LEAGUE OF IRELAND:HAVING DEFERRED a knee operation last week to play against Bohemians, Joe Gamble is intent on featuring against Shamrock Rovers tomorrow evening.

When the midfielder came on towards the end of the game at Dalymount, the assumption in the stands was he had made himself available in order to help keep Cork City’s title challenge alive.

But Cork manager Paul Doolin confirmed afterwards that the Ireland international was keen to have himself in the shop window while the British transfer window remains open.

After receiving just a fifth of a month and a half’s wages he was due last week, the player himself, a likeable and usually cheerful character, makes no attempt to hide the fact that he has reached the end of his tether with life at Turner’s Cross.

“I signed a contract last year for three years, and four weeks later it’s not worth the paper it’s written on,” he said. “I was due six weeks’ wages on Thursday and the lads got 40 per cent of a month’s wages but I only got 20 per cent.

“What loyalty is that to show to me? I only got 20 per cent of a month’s wages. They can f*** off as far as I’m concerned and you can put that in the paper because I’m well p***** off at the moment. You tell me anyone who will work for six weeks and then get 20 per cent of a month’s wages.”

Married with a baby girl, Madison, who turned one yesterday, Gamble insists that all he wanted to do was stay with his hometown club and help it achieve success. Instead, he concedes now, he will almost certainly have to uproot his wife and child and move to either England or Scotland with Hamilton, Yeovil and Bradford among the possible destinations.

“I was supposed to have an operation on Friday and I postponed it, basically because I hadn’t any choice really. Realistically, we’re going to be part-time and I’ve a short opportunity to maybe get out of here. That’s the reality of it so I need to get fit. I need to get back playing and probably go.”

Gamble concedes that the current situation is not all the fault of current owner Tom Coughlan, who came in last year to rescue the club from examinership. He is clearly annoyed, however, by the suggestion that the players are effectively the root cause of City’s woes because of the contracts they agreed with their employers.

As it happens, Gamble turned down a more lucrative deal he had been offered by St Patrick’s Athletic to stay in Cork, something he now identifies as “the biggest mistake of my life”. His reward is to find himself getting a lower percentage of his wages now than team-mates because he is supposed to be one of the best paid while hearing it suggested that the squad have brought all this upon themselves.