“There’s no substitute for experience”…True. And in Trevor Vaughan, Dundalk possess probably the most experienced player in the league. It is now almost fourteen years since the frontman first took to the field in League of Ireland football when he lined out for Home Farm in 1993. And after sampling eight clubs along the subsequent way, it seems that the weary nomad has finally settled down and found a home.
And it’s a place where Trevor’s heart certainly appears to be. “I had three good years with Monaghan, but, and I’m not just saying it because I’m here now, but when you come up here, this is a real club. When you come up here and see the fans, see the crowds they get, the pitch, the organisation, the backroom staff, the training – this is a real club, and it’s where I felt at home. Leaving the first time was a bit of a burden. Jim (Gannon) didn’t seem to get on with me for some reason, he never spoke to me and never offered me a contract. I would have loved to stay, but unfortunately, it’s not up to players where they go, managers dictate that, so I was delighted when Giller gave me the call last season. I love Dundalk, so I didn’t really have much thinking to do when John rang me, I signed for him there and then.”
So, a long and distinguished career, but where does the 33-year-old feel he reached his peak? “I hit 15 goals for Monaghan in 2003, and that’s when Trevor Anderson signed me here. I came up here the following season and I scored 14, so I suppose those two seasons were really great for me for scoring goals. That year here, I got top goalscorer and ‘Player of the Year’ with Dundalk, and I got into the top three in the ‘Player of the Year’ in the league, so that was a brilliant achievement for me that’s voted by our fellow pros. That was probably the height, and then last year, although I didn’t play an awful lot, just the whole build-up to the playoffs and then getting the three goals in two games. That was huge as well.”
But of course, Trevor is now finished and has little to offer the Dundalk revolution. Or at least, those are the views of local radio station, Dundalk FM, who have continually criticised Vaughan over the course of the season. But Trevor says: “I don’t listen to it, that’s being honest. You hear stories about it, but everyone is entitled to their opinion – opinions are like arses, everybody has one. And unfortunately for every good thing that is said, someone says something bad, so you just get on with it. At the end of the day, the only one who matters to us is Giller. It’s always nice to do well and it’s always nice to get a pat on the back, but you can’t get that from everyone.”
After spending time at Home Farm, Shelbourne, Drogheda, Kilkenny and Connecticut Wolves, Trevor landed at Monaghan United in 2001, where he had one of his most successful times in football, netting 27 goals over a three-season spell. As a result, Trevor Anderson snapped Vaughan up for Dundalk at the beginning of 2004, but, was working under Anderson as bad as the manager’s record of 10 wins in 59 competitive matches would suggest? “It was okay to be honest,” the striker admits. “He was more old-school, he was a manager. I worked under Dermot Keely, and I would put them nearly in the same boat. He wasn’t a coach and he never pretended to be, he went around with his whistle around his head. I got on with him, he signed me up here and pre-season was very tough. He was probably a bit quiet in the dressing-room, I don’t know, maybe he saw the writing on the wall early on. His training was tough, it was a lot more old school, there was a lot more running and slogging. You’d nearly run until your legs dropped off, there wasn’t an awful lot done on the training ground as regards shape and that. But that was Trevor, everybody is different, everybody has their plusses and minuses, and I have no complaints about Trevor.”
In the end, Anderson’s record meant the crowd could no longer accept the northerner as manager, and Vaughan admits that playing in front of the supporters at that time was difficult. “It was very hard. We actually started off well, we won the first two games and then it just went downhill. And when you get like that, and the crowd turn against you and turn against the manager, it’s hard to get going. The crowd are entitled to their opinion, I’m not saying they’re not, but the players feel it. You get it in training, you get a bit niggly and it’s hard to perk up, and sometimes it’s the right time for managers to go. You need a fresh face, everyone starts off afresh and the crowd have new aspirations with a new manager coming in, as do the players, and we did. Jim came in and we done okay, we kind of consolidated ourselves in mid-table. The crowd got behind him, I think they just didn’t like Trevor and that was it. But they’re entitled to their opinion, Dundalk is a huge club, so they were entitled to better results.”
Despite netting 14 goals in 32 appearances during 2004, Trevor was deemed surplus to requirements by Gannon, and departed to join Dermot Keely at Dublin City. The Vikings went on to win promotion via a playoff win over Shamrock Rovers, and it was clearly a time that the forward enjoyed. “In the end, it was a great season, getting promoted with the playoff win over Rovers. The playoffs are a bit of a lucky charm I think, some of the boys are slagging me now saying I’m keeping myself for the playoffs this year, but hopefully we won’t need that. I really enjoyed it, I was the skipper with them for the season. The only thing was, there was no fan base and we were jumping from ground to ground, so that didn’t really help anyone. It was a good time, and in the end, it worked out great because we got promoted.”
But, with Rovers being such a big club, did Vaughan and his team-mates think they had a chance of demoting the previously never relegated Hoops? “Yes, we did. We knew there was hassle going on at Rovers. Roddy (Collins) had problems with the board and walked, and we knew that that causes problems with players. If things aren’t right behind the scenes, it’s not right on the pitch. We were after going on a great run in the league, so we always knew we had a chance. The first leg was the most important, in Dalymount, that was our home game and luckily enough, we were on the right side of a 2-1 win. We knew then going into the second game that Rovers had to come out at us. We scored early in the second-half, they scored nearly straight away and it was tight for a while, but I think we well deserved it over the two matches. You have to believe going into those games, it’s like the cup, anything can happen. We battled and we played really well in those games.”
That win resulted in promotion to the Promised Land, but Trevor decided to decline the offer of Premier Division football with the now defunct outfit as he felt first team football would be easier to come by with John Gill’s Dundalk. That, however, proved not to be the case as the hitman spent most of the season on the bench. And he admits: “It’s very difficult to ask anybody to sit on the bench, nobody likes it. All you can do is keep your head down and try and keep training. But in fairness, last year, we went on such a good run, there’s not much you can do, you can’t go knocking on Giller’s door. The two boys were on fire last year as well, I probably didn’t realise how good they were. I had seen Philly play a lot in the First Division, but it’s only when you see him in training that you know how good he is – that’s not trying to give him a big head. And then Peter Hynes, I had never saw him play at all, and I was more surprised with him, because I thought he was excellent. Unfortunately for him, a few things happened at the end, and whatever happened, he didn’t finish off the season with us and that was just my stroke of luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time, and as well as that, you have to keep your body in shape and you have to keep plugging away.”
Following Hynes’ departure, Vaughan went on to steal the limelight as he hit a hat-trick over two legs in the 3-2 playoff win over Waterford United. But when the chance did come, did Trevor expect it to go so well…“No, not really, I thought I’d be off the pace a wee bit. I don’t think I played 90 minutes all season until the last game against Finn Harps. And when you look at the pitch, it was like a mud bath, I don’t know how my legs took it. Maybe again, I was 32, and not playing many games in the season helped me. They were brilliant games to go into, because it was do or die, we had everything to play for, and then the two playoffs were just brilliant. Up here, getting the penalty in the last minute, and then also down there, going behind and then coming back. It was just brilliant…it was a fairytale come through in the end for me, after the season I had.”
In any other year, those exploits would have resulted in promotion, but once again Dundalk were to be undone by a league re-structure. Galway instead got the nod ahead of the Lilywhites, a decision which “sickened” Vaughan. “I was in the States on holidays when I found out. I was getting texts all the time and I was checking the internet, but I think, deep down, I had a feeling we weren’t going to be promoted. There was just a vibe going around the club, and I think the league didn’t want us there to be honest, I think they wanted Rovers and Galway. I don’t know why, but I just had that feeling. It wasn’t a nice feeling the whole thing, I remember looking at it and seeing Galway were up, I couldn’t believe that they had got up. That was sickening. I just couldn’t get my head around someone who finishes third gets promoted ahead of someone who finishes second and wins the playoff. I think that tipped everyone over really.”
This year, though, everything is back on track as Dundalk are firmly on course for a return home. But, if the Lilywhites do, as expected by many, go up, will Trevor be there with them. “I don’t know. Obviously, everybody wants to play there, but I’m realistic as well. I don’t know, I’ll just take each year or each game as it comes now, and then see what happens at the end of the year. Once I help Dundalk into the Premier League, I don’t mind.” And the inevitable final question – when is Trevor planning on hanging up his well travelled boots?? “I don’t know that yet either. You just play it year by year, like every footballer. At the end of your contract, you see who else rings you or you see if the manager still wants you. I know I’m fit enough to keep playing, I’m doing all the right things here, the ices baths that we’ve done over the last couple of years helps you as well. As Giller keeps saying, I play with my brain now, I know I wasn’t always the quickest, but I still think I have something left in the tank.”
