Dundalk striker Trevor Vaughan and club captain Aidan Lynch have both stated their disgust and anger at being linked to stories in both ‘The Daily Star’ and ‘The Dundalk Democrat’ newspapers in the past week. The papers, which were published last Saturday (15 March) and Wednesday (19 March), named the two players in their stories, which stated that both Vaughan and Lynch - acting as the squad’s representatives - had contacted the PFAI to voice their and their team-mates’ concerns over a problem with wages.
 
It has since been revealed, however, that the pair never made contact with anyone in relation to the story, and that it was, in fact, PFAI General Secretary Stephen McGuinness who first rang them on the issue on Friday. This has left both players seething, and they approached dundalkfc.com at Thursday night’s training session in Oriel Park to set the record straight and to clear their names.
 
A clearly incandescent Vaughan revealed how exactly events unfolded. “On Saturday morning, as normal, we went to training, and one of the lads said to me that there was something in the paper, so I got The Star. When I opened it up, towards the back page of the sport, it had a little bit about Dundalk and delayed wages - which it wasn’t, because we always get paid on a Saturday, so it wasn’t delayed at that stage. And, as well as that, the thing that outraged and upset us was the comments made by The Star - I don’t know by who - that the players were irate and that they contacted the PFAI through Aidan Lynch and Trevor Vaughan, which is totally untrue.
 
“I never got in contact with the PFAI and I never got in contact with the papers. We’ve spoken to Gerry Matthews and he understands us - there is something on the website about it. I just want to clarify, and to clear my name from this, because I don’t want my name dirtied up here in Dundalk. I’ve had four years up here at the club, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I have a good rapport with all the fans, and I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m a troublemaker, and the same goes for Aidan, so I just want to clarify that.”
 
Vaughan stated that it was the PFAI who called him, and not the other way around as both papers have said. “The PFAI rang me on Friday to see what the story was,” the 34-year-old says, “because somebody had been in contact with them. I didn’t know anything about it, so I told Stephen McGuinness to get back on to whoever rang him, because I didn’t know anything about it. This was Friday morning, this was the day after the match, and I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I said ‘well, whoever rang you Stephen, just get back on to them’. And that was the last I heard about it until Saturday morning.
 
“But I have been in contact with Stephen since then, telling him that I wasn’t happy about it. I don’t know who gave our names, or whether The Star just took them, but as I said, I just want to clear our names. Unfortunately, it has been bad press for the club and for the two people involved - me and Aidan. The only phone calls we got were from the PFAI. We didn’t contact them at all. We’ve never had any problems up here in the two years since Gerry Matthews has been here, and we’ve never had any money problems under John Gill; the wages have always been there, so as far as I was concerned, there was never a problem. And then, all of a sudden, our names are in the middle of it.”
 
To add to Vaughan’s rage, a similar story to that which appeared in The Star at the weekend was published in Wednesday’s Dundalk Democrat. “I seen something in today’s Democrat as well,” Trevor says, “and I’ll be on to some of them about it. I don’t know, through Stephen or through someone, they’ve mentioned our names again, and nobody from the paper has even contacted us about it. We haven’t commented or anything - they’ve just put our names down, saying that we contacted the PFAI, which again, is totally untrue.”
 
The hitman stated that the incident - which has since been cleared up fully by club CEO Gerry Matthews - was a ‘storm in a teacup’ and that it has had no affect on the good mood in the dressing-room. “The squad are happy,” he admits, “there was never a problem with that. It was a storm in a teacup, and I’m sure everybody would like to turn back the clock, but unfortunately, we can’t. I don’t know what happened; there was a couple of phone calls made, and then suddenly everything seemed to jump from being just a little thing to being a big issue - which it wasn’t at all.”
 
Trevor also hopes that there is an apology forthcoming from those who linked the players’ names to the stories, however, whether or not that happens, the Dubliner stated that he is more worried about clearing the players' names with both the club and its supporters. “I was looking for an apology from someone,” he says, “but I don’t know if I’ll get it - I don’t know who gave our names. We’ve spoken to Gerry, which from our point of view, was the best, because we wanted to clear our names with Gerry. Obviously, Gerry and the board reading that on Saturday morning would have thought that me and Aidan instigated the whole thing, which is totally untrue. So, we’ve spoken to Gerry and he has put a statement on the website, which has cleared it up. I just don’t want the fans to think that we started it.”
 
Lynch was also less than impressed with both papers and being linked to the stories, as he echoed the comments of his team-mate. “I just want to reiterate what was put on the website by Gerry Matthews,” the club captain states. “Trevor has already spoken about it. There was an issue here which wasn’t a major issue at all, in any way. It was solved on Friday, but there was something put in the paper, both in Saturday’s Star and in Wednesday’s Democrat, saying that myself and Trevor contacted the PFAI, and that basically we were being troublemakers. And we just want to reiterate that we were not involved and we weren’t causing any trouble, and again, we were very disappointed to see things in the papers with us being linked to it. We just want to clarify that.”