A FEW MONTHS back, Karl Sheppard was out for a coffee with his girlfriend when the first signs of his peculiar popularity in the Netherlands began to emerge.
“My phone just started blowing up on Instagram,” explains the Cork City attacker. “I probably got 2,000, 3,000 new followers in the space of four or five hours. I was going ‘something’s not right here’. I thought I must have clicked on something dodgy.”
Sheppard soon learned that this deluge of Dutch disciples had originated from the Fifa video game, and specifically a prominent Rotterdam-based YouTuber named Raoul de Graaf — or ‘FC Roelie’ as he’s known by his quarter of a million subscribers.
Using the video platform to post tutorials to help his subscribers to improve their competency in the game, Raoul drafted Sheppard in his team — on the right side of a front three alongside Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Anthony Martial — and the rest is history.
As he’s regularly reminded on social media by admirers from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, Sheppard is now a “legend in the Netherlands”, which even led to one Dutch fan travelling to Turner’s Cross for a game earlier this season to meet the man himself. An enterprising Corkonian has also sought to capitalise by putting orange Karl Sheppard t-shirts up for sale.
“I had loads of people commenting and giving me an idea of what it was all about. A few of them were asking me to send the guy a jersey, so I did, and my Instagram has still been blowing up ever since,” Sheppard laughs. “It’s mad.”
While the thought of Sheppard featuring in such an attacking trio might seem fanciful, the success of the offensive triumvirate that started the season for Cork City was largely responsible for bringing the Leesiders to within touching distance of their first SSE Airtricity League Premier Division title in 12 years.
With Sean Maguire’s brilliance flanked by the trickery of Stephen Dooley and the marauding runs of Sheppard, City’s stunning start to the season was only bettered in League of Ireland history by the Bohemians side of 1923-24.
Maguire’s departure in July has seen Sheppard fill the void in the centre more often than not. City’s leading goalscorer’s move to Preston North End was followed by a dip in form for John Caulfield’s side — five defeats in 11 games, to be precise — but with four Premier Division fixtures remaining, they only require a maximum of two points to clinch the title.
They don’t return to action until Friday week’s trip to Bohemians, but City will be crowned champions this Saturday if Finn Harps manage to avoid defeat at home to a Dundalk side who may have one eye on Tuesday’s FAI Cup semi-final replay against Shamrock Rovers.
After being afforded a few days of respite by Caulfield, the Cork City players returned to training today following a demanding eight-day period during which they played three times.
A 2-1 loss away to Limerick was followed by a 1-1 draw with Dundalk. They then avenged their defeat to Limerick at Turner’s Cross last Friday night when Garry Buckley scored the only goal of the game to send the holders through to a third successive FAI Cup final.
“It’s almost at that stage of the season now — and I think it’s the same for everyone — where it doesn’t matter how you’re playing,” Sheppard says. “If we go up to Bohs next week and grind out a very ugly 1-0 win, we’ll take it. We’d be delighted with that.
“Maybe then in the next few games after that we’ll try and play a bit more open and expansive football. Until we win the league we’ll keep things tight, go back to doing what we were doing by pressing teams up high. When we have the ball in the final third, that’s when we can go and play. That’s what we did best at the start of the season.
“Everyone was saying we were playing such nice football, but I think that all comes from being so horrible to play against that it stops the opposition and nullifies them, so that when we get the ball they’re probably tired and thinking: ‘Jesus, this Cork crowd are everywhere.’
“When you’re pressing that high and that much, it kind of deflates teams because when they get on the ball you’re all over them and they don’t really have anywhere to go. That’s what we tried to get back to against Dundalk and Limerick: pressing high as a unit. I think that’s why the performances were better, especially early on in those games.”
Despite their faultless completion of the first two-thirds of the season, rival supporters and a minority in the media raised doubts over Cork City’s credentials as champions while they struggled to adapt to the post-Maguire era. For Sheppard, winning the first league-and-cup double in the club’s history would be the ideal response.
Having beaten Dundalk in last November’s FAI Cup final at the Aviva Stadium, City are now on the cusp of denying the Lilywhites a fourth consecutive Premier Division title after finishing second to Stephen Kenny’s side in each of the past three seasons.
The 26-year-old Dubliner says: “Some journalists would love to see Cork fail. It’s something I wouldn’t really have noticed until I actually came here. People may laugh at people from Cork when they talk about the Dublin media, but it’s only when you come here you realise that they only see you when you go up there and play [Shamrock] Rovers away, Dundalk away.
“Everyone knows they’re going to be really tough games when you might not have much of the ball. When you come to Turner’s Cross, you see how good a team we can be. The best pundits who cover our league would probably be Brian Kerr and Richie Sadlier, and both of them have sung the praises of our team this year.
“For me, it’s no surprise that the best pundits are saying: ‘Look, what this Cork team has done has been phenomenal’. What the other ones are saying, we don’t take much notice of. It’s in one ear and out the other.”
He adds: “A lot of people would have been writing this Cork team off last year when we were coming up against Dundalk. People were saying Dundalk were pretty much the best team ever to play in the League of Ireland.
“We had quite a good record against Dundalk last year and we used that as motivation going into the FAI Cup final. This year again people were saying Dundalk would win the league — Rovers too — but we knew after winning the cup last year that we were in a great place.
“It was no surprise then when things did start to go a little bit south this year and results weren’t going the right way that a few people were there to have digs. You take that on the chin and use it as motivation. With that in mind, to do the double this year would be very nice.”
Taking the intense rivalry between the two clubs into account, Sheppard admits that it would have been particularly satisfying to have wrapped up the league by beating Dundalk at Turner’s Cross 10 days ago, which would have ended the title race.
City were on course to do so too after taking the lead through a first-half own goal from Brian Gartland. However, Robbie Benson’s 87th-minute equaliser postponed the party.
“Going into that game, we were extremely motivated to go and win it that night,” Sheppard says. “It’s almost exactly a year ago when Dundalk beat us to pretty much win the title. It’s something I’ve certainly used as motivation any time we’ve played Dundalk since, remembering the celebrations they did in front of us that night.
“It’s something I had in mind going into that game last week. To see them celebrating last year hurt and I’m sure the boys who lost the league to them on the final day [in 2014] used that as motivation as well. It would have been very nice to almost return the favour and beat them but it wasn’t to be. They did what good teams do — they found a way of grinding out a result.
“But whenever that league title does come it certainly won’t be tarnished by the fact that we didn’t beat Dundalk that night. If we win it from Finn Harps doing us a favour or if we do it ourselves against Bohs or Derry, it’ll be a great day and we’ll be delighted.”
While acknowledging that there’s a huge amount of respect between the two sets of players, Sheppard added that there’s bad blood in equal measure.
“There definitely is,” he says. “When you’re going into those games, you’ve probably played against the same player maybe 12 times over three seasons. If he leaves a tackle in on you, you’re going to leave one in on him. And you don’t quickly forget that, especially in the big games when tackles are flying in.
“Going into last year’s cup final, that ‘rival’ word was used a lot. It’s good for players as well because it’s very easy to get motivated when you know there’s a bit of bad blood between the two teams.”
Recent rumours on the League of Ireland grapevine have suggested that Sheppard could find himself on the other side of that rivalry next season. He’s out of contract in Cork at the end of this year but insists that he hasn’t given much thought to his future just yet, despite being linked with a 2018 move to Oriel Park.
“To be honest, I haven’t looked that far ahead at all. I’ve seen that I’ve been linked [with Dundalk] but for me it’s only paper talk really. Last year I was linked with Rovers and Pat’s halfway through the year as well,” says the former Shamrock Rovers forward.
“I think that’s just the way the League of Ireland is when it comes to the end of the season — you get linked with nearly every team. For now I’m just concentrating on my football and I’m sure I’ll sit down with John [Caulfield] and have a chat with him soon.”
Cork City supporters hoping that Sheppard stays in the south for a fourth season may be encouraged by the fact that he recently began an evening course for a law degree at University College Cork.
Whatever his footballing future holds, Sheppard’s present focus is on ensuring that City have double cause for celebration on FAI Cup final day.
If you happen to encounter a Dutch contingent in the stands at the Aviva Stadium on 5 November, you’ll know who’s responsible.
