Harkin's year in the life

At a club where the last really big day out was a quarter of a century ago, it's hardly surprising that nobody at Finn Park is exactly taking the build-up to this Sunday's Harp Lager FAI Cup final in their stride.

Fergal Harkin, though, might feel he has a little more reason than most of his team-mates to reflect with some wonder on the road he has travelled over the past 12 months to arrive, at 22, on the verge of a first major honour in the game.

Just about this time last year, the mid-fielder from Inishowen was sitting across a table from Leicester City manager Martin O'Neill, being told that he wasn't good enough to make it at the top level in England.

He was, as you might expect, a little disappointed. All the more so given that his appearances for the club's reserves had gone fairly well, with Leicester winning all nine of the games he started.

Still, he wasn't the first Irish player to be told it wasn't going to happen for him in the Premiership and, he knows, he won't be the last. On a visit back home, Eamonn Collins, then Joe McGrath's assistant at Bohemians, asked him to play a couple of games for Bohemians and he was happy to get a chance to get back playing so quickly.

Things appeared to go well for the Donegal-man, who played all his early football with Clonmany Shamrocks before heading off to study at Loughborough University.

"After a couple of friendlies they asked me to sign and I was delighted. Then, in pre-season, we were flying and there was a great buzz around the place.

"But we lost the first game of the season to Harps and that, looking back on it now, was a huge blow. Really, I think now that it was probably the root of everything that went wrong afterwards."

And wrong it went, with a string of league defeats costing McGrath his job and, under Roddy Collins, Harkin his preferred central mid-field role. He spent his last six games for the Dublin club out wide on the right and after that he was, once again, told that he simply wasn't good enough to figure in the manager's plans.

Talking about it this week, Charlie McGeever can barely contain his glee regarding Collins' decision to release Harkin. The Harps manager believed central mid-field was a problem area within his team and he had missed out on the opportunity to sign a local player he held in high regard when Harkin joined Bohemians.

Harkin admits now that the first he knew of Harps' interest in signing him was after that first game at Dalymount where "Charlie was more slagging me than anything, saying how I should have joined them instead".

When a second chance came for the two of them to get together, however, neither man needed much persuading.

"I'm not bitter at all about my time at Bohemians. I genuinely enjoyed my time there and wish them the best in the play-offs against Cobh and I was very disappointed that things didn't work out there for me.

"Now, though, it's great to be back at home playing for the local team. The attention that we're getting up here is tremendous at the moment and there's a brilliant feeling around the whole county since we qualified for the final."

For most players a move back home would have appeal, if for no other reason than it would have meant an easier life. However, for Harkin, who is doing a postgraduate course at a Dublin college, the move hasn't exactly been a handy one. For instance, this week a dash to the capital was required in order to get in projects due next Monday.

"I'm enjoying it all, though. The football is going brilliantly right now and obviously I'm looking forward to the weekend. And the course I'm doing now is a business course that I'm hoping to combine with the PE and sports science qualification I already have."

It's a far cry from the life of a senior professional at a club like Leicester City, but having seen just how much things can change in one year, he's believes anything is possible over the course of the next couple of seasons.

"All I'd say is that I'd like to go as far as I possibly can in football in the longer term. For the moment, though, I'd settle for Harps winning at Tolka Park this Sunday."