From Behind The Nets Finn Harps FC Ballybofey Co Donegal

FAI CUP Semi-Final - Tolka Park 1998

No Harps fan will ever forget this miscarriage of justice that cost their team a place in the 1998 Cup Final.The first leg was the first live Harps game shown on television from Finn Park and a capacity crowd watched a nil-nil draw but the midweek replay burst into life with bombscares and ludicrous refereeing.

The major turning point was when Davy Dowling is adjugded to have handled the ball on the line. The referee sends him off and awards Shelbourne a penalty (into the same goals that another penalty decision was going to haunt them in just over a year later).

Harps keeper Jodie Byrne goes into the back of the nets to prepare himself by drying his gloves on a towel or whatever keepers do in there. The 'Ref' decides that this would be a good time to blow his whistle, so Shels striker Stephen Geogheghan obliges by knocking the penalty into the empty net. The goal stands amid huge protests from the players, management and fans. Harps play on with a new determination but can not find anyway past a resolute Shels and cheating bastard of a referee.

You've got to be joking!

Harps keeper Jodie Byrne and the rest of the team surround the referee after he allows the 'penalty' to stand.

What are you picking on us for?

The manager at the time Charlie McGeever wants the referee to tell him what the jeezus is going on.

CHEAT!CHEAT!CHEAT!CHEAT!

The referee DICK O'Hanlon gets a garda escort off the field and Harps are cheated out of their first cup final in 24 years.

Match Report From The Irish Times - April 1998
Controversy reigns as
Shelbourne march on
By Emmet Malone
Shelbourne 1 Finn Harps 0

It was another remarkable night at Tolka Park, but not the sort we'd come to expect over these past few weeks. At the end, all that counted was that Shelbourne stayed on course to win their third successive Harp Lager FAI cup by reaching their consecutive fourth final.

But long after they meet Cork City at Dalymount Park on May 10th, this game will remain a focus of controversy, a night when Finn Harps supporters will feel they were robbed of a second-ever final appearance.

Even if the night's result hadn't been overshadowed by a bomb scare that delayed the last 80 seconds of the first half for 40 minutes, then it surely was by events shortly after the second half eventually started. By then the game's rhythm had long been lost. The crowd had been ushered out of the ground for some 30 minutes, the players had been forced to bide their time for 40, and when they returned it was only for a fleeting few minutes before half-time arrived. They then disappeared for a further quarter of an hour.

When things did finally get going again in earnest, it was Shelbourne who took up the running. They pressed forward immediately and quickly won a corner from the left which Tony Sheridan curled into the area. Tony McCarthy got a flick on and Pat Fenlon turned the ball goalward, only for Harps striker Davie Dowling to make a diving save which earned him a red card and the home side a penalty.

There could have been little dispute about the decision, but what followed after that was astonishing, Stephen Geoghegan driving home the game's only goal as the visiting goalkeeper got ready to take his position on the line. Jodie Byrne, a cup winner with Shelbourne five years ago, was adjusting the net behind him and was not even facing the league's top scorer as he lined up the kick.

Nevertheless referee Dick O'Hanlon appeared to decide that the Harps man had ignored his whistle and, after for some reason consulting his linesman, he allowed the goal to stand. His trip to the sideline was seized on afterwards by the dismayed Harps manager.

"I tried to talk to the referee for 30 minutes after the game and when he finally agreed to, he said my goalkeeper was ready for the penalty which he clearly wasn't," said Charlie McGeever. "He went to check with the linesman, so clearly he wasn't watching when he should have been."

At the time all of the visiting players had obviously been upset, but when Pascal Vaudequin was booked seconds later for a challenge in which he had clearly won the ball, the 31-year-old appeared to lose control completely. His shove on the referee as the card was produced might well have reduced his side to nine men, but O'Hanlon, not for the first time in the game, decided inconsistency was the better part of valour and let the Frenchman's reaction go unpunished.

Vaudequin, in common with many of his team-mates, struggled to regain his composure - an attempted kick on Mark Rutherford later in the game should have resulted in that second booking. Even after he was substituted he remained difficult to subdue and at the end he was hauled off the pitch by Declan Boyle and Stuart Gauld as he headed, one presumes, to take his team's case up with O'Hanlon once more.

The rest of the side gave a spirited showing through the remainder of the second half, with plenty of heart shown but little produced that would have caused palpitations in the Shelbourne defence. At the other end, they got by, increasingly, by the skin of their teeth.

A second goal seemed certain when Geoghegan was sent clean away by a quick kick-out, only the post preventing his coolly-flicked lob from reaching the net. Pat Fenlon also went close, forcing Byrne to block well after the clever build-up play had been, once again, done by Geoghegan.

If the night was to turn into one of the most remarkable of the season, there was certainly little hint of what was to come early on. Just like the game in Ballybofey, the pace early on was frantic but there was little shape to the game. With just over half an hour played, Harps began to gain a slight edge over their hosts. For 10 minutes, their harrying off the ball and rapid breaks forward when in possession made them look the more likely to make a breakthrough. James Mulligan, playing wide out on the right again, posed the greatest threat, with the former Sligo Rovers striker having his shot deflected well over after Jonathan Minnock's long ball forward. Mulligan also pulled a low drive across the face of the goal, harmlessly the wrong side of the left hand upright.

Immediately after the first attempt came Harps' best chance of the half, Minnock's corner from the right being met by a thundering close-range Davie Dowling header which left the crossbar rattling even after Mark Rutherford had scrambled the ball away to safety.

Within moments of Mulligan's second crack at goal, it was the stewards who were scrambling into action. As we were to discover, the evening's real drama was just about to begin.

Emmet Malone © Irish Times
SHELBOURNE: Gough; Costello, Scully, McCarthy, Smith; Baker, Fitzgerald, Sheridan, Fenlon, Rutherford; S Geoghegan. Subs: Neville for Sheridan (81 mins), Kelly for Baker (85 mins), D Geoghegan for Rutherford (89 mins).
FINN HARPS: Byrne; Vaudequin, Boyle, Gauld, Minnock; Mulligan, McGettigan, T Callaghan, McGrenaghan; Dowling, Speak. Subs: Cullen for Mulligan (74 mins), Bradley for T Callaghan (27 mins), G Callaghan for Vaudequin (87 mins).
Referee: D O'Hanlon (Waterford).