BEFORE MANCHESTER UNITED of 1993 were welcomed to hell, Galatasaray were welcomed to Bishopstown – very much not hell; too many solid semi-detached homes with views of the Waterfall hills for that. And hell is said to be an easy place to land yourself into with an ill-judged turn or two.
Bishopstown is inaccessible to the point where it takes Cork’s reputation as a compact city and hits it with the precision and menace of a Fergus O’Donoghue sliding tackle.
Anybody who sat on the old No 8 bus as it grumbled its way through the glorious thoroughfares and sights of the western suburbs – the old dog track, Wilton Shopping Centre, the Regional – to be then deposited a good 15-minute hike over concrete and mud to the ground knows what it is to travel for their team. Away matches weren’t as mentally vexing, even 30 years ago when most of Cork City’s opponents were 160 miles away with barely a bypass or tunnel in between.
A month later in 1993, Galatasaray gained infamy as well as credit for their footballing prowess by eliminating Manchester United from the Champions League. You will read plenty about it in the coming weeks before United travel to Istanbul on 29 November. Justly so; it was an away leg which generated talking points numerous enough to upend the internet before it ever got a chance at life.
But to Cork City fans of the time, none of all that should have happened. Eric Cantona ought to have felt the thud of a Stephen Napier aerial challenge instead of a police baton. Steve Bruce should have been disorientated by the movement of Pat Morley rather than a flying brick. And Roy Keane was to have retreated to the Temple Acre Tavern that evening to supp on the fact that he might be the best midfielder in the Premier League, but not in Cork. When it came to running a show from the centre of the park, he was still Anakin to Davey Barry’s Ben.
Though to be fair to Keane, nothing if not a diligent student of Cork sport, he likely knew this then as he does now. Keane dodged a bullet; he was better off being barricaded into the away dressing room at the Ali Sami Yen stadium than being gently nudged off his stride by a subtle movement of weight by Barry, before he faced forward and threaded an exquisitely-weighted ball into the path of Tommy Gaynor who would . . . almost but not quite hit the target. In that moment Keane would have been confronted starkly by the reasons he played for Cobh Ramblers and not the mighty CCFC, almost destroyers of Bayern Munich and nearly-men against Galatasaray.
In a conversation with John Caulfield earlier this year to mark the 30-year anniversary of City’s first title win, the chat turned to his side’s various European adventures. This game is where there are lingering regrets.
“There were great plaudits with Bayern Munich, but over two legs you were never going to knock them out, even though we played very well,” Caulfield says.
“The Galatasaray one, we always felt (regret) particularly after coming back here at 2-1. We rode our luck over in Turkey but when we came back here to Bishopstown, the pitch was heavy, it was a cold, wet, windy afternoon. There’s no doubt they were rattled.
“They were there for the taking. We had a number of chances, we didn’t put them away and they scored near the end. And then to see them knocking United out in the next round, it showed they had some serious quality players.”
A far bigger Bishopstown crowd than usual schlepped down pavement, laneway and heavy sod to get to the amphitheater that was The Farm: one half-finished stand, three slow-rising hillocks of debris which would at some point in the future be transformed into an arena to shame the Bernabeu.
Galatasaray’s fans were given nearly half of the stand, and made a fair din with modest numbers, their blazing red and yellow banners an incongruous transplant to this amphibious hollow; a sunken divider of rural and semi-urban Cork. They didn’t seem at all hell or devil like, more a bewildered bunch stomping and clapping to keep warm, while the locals leaned into the contest and willed the ball towards the goal.
The feeling was City were building momentum and with a push would get that 1-0 which would send them through on away goals after losing 2-1 in Turkey. The away goal had come from Barry, though it would be chalked down as an OG nowadays.
Looking back on the YouTube footage of the second leg, you can see glimpses of how poised and comfortable Barry is among this class of opponent. Check out his deft lay-off to Gaynor around 18.30 below. Or his burst into the box (18.57) to have a shot blocked. At one point, Galatasaray try to stamp out his influence in the literal sense (14.50).
It was always a mystery to me at the time how he was playing in the League of Ireland. Sure, there was his GAA career, and he wasn’t the most athletic by the time the 1990s rolled around.
But the mastery of the ball, the purity of his striking, his game intelligence; you always felt there was a glitch in the system that led to Barry not ending up in the higher levels across the water.
“At the time, if you didn’t get to England by 18, you weren’t going,” Caulfield says.
“English clubs would think, ‘They’re not great over there’, and if you weren’t in England by 18, they’d never come for you,” he added, pointing out the exceptions that proved the rule such as a 19-year-old Brian Carey going to Cambridge in 1989, and a prospect from Mayfield via Cobh who made it to Nottingham at 19.
Captain at the time Declan Daly told us that part of the reason for Cork City’s strength during most of the 90s was a lack of opportunity in England compared to later years.
“For 10 or 15 years there from Cork, you could probably count on one hand the number of players who went over and made it professionally in the UK,” Daly says. “You had Kieran O’Regan, Paul McCarthy and the obvious ones, Roy and Denis Irwin, and really once you go beyond that four or five, you’re not dealing with a lot of people who went across and made it.”
Those who stayed behind showed how close they were to the pace of elite club football that day, yet City’s chances went unconverted. Declan Hyde had a venomous strike which was deflected over. Anthony Buckley hit the side netting and Barry had his effort blocked.
Kubilay Turkyilmaz settled the tie on 76 minutes, running onto a through ball which came about after a rare stray pass from Barry.
A chance to reach the last 16 of European club football would not come again. “Everyone misses that because we don’t get those big teams anymore because of the seeding,” Caulfield says.
And so it was Galatasaray and not Caulfield, Daly, Barry at el who would advance to the next round, where United were their opponents. The same United who, for all of their talent, couldn’t manage an away goal like the one forced by Barry.
Years later I used to see Barry every now and again in the Xtra-Vision shop where I worked. As with one of his ghostly runs to the box, you’d never notice him until he was right there in front of you.
He’d lean in over the counter and half whisper the name and I’d go looking through the system. You would barely get a chance to get a ‘Hi Dave’ out he was so efficient in his modesty. It was part of the social contract of the time and place: behave like you’re just the same as everybody else no matter what you’ve achieved, while everybody else gives you the space to live a hassle-free life.
Cork has the reputation for sporting hubris. In some cases, it’s well-earned, yet in others, it’s untrue to the point of being comical. Barry is just one of any number that would include fellow Barrs men Jimmy Barry-Murphy and Denis Irwin who are unassuming to a fundamentalist’s level.
You could include Keane in that category too. His dislike of selfies is as much for your benefit as his. Don’t act the big shot, and don’t place anybody on a pedestal above you either.
It’s not a bad mentality with which to try and beat the giants of European football or, in the case of Keane and Irwin, join them.
