Finally, it’s Cliftonville’s year in the Irish Cup. An agonising waiting game ends at last and a drought that lasted 45 painful years is over in one burst of champagne rain.
Since 1979, the Reds have contrived to fail in various ways in their pursuit of that elusive ninth Irish Cup – until a man who many felt couldn’t fix it made their dreams come true.
In front of almost 15,000 people and the largest crowd seen at a football match between Irish League clubs this millennium, the decider that pitted these juggernauts of north and south Belfast football ended with the red hands being raised after 120 gruelling minutes.
Not that you’d have known there was much stress had you only caught the third goal. That image of Ronan Hale, arms aloft 50 yards from goal and already celebrating a certain cherry on top, surrounded by a rapturous sea of red around him getting ready to jump for joy once more, will live in folklore for a long, long time.
The striker, bearing down on an open net in the dying embers after Linfield goalkeeper Chris Johns clattered his forward team-mate Ben Wilson – but not before his supply gave Hale the freedom of Windsor Park to roll it in – has cemented immortal status at Solitude, wrapping up just the Reds’ second Irish Cup in 115 years.
The Blues, who drew first blood in this Saturday afternoon blockbuster through the head of right-back Ethan McGee, deployed in the middle of the park here, a quarter of an hour in, were left crestfallen.
No less than that the odds of success looked stacked firmly in their favour when Cliftonville’s first-choice goalkeeper David Odumosu hobbled off and defender Odhran Casey’s action had ended in a stretcher with a suspected broken leg – but with the tension ramped, the head of Englishman Sam Ashford saw any angst replaced with jubilation among those backing Ireland’s oldest football club to victory.
By the same token, the most trophy-laden institution in Northern Ireland football history couldn’t be discounted, their pride already somewhat wounded after failing to deny Larne their second Premiership title on the spin.
Level at one apiece and with extra-time needed, it was there, however, where the resistance of David Healy and his charges were broken.
Hale – whose older brother Rory, captain for the day, delivered a display befitting any such occasion as this – powered in a rasping drive that handed Cliftonville the lead for the first time.
They wouldn’t relinquish it, and when 25-year-old Ronan waltzed the ball into the net to put on a final flourish, then the party truly started at the welcome end of an unwelcome era.
The clock starts at zero again; May the Fourth really was with Jim Magilton and his heroes.
It’s hard to fathom that Magilton and his assistant, former Reds boss Gerard Lyttle, were Anakin Skywalkers in plain clothing a little under 12 months previously.
Maligned as a duo before a ball had even been kicked, former Northern Ireland skipper Magilton – who also celebrated his birthday that weekend – and ex-Sligo Rovers chief Lyttle worked hard to win over the faithful, and following a creditable third-place finish in the Sports Direct Premiership, the 55-year-old is the toast of the Cliftonville Road now.
The next target for a club evolving into a full-time model via a hybrid set-up, naturally, is the Gibson Cup.
Since ending up just a point off the pace under Paddy McLaughlin in 2022, taking Linfield to the final day in the pursuit for the title, the last two seasons have seen Cliftonville remain a challenger in the title fight up to a certain point.
Things petered out for the Reds in 2023 when McLaughlin’s departure before the end of the campaign to be assistant boss at Derry City coincided with a late-season dip in form, while in his first season in Irish League management, Magilton had them in a three-way chase with Larne and Linfield right up until straight losses to the Blues at Solitude (3-0) and Dungannon Swifts at Stangmore Park (3-1) in late February effectively derailed their charge.
The west Belfast boss, who also toasted his friend and Co Fermanagh man Kieran McKenna’s feat of guiding his former employers Ipswich Town to back-to-back promotions and into the Premier League over the weekend, will be determined to put that right – with a long-term contract extension seemingly headed his way.
It’s also a decade since the late, great Tommy Breslin masterminded the second of Cliftonville’s consecutive titles, achieved playing a brave, attractive brand of football full of gallivant and free-spirited talent.
Reds fans remain nostalgic but, in this dynamic modern-day Irish League, the hard work is still just at a start for Magilton and Co if they want their first Irish League crown since then.
Larne are a formidable beast, yes, but the north Belfast men conquered them in an Irish Cup semi-final to prove, the 8-1 humiliation at Inver Park notwithstanding, they can stand up and be counted in one-off contests against their fellow big guns and shrug off any flat-track bully accusations.
It’s whether they can run the marathon as well as the sprint, and when the stardust settles and the euphoria fades, that is the next port of call for Magilton and his battlers.
Next term won’t start on a backdrop of apathy, mind, and it may prove just the tonic he needs for a title tilt.
Featured image from Desmond Loughery/Pacemaker Press.
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