Paul Smyth Interview by Keith Wallace
October 23 2008.
KARMA MAY WELL EXIST, however, Paul Smyth is not waiting for vengeance to be laid upon him. Signed by the club just months after scoring the goal which prevented Dundalk from winning the First Division title two years ago, Smyth struck at the death last weekend in Waterford to right that wrong and maybe, just maybe, scored the goal which could once again prove the deciding factor in Dundalk’s destiny. The Monaghan native has been in and out of the team all season, however, while his disappointment at that is evident, he says that magic moments like last Friday is what keeps him going.
Bittersweet
“I suppose it’s a moment like that that keeps you going at training every week,” Smythy told theDundalk FC Magazine. “You just stick at it and hope that something like that will happen. I had a couple of different spells in the team. I was in for five or six games and then I’d be gone again. Then, it was the same four or five weeks back. I was in for four games and then I went out of the squad. Obviously, I’m disappointed about that, and nobody is happy not to be playing. It’s difficult. At times, you ask yourself questions about what you’re doing and is it worth it, but you can’t give up, and I’d never do that. My attitude would be to keep plugging away and maybe the opportunity might come back. There’s still three games left, so you never know what might happen. I might get a chance and you have to be ready to take it. I’ve spoken to John about it, just before the Kildare game last month. I got dropped after Athlone and John explained his reasons, and, at the end of the day, he’s the manager. But I still believe I can do a job. You have to believe in your own ability; if you don’t, you shouldn’t be there. John changed it around and it worked. Robbie Farrell came in and scored four goals in three games, so you can’t argue with that. But I’m still itching to get a chance, and you never know, you could be the man that scores the goal that wins Dundalk the league. You can contribute, and I’d love to be part of the last couple of games. Sometimes, when you’re out of the team, you don’t really feel part of it, but the incentive is still there that I could still be a part of it. I like working under John. He’s a very fair manager. His organisation and preparation is perfect. As I’ve said before, with how everything is done here, you actually feel like a professional footballer. John has us at the top of the league, so you can’t complain. I think he’s done a great job here. He’s been very unlucky in the last couple of years but, hopefully, this might be third time lucky for him and Dundalk.”
Position Preference
When playing, Smyth has mixed it between the left-wing and up front. In his last six appearances for the club, he has been placed in attack by Gill on each occasion, and he’s in no doubt as to where he prefers playing. “Striker,” he affirms. “I keep saying it. I suppose it’s maybe because I’m left-footed that I’m put on the wing. I think I’m a striker, I’ve always been a striker and it’s my natural instinct to play there. I know John has told me and other managers have said that because I’m quick and left-footed, I can do a job on the wing. But I know that I’m a striker and I’d love an opportunity to get a run of games up front. At Monaghan, that was possibly one of the problems. I said to Mick Cooke when I met him at the end of my last season at Monaghan that I wanted to be considered as a striker. He said that was alright, but then in pre-season, he brought in Willie Doyle and Robbie Farrell. He seen me as a left winger as well. But then when I came here, I had no reservations about playing on the left wing. Dundalk is a big club that’s challenging for promotion, so you’d play anywhere. Ideally, I would like to be considered as a striker, but if it’s the left-wing that I have to play, I don’t mind. If it meant playing the last few games of the season on the wing, it wouldn’t worry me.”
Oriel Opening
Smyth began his football career on his own doorstep when he joined Oriel Celtic, a club formed by the current manager of the Republic of Ireland underage teams, Sean McCaffrey. “Sean got me into football,” Paul explains. “He started a club in Monaghan called Oriel Celtic and he asked my father to get involved and to help out. I was there at the house when he was setting the club up and I got excited about it. They started off with U18 and U16 teams. Then, gradually, they built it up with U12 and U10 teams, and that’s when I got involved. I started off when I was 9 or 10 and I always played for the team a year above my age bracket. I played there right up to U16s and then I went to Belvedere in Dublin thanks to Sean again. He was a great contact to have and he’s a great man to learn from. We got weekly coaching from Sean. We were very lucky to get that and we didn’t appreciate it at the time. The success story at Oriel Celtic was Sean McCaffrey. He went on to where he is now and it’s some achievement. Everybody in Monaghan really looked up to Sean as a coach. At Belvedere, I played U16 and then when they put the schoolboys dates back, I stayed U16 with whatever way my birthday fell. I spent two years there, but there was a lot of travelling and I had to stay in Dublin on the weekends. I was a wee bit sick of that, so I decided to play a bit closer to home and I signed for Monaghan.”
Blues Breakthrough
Smyth made his breakthrough to the Monaghan first-team midway through the 1998/99 season and scored on his debut against Saint Francis, before going on to become an ever-present in the side over the following two seasons. “I was only 17 and I played a year in the reserve league, and it was towards the end of that season that I got a wee spell with the first-team,” the 27-year-old recalls. “It was under Billy Bagster. I suppose it was three-quarters way through the season, he gave me a game against Saint Francis. We were 3-0 up I think at the time, he put me on, and near the end, the ball broke and I hit a goal from about 25-yards. That was a nice way to come into the league on my debut. I didn’t play much then until the last day of the season down in Cobh. He gave me a start and I scored again – it was 1-1. I made three sub appearances and had one start that year and I got two goals, which wasn’t too bad. Billy stayed on until midway through the next season. I started every game but I didn’t score that many – it took me maybe 15 games to score my first goal – but, in fairness to Billy, he stuck by me and he kept me in the team. Then Bobby Browne came in and took over with Gary Howlett.”
Promotion Success
Monaghan went on to finish that season in a lowly ninth position, with only one other club below them. However, the following year, they put together an incredible run of results and achieved promotion on the final day of the campaign as they defeated Limerick to seal runners-up spot behind Dundalk. “That was really unexpected,” Smyth admits. “We were near enough the bottom the previous season, but then Bobby got his own team together, I don’t know how he done it, but we won promotion. It was with a team that he just threw together during pre-season. That was the year of the Foot & Mouth, and before that happened, we were sitting about fourth, not really in contention. Whatever happened then after the break, I think we went 14 or 15 games unbeaten. We beat Dundalk 4-0 behind closed doors, I scored in that game myself, and then we won down in Limerick on the last day of the season to get second behind Dundalk. Athlone, who were flying, finished third. Andy Myler scored 29 goals for them that season and he was with us the previous year. He was tempted to go to Athlone so he missed out on our promotion season. That was a massive achievement for Monaghan and for me, but I decided to go away to America then.”
Stateside Story
Smyth’s reason for going Stateside was to take up a college scholarship at the University of Tennessee, Memphis. While there, he won the ‘Rookie of the Year’ for his division and was his team’s top scorer. “When I was playing for the Irish secondary schools team, one night we played down in Galway against England,” the Monaghan man says as he explains how his move to America transpired. “The game finished 1-1, I played fairly well, and the following week, I had three or four phone calls from America offering me soccer scholarships over there. But there was one that stood out. A fella called Gareth O’Sullivan from Ballina in Mayo was on to me, and he came over and met me in Dublin. It sounded great, and the fact that he was Irish and he had another couple of Irish lads there, that was tempting. That’s where I went then. Football is all that interested me, but there was a four-year university course with it too. It cost nearly $20,000 to go to school for the year. That’s $80,000 over four years, so it was massive money. Everything was free – your books, house and food was all paid for. Your daily routine was that you had to go to school, and you had to go. It wasn’t like college over here where you could skip the odd morning. If you missed a class, the coach would be on to you wondering why you didn’t go and you’d be in trouble in the classroom. It was a bit like going back to school. You were in at 9am and finished at 2 and then we trained from 2-4. We trained every day and it was really hot weather, so it improved my levels of fitness. It probably did help me as a footballer to train every day. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, because I did – it was really, really good.
Home to Harps
“I lasted about eight months, just the duration of the school year. A bit of homesickness got to me, so when I got back here, I didn’t want to go back to it. I always had it in my head that I’d like to come back and play in the League of Ireland. Over in America, we were beating teams 9-0 and 10-0. I thought I could play at a better level, so I wanted to come back here and try it again. It’s kind of a small regret that I didn’t stay and play in the Premier Division instead of going to the States. But Monaghan didn’t really fair out too well that year, they came bottom and they didn’t pick up too many points. It was a good experience to get away to America too, I suppose.” Smyth returned home and soon signed for Finn Harps, though that was another spell that didn’t last too long. “I went to Harps through Tom Mohan, who was playing for Harps at the time,” Paul reveals. “He rang me and asked me was I interested in joining them and I said I’d love to. I think they were challenging for the league at the time, so it was an attractive enough offer, but I didn’t get too many opportunities. I only played a handful of games, three or four sub appearances and I started about two games. I played against Monaghan in the League Cup and scored, so that was nice to score against them. Eventually, the travelling got to me, going up to Donegal twice a week. I just felt it was a bit much. If you’re playing, it’s a different story, but I wasn’t playing enough. Jonathon Speak was the manager, and me and him would be on the bench, and if there was a striker called for, he was getting the nod before me.”
Ballinawho?!
Due to that, Smyth departed Finn Park and joined Irish League First Division club, Ballinamallard United, where he spent 18 months. “Nobody has ever heard of them! But, I tell you what, it was a good move and I really enjoyed it down there,” Paul admits. “The standard of football wasn’t great. But it’s funny, looking at the results now at the minute, they’re actually top of that league down the north, so they must be going well. You never know, I might be back! The manager from there, Harry McConkey, rang me. I don’t know where he found my name or number, but he wanted me to come down. He made a big deal out of me coming to the club because I had played for Finn Harps and Monaghan. There was boys there taking photographs of me holding the scarf up when I signed. I went on and spent about a year-and-a-half there. I played left-wing a lot and didn’t score many goals, but then the second season, I played a fair few games up front and I think I finished top scorer with them. It was only six goals or something, it wasn’t much! But it was good. They had fantastic facilities and they were building a weights room and they were on about a stand when I was there. The problem they had was that they were 10-15 miles outside Enniskillen in a small village and they hadn’t got much support. But they were an ambitious wee club and I had a good spell there. The travelling was okay too. It was 50 minutes down and the matches were on a Saturday, so you’d be home at 6pm on Saturday and have the weekend to yourself then.”
Mons Return
Despite enjoying his time at the County Fermanagh outfit, Smyth returned to the League of Ireland at the beginning of the 2006 season when he re-signed for Monaghan after a five-year break away from the club. “The League of Ireland, from looking outside it, was getting better all the time,” Smythy says. “They were showing games live on TV and you were reading about it in the newspapers. I said to myself I’d love to get back in and try it again. Again, I don’t know how these things come about, but Mick Cooke got in contact and asked me to meet him. We met up then and I agreed to come back. I played 34 games that season, so I really got back into it and found my feet again in the league. Then, I agreed to sign for Monaghan for the following year again, but before the season started, as we know, John Gill called me, and I was delighted to come here. The opportunity to come to a big club like Dundalk, I just couldn’t turn it down. I had already signed for Monaghan, so I said to John that I’d try to sort something out, so, in the end, Monaghan were allowing me to come here on-loan, and John agreed to it, so I was thrilled.”
Paying Penance
Just four months earlier, Smyth had ended Dundalk’s long 20-match unbeaten run as he scored the sole goal in a 1-0 victory for Monaghan at Gortakeegan three games before the season ended – a defeat which ultimately cost the Lilywhites the First Division crown. However, the winger saw his move to Oriel Park as an ideal opportunity to pay penance for that sin. “The first night I came here, a few jokes were going around about that goal,” Paul recalls, “but it wasn’t too bad. I suppose it was strange coming here when you look at it that it turned out to be the goal that kind of kept Dundalk down. But that was a good incentive for me too to come here and to try to get Dundalk promoted. Obviously, last year, it didn’t happen, but this season, we’re very close to it, and, hopefully, we can cross the line in first place and go up.” Part of that loan agreement was that Smyth would not be allowed to line-out for Dundalk against Monaghan last year. However, the 27-year-old states that that was not his decision. “I didn’t like that,” Smythy admits. “I know obviously Mick Cooke and Monaghan had their reasons, but I didn’t feel it was going to make much difference, stopping one player from playing. But I suppose that gave me a great incentive the day that they actually did give me permission to play. I was really up for that game because of the fact that I wasn’t allowed to play in the previous meeting, and I scored after about eight minutes, so it was good.”
Downward Spiral
As the season progressed, Dundalk’s fortunes hit a downward spiral, though Smyth is clueless as to where it all went wrong. “What went wrong, I can’t put my finger on it,” he says. “Not too many can. We just lost form and confidence goes then. It’s hard to explain. When we came back from the June break, we kind of went through a shaky spell but we played ourselves out of it then. Finn Harps came from I think 18 points behind with a good unbeaten run, and Cobh were playing super stuff. We just weren’t playing well enough to keep up with them. We ended up 10 and 11 points behind them. I think then we didn’t go into the playoff with Harps in good enough form, and, really, I don’t think we believed enough that we could win that game. The players felt like underdogs going up to the game. John tried to rally us, you can’t fault him, but it just felt as if we were going up there without enough belief. I know in that game that we were still within inches of forcing extra-time – Robbie Doyle hit the crossbar. In the last half-an-hour, we pressed them and they were under the cosh. It could have went either way, but they had the home advantage up there. I thought we played well that night, and if we had got that goal, it might have been there for us. Harps went through and beat Waterford easily in the final, so I think if we had got past Harps, the confidence obviously would have been there then from that game and we probably would have went up. But that’s the way it goes. This year, we had to regroup and go at it again.”
No Comparison
And, Smyth admits that he had no second thought about signing on for another year when the offer came his way at the end of last season. “I had no hesitation at all,” he states. “John mentioned it to me even before the season ended about coming back and I was delighted. That put my mind at rest over Christmas because I didn’t have to worry about wondering what to do. I knew I was coming back and I was very happy with that. I think potentially this club is the best club in Ireland, with the support, the facilities and the way everything is run. There’s no comparison between here and anywhere else I’ve been. I think this club is potentially up there with Cork City, Derry City, Bohemians etc.. There’s a big tradition here, the club has a great history and I think Dundalk can be in the top two or three clubs in Ireland. I’d be delighted to stay on again next year. Obviously, I don’t know yet because nothing has been said, and if we did get up to the Premier, it’s a different ball game. I suppose if I haven’t been playing this year, people are going to say ‘how is he going to play next year’. But I’d still like to be part of the squad. If you’re part of the squad, you’re still there and if you get your chance, you can take it. I think I can play in the Premier. I think it would suit me more because you get more time on the ball and there’s more football played. Maybe that’s the downfall I have at times in this league with my physique. The First Division is hard hitting. I think I’m more suited to playing football and passing it. If the opportunity was there to stay on next season, I wouldn’t turn it down.”
