WE ALL KNOW about the importance of a good working relationship. One that consists of understanding, co-operation and patience. Well, it’s no different in football.
Think of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, Xavi and Andres Iniesta, or even Glen Crowe and Jason Byrne. When one feints to move, the other has already set off to where they know the ball will be played to. That almost telepathic relationship is hard to find but I was lucky enough to share it with Christy Fagan.
Off the pitch, we weren’t close, but on it we were like Zig and Zag, working perfectly in tandem in our own unique way. And it led to a very successful period with St Patrick’s Athletic as we won the League of Ireland Premier Division and FAI Cup.
I was always going to write about Christy. He was a special player and our time together at St Pat’s were amongst the most enjoyable of my career. The fans adored him and rightly so. The Dubliner was a natural-born finisher and every football fan loves a goalscorer.
My first introduction to Christy was in late 2009 when I was with Sporting Fingal and he was looking for a new club having recently left England. He was once tipped to become the next big thing to break through from Manchester United’s academy, but he never made it past their reserve team and ended up at Lincoln City for a period.
Then he got a call to test his luck in Spain with Jerez Industrial, where former England manager Glenn Hoddle was running an experiment to help players rebound in their careers. Christy needed a bit of luck and I could see that he was lacking confidence, but definitely not ability, when he trained with us.
Even in those couple of sessions, I noticed something different about him. When in front of goal, he came alive and instinct took over. His trademark finish was shooting through the defender’s legs and wrongfooting the despairing goalkeeper in the process, something which former team-mate and current Man United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer taught him to do.
In 2013, I moved to St Pat’s and Christy was already there. It took a little bit of time, but we started to find a rhythm to our play that benefitted us both – him by scoring goals, me by providing assists. As a right-sided winger, it was my job to feed the ball into the frontman as often as possible and, thankfully, Christy was more often than not in the right place at the right time.
I started to notice that his positioning was getting him into good areas. The runs he liked to make played to his strengths because he wasn’t the quickest of players. So I would never play a ball in behind a centre-back that was quicker than him. Instead, I would play the ball to his feet and quickly run inside to try and create a 2 v 1 situation, which worked well when opposing defenders didn’t cover their team-mates.
It was the same for Christy when he had the ball and was looking for me. He would always want to play the ball to my feet unless I timed a run behind a full-back and in that case, his pass was always with precision into my path. With Christy and I, it was never off the cuff. It was a plan by design and it worked incredibly well.
Our link-up play began to prosper by 2014. Christy scored 20 League goals, a feat that hadn’t been achieved in over 20 years and in all competitions; we scored 52 goals between us.
As a winger, I learned the importance to play with your head up so that you can scan in front of you and see what is happening. With Christy, I knew if he started his run heading for the back post, I should drill the ball low and hard across the front post knowing he would divert his run to get across the defenders to score. If I got to the end line, Christy would know by my body shape whether I would cut it back to the penalty spot or hang the ball up to the back post. He knew I would never smash the ball across the front post area from the end line as the chances of scoring from there are very rare. It was this understanding that made our partnership so effective even though we played different positions.
It was a very natural partnership. Over my career, I had to communicate with others to get them to understand what I wanted to do or to get feedback of what they wanted from me. For example, with Greg Bolger, now at Shamrock Rovers, he always sprayed a diagonal ball from his defensive midfield position but more often than not, it was a pre-planned but highly effective technique. With Christy, there was never a pre-planned chat about tactics.
Even though I sat beside him in the dressing room, football was something that we very rarely discussed. I think we both liked the fact that although we were minutes away from competing in a competitive match, we never talked about the upcoming opponents.
We didn’t have a friendship away from the pitch either. We rarely texted or called each other to catch up in the off-season or spoke about upcoming games or scandals. That certainly doesn’t mean we didn’t get on. We have never had a cross word between us and that mutual respect definitely benefited us on the pitch.
Our manager at St Pat’s, Liam Buckley, did a lot of tactical shape over the years so I’d be wrong if I didn’t say he had a huge influence on our partnership. But, by understanding each other’s game, we forged a dynamic partnership that felt unbeatable. We never worked together on tactics or style of play after training either. Christy was one to finish his training and head for the shower. He rarely stayed to practice his finishing. I don’t think he ever needed help in that department anyway.
Christy’s goals were invaluable to us during that period. Players like Keith Fahey, Killian Brennan, Chris Forrester and the aforementioned Bolger will help your attacking threat but the hardest thing to do is putting the ball in the net and Christy was a natural. He was the man for the big occasion. Goals in Warsaw and the two infamous goals in the Aviva Stadium to bring the FAI Cup back to Inchicore for the first time in 53 years ensured his club legend status.
I have never worked with a striker like him. His ability to pin a defender and make the ball stick to his foot like glue was extraordinary, his finishing skills effortless but it was his football brain that allowed him to get ahead. He made my job a whole lot easier.
Now completing a degree in Physiotherapy in UCD, Christy is eyeing another career to forge ahead. But at 31, he may be forgotten by some but I certainly wouldn’t bet against him doing a job for any team in the League given the chance to get back to his best.
- Originally published at 10.52
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