For his Drogheda United players, Sunday’s FAI Cup final will be the biggest game of their careers and Doherty remembers preparing for his own milestone match when he was 18.
After securing a dream move from Home Farm to Liverpool, the young centre-half’s progress was cruelly halted by an agonising leg break during a friendly for Brian Kerr’s Ireland U-18s, just a month before they were to depart for Sweden for that summer’s European Championship finals.
The Drogheda boss is clear that this is not a sob story. After being released by the Premier League club, he did go on to win three league titles with Shelbourne having returned home to Dublin, but it serves as context for the path that has led him to the Lansdowne Road touchline this weekend.
“I nearly didn’t go to the Netherlands – talk about sliding doors,” said Doherty, as he recalls the day in 1999.
“We had played a match in Liverpool’s academy. I hit the back of my head and got concussed. I was Ireland U-18 captain for the first time but was pulled out of the Ireland squad by Liverpool because I was concussed.
“I remember Ritchie Partridge and Paul O’Meara saying I should go and I was feeling grand, so I went.
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“Graham Barrett passed the ball to me. I went to turn to have a shot. His [opponent’s] knee just hit me on the thigh.
“I remember, and I wasn’t hallucinating, but Arsene Wenger was standing over me. I think he was there watching Graham Barrett so he was there when I was stretchered off.
“It was my femur. It’s as hard as concrete and supposed to be the hardest bone to break. It’s usually only broken in car crashes.
“Steve McNally was the doctor at Liverpool at the time and he still brings my X-rays around with him to conferences, because it was so unusual.
“The doc, Ronan O’Callaghan, was in the ambulance with me. I remember saying to him “Will I be alright for Sweden?!
“Look, it happens. My first start for Shels was out in Bray in 2001 and I was asked about that straight away. Lads come back and think ‘Oh, I failed’, but I never had a chance.
“I was out for two years. I had operations and 12 screws put in.”
Twenty-five years on, Doherty is relishing his first FAI Cup final as a manager, having suffered defeat as a player with Longford Town in the 2007 decider against Cork City.
A day out from the club’s first cup final in 11 years, the Artane native shares an insight into the demands of management and the 24/7 nature of the job. A trip to a show in the Bord Gáis Theatre two years ago springs to mind.
“Jesus, I couldn’t put a number on it,” he laughs, when asked how many phone calls he makes every day.
“I’m very lucky, my wife and I met when we were 17 and my daughter loves football. They are very understanding, but it’s difficult. The sacrifices they make, you have one week in the summer of a break. I don’t think I’m a control freak but I’d hate to think that stuff was going on that I didn’t know about. I couldn’t tell you the last time I turned my phone off.
A dejected Kevin Doherty after the 2007 FAI Cup final
“You never want to look back and say you turned your phone off and missed out on a player or something like that. I brought my daughter and her friend to the Bord Gáis, when one of the players rang me and another player was on about another club during the off season.
“I needed to talk to them and there was a woman sitting beside me while I was texting. She was getting so annoyed at me, ‘would you put your phone away’ and all. That woman was so into the show but she was disgusted at me. It was probably her cup final!”
While another massive final awaits in seven day’s time in their promotion/relegation play-off final against Bray Wanderers, for now all eyes are on Dublin 4 as the Louth club target a first FAI Cup since 2005 and just a second in their history.
Doherty says he’ll be thinking of his late father Liam as he leads his side to Lansdowne Road. He’ll ask for a favour too, but that’s nothing new.
“I do that every day, for the most stupid things, never mind cup finals. I’ll be thinking of it a lot, because of the significance of the cup final and what I said the last time he was there,” he fondly recalls, after speaking of the pride his father felt watching him compete in the 2007 decider.
While there’s some memories he’d rather forget, there are others he’ll always remember and tomorrow is another opportunity to make more on the Aviva’s hallowed turf.
