip home.
First, I had to get there! A delayed flight on Friday, a race through Dublin airport to make my bus and the long journey back to the north coast safely negotiated, I was able to have a cup of tea back at home with my parents before a much-needed night’s rest set me up for the big day on Saturday.
I was very grateful for that sleep as an early start was required the following morning to get to The Showgrounds for the team’s departure.
A wall of noise and colour greeted the team bus as it made its way down the Ballycastle Road and onwards to their date with destiny in Belfast and after a quick stop for coffee and breakfast, I hit the road too, enjoying
One excellent lunch on the Lisburn Road later, it was time to make the short walk to Windsor Park or, as it is now known for sponsorship reasons, the Clearer Twist National Football Stadium at Windsor Park.
Until Saturday, I wasn’t actually sure what Clearer Twist was, to my recollection, I’ve never actually seen a bottle of it, or sister brand Clearer Water (the Irish Cup sponsor) in a shop back home, so it was up to the £5(!) match programme to fulfil the public service of letting me know that they make tonic water and ginger ale.
Dungannon had spent the previous month rotating their squad to keep players fresh for the big day, while Coleraine were still mathematically in the league title race up until the final day, so it’s maybe not a surprise that the underdogs started the brighter, forcing Coleraine goalkeeper Ryan Schofield to make a couple of good saves to preserve parity.
Coleraine gradually reasserted themselves and seized control with the help of a bit of good fortune. A breakdown in communication saw Dungannon goalkeeper Declan Dunne collide with defender Caolan Marron as he tried to claim the ball and Matthew Shevlin did what Matthew Shevlin does. The centre forward’s late season run of form has been incredible, with the winner in the semi-final against Larne being followed y two against the same opponents in the league, another two against Cliftonville and one apiece against Linfield and Glentoran.
Dungannon went on the hunt for an equaliser, Schofield made an excellent one-handed sabe to keep out a volley from Leo Alves and then from the resulting corner, Marron almost atoned for his part in the Coleraine goal but his effort clanked off the post and another follow-up was blocked.
1-0 up at the break without having played all that well, I was reasonably satisfied. That feeling turned into delighted within a few minutes of the restart as Joel Cooper drove forward and scored a very typical Joel Cooper goal to make it 2-0 and surely setting Coleraine on the way to a comfortable victory.
Maybe that would have happened had the officials awarded a penalty for what, to me at least, was an extremely obvious shirt pull on Shevlin not long after the second goal. Had the penalty been awarded and been scored, it would have been hard to see a way back for the Swifts but a few minutes later, they had halved the deficit through Paul Doyle, a great strike but Coleraine afforded him far too much time to line up his shot and pick his spot.
Back came Coleraine again and when Shevlin scored his second of the game, another instinctive finish when Zane Okoro’s cross was deflected into his path. 3-1 with around an hour gone, surely that was it? Nope. Dungannon substitute Andy Mitchell had a distinctly unimpressive two-year stint on the north coast between 2022 and 2024 which he spent more time on the sidelines through injury than actually playing. His close-range finish on 66 minutes put the game back on a knife-edge.
Coleraine tend to make us suffer on occasions like this. I’d said to a few people earlier in the day that my ideal situation was a game where it was 3-0 by the hour mark and we could enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Instead, I was shuffling in my seat and fidgeting nervously with my wedding ring as I tend to do any time I’m in a stressful situation.
It was only in retrospect that I realised that Coleraine had managed the game superbly and that Dungannon had been unable to capitalise at all on the boost that second goal had given them. Schofield didn’t have a serious save to make in the remainder of the game. Afterwards I received a lot of messages from friends telling me what a brilliant final it had been. Needless to say I didn't really appreciate that until I watched the game back on my way to the airport on Sunday afternoon.
Despite a quite ludicrous seven minutes of stoppage time being added on, Coleraine held on and brilliant scenes on and off the pitch greeted the final whistle.
Any trophy for the Bannsiders will always mean a lot, but there were few inside the stadium on Saturday who would have enjoyed the feeling more than Lyndon Kane.
He’s not had the best of luck with the Irish Cup in the past. In 2017, he was part of the Coleraine team which made it to the final, but were overawed by the occasion and were steamrollered by a dominant Linfield. The following year, he scored a brilliant goal in the semi-final victory over Larne which took Coleraine back to the showpiece, but heartbreakingly got injured a couple of weeks before Coleraine’s victory over Cliftonville. So for him to lift the trophy as captain of the club he grew up supporting and has played for since 2013, is truly special moment.
That 2018 Final felt like it was the start of something but little over a year later, five of the starting XI, including the entire midfield, were no longer at the club. Those who remained, with some new additions, were still good enough to win the League Cup in 2020 and finish second in the league on a couple of occasions, before several years of drift set in.
This time, things are different. Coleraine have the financial backing to keep this group of players together and make a serious tilt at winning the club’s second ever league title in what is their 100th season.