LONG BEFORE HE SIGNED for Finn Harps in 2010, Raymond Foy had a close connection to the club.
Now that he’s on the verge of helping Harps into the promotion play-offs, Foy’s mind wanders back to the more innocent days when he was both spectator and supporter.
The Castlefin man, now 22, was just six years of age when Harps had a three-game marathon with Bray Wanders in the FAI Cup final of 1999. Harps lost in the third instalment.
Three times, Harps fans – including the young Foy – converged on Tolka Park, but they returned broken, tired, drained and, ultimately, empty handed.
The bloodlines perhaps always pointed Foy (pictured above in action against Waterford United, courtesy of Gary Foy) in the direction of a senior career with family ties to Harps legend Jonathan Speak.
“My earliest memory of watching Harps was going away down to Dublin three times when Jonny was playing in those finals and sitting beside his wife, Liz, who was just sitting there with her head down, crying,” Foy says.
“I’ll always remember that; her sitting with the head down and saying nothing. I was really young at the time and that vision is probably the only reason that I can remember it at all.
“I’d have been at Harps every week, though. I remember going to watch all those play-off games that Harps lost a few years after the final and then when I was in secondary school going to see the team with (Stephen) Parkhouse and (Conor) Gethins up front beating Waterford to get promoted.”
Those memories are now fuelling a desire to return Harps to the Promised Land again.
Harps take on UCD at Finn Park this evening and the stakes could hardly be higher. A draw for Harps will confirm a place in the play-offs while a win would mean the second leg of the play-off semi-final would be at Finn Park.
Foy says: “We are really looking forward to it. In years gone by, Harps teams would just be seeing it out at this stage with nothing to play for, but we’re in with a chance of getting into the Premier Division.
“Hopefully we can first of all confirm the play-off and then confirm second place. Having a home game in the second leg would be vital. We could get Finn Park packed and a big crowd behind us.
“There’s been a few times this year when we’ve got late goals at home because the support has been driving us on. The place would be hopping if we have a big play-off game there.
“For us as players, it’s just two games of football and we have to be the best over those two games, but for the club in general it would be a massive occasion.
“Everyone is hell for leather in training. I wasn’t in Cobh on Saturday, but the boys got a great result. For me, this week is about just putting in as much as I can for Friday night and trying to get my spot back in the team.”
Saturday evening was an ordeal for Foy as he sat at home in Castlefin searching for the latest news from St Colman’s Park where his team-mates were doing battle with Cobh Ramblers.
The accumulation of four yellow cards meant that the midfielder had to serve a one-game suspension and, so, he joined the legions of Harps followers clicking through various tabs on his internet browser in an attempt to keep up to date.
“I was keeping in touch through Mobstats for most of it,” he says.
“I wrote up and asked Aidan McNelis (a Galway-based Harps supporter who runs the Mobstats updates) how the lads were playing. I hadn’t logged in so it came up as ‘anonymous’ and people were asking me to log in.
“I logged in as ‘Foy93’ and people started wondering if it was just someone messing. People were putting up pictures of where they were watching the game so I put up one of me watching it with the thumbs up.
“I’d say (Harps kitman) Shane Elliott’s phone was tortured. I must have called it 20 times during the game!”
Foy has been a revelation in the Harps engine room this season.
A mark of his commitment was shown when he turned down the chance to travel to Gwangju in South Korea for the World Student Games this summer.
Foy had played for the Irish team at the Games in Kazan, Russia, in 2013 but, with Harps riding high in the First Division, he decided not to take up manager Danny Crowley’s offer this time.
Foy says: “The experience in Russia was unbelievable. It’s an Olympic Village the size of Castlefin and there were 20,000 people at the first game we played against Russia.
“I sat down this year and thought about how well Harps were going and decided to stay.
“It was a chance of five weeks away, playing the likes of Brazil, France and Russia so, of course, the decision wasn’t easy, but we were going really well at the time and I knew we were building towards something.
“I looked at the likes of Kevin McHugh, who has only won promotion once at the club so I didn’t want to let my chance slip.
“I’d no regrets once the decision was made. Danny rang about six times but, in fairness, he was great to me and he understood.”
Foy is back at Harps after spells at Derry City and Ballinamallard having accepted Ollie Horgan’s approach last winter.
He says: “I had still half a season left to play with Ballinamallard, but I could see that Harps were onto something.
“Things wee coming together and they had Ciaran Gallagher and Tony McNamee already signed and they hadn’t made the FAI Cup semi-final for no reason.
“It’s been great to play in the team this season. It’s a new set-up at Finn Harps and there are fresh ideas now in the whole thing. It’s mostly full of local lads and everyone is playing for the Harps jersey, not for their own gain.
“I’m generally happy how I’ve been playing but for a midfielder I’d be hoping for more goals – maybe they’ll come between now and the end of the season.”
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