JONATHAN MINNOCK COULD HAVE been forgiven for thinking that his shot at the big time had gone.
A veteran of 485 appearances in the blue and white of Finn Harps, the now 39-year-old will play at the Aviva Stadium this Saturday evening as Letterkenny Rovers tackle holders Crumlin United in the FAI Intermediate Cup final.
The record appearance holder at Harps, where he had three spells as a player, Minnock knows all about the big occasion.
Seventeen years ago this week, he was amid an FAI Senior Cup marathon with Finn Harps.
[adrotate group=”37″]Three games, two replays, two periods of extra time and a disputed goal from a penalty rebound that still sticks in throats around Ballybofey to this day later, Bray Wanders headed off to Wicklow with the Cup.
Harps arrived back in Ballybofey with nothing only regrets.
The memory of those trips to Tolka Park with Harps are fuelling Minnock this week.
“To this day, I still think back to the FAI Cup final,” he says.
[adrotate group=”64″]“We lost it and on a regular basis I think: ‘Could we have done this?’ ‘Could we have done that?’ I can’t change that. We can write our own history and we can dictate this.
“That Cup final in 1999 is the last big national cup final I was involved in.
“It all just seems like yesterday. Time passes so quick.
“We need to grasp the chance and go try win it.
“These opportunities don’t get around too often. That’s what we say to the young fellas here: ‘Grasp it now’. ‘Go and win it now’.
“I never thought that I’d see it. Players are playing in the League of Ireland for 20 years and never get the chance to play at the Aviva. It’s unbelievable, actually.”
In 2001, Minnock played for Shelbourne against Brøndby IF in the UEFA Cup.
The first leg was played at the 29,000-capacity Brøndby Stadium in Copenhagen, where Shels lost 2-0 before being beaten 3-0 in the return leg at Tolka Park.
[adrotate group=”37″]Minnock returned to Harps the following season again and stayed until 2009 when he played for Kildrum Tigers in the Ulster Senior League.
Another season back at Harps, after some gentle persuasion by then manager James Gallagher, was followed by his signing for Rovers in 2010. He’s been at Leckview Park since.
His son, Rudi, will be a mascot on Saturday night in Dublin and ‘Minno’ can’t wait to run out at Lansdowne Road.
“I enjoy playing the game, but the next three or four days I can hardly walk,” he says.
“The adrenaline gets us through it now.”
[adrotate group=”38″]He tells a story of having to pull in at the roadside last Friday night on the way home after the Ulster Senior League game against Fanad United at Triagh-A-Locha because his knee locked.
Minnock won a League of Ireland Premier Division title with Shelbourne and won a First Division crown with Harps in 2004, as well as winning promotion with Harps in 1996 and 2007.
From they first met this season, Rovers players have heard McConigley talk of the Intermediate Cup. A two-time winner with Fanad United, it’s the competition he craves.
Minnock says: “Eamon has said from the first day that we want to give this competition a rattle. Our best performances have all been in the Intermediate.
“The boys slag Eamon for talking about winning it before, but he has earned that right. It’d be nice now to go on now and win it. In 20 years time, these boys can talk about the Letterkenny Rovers team of 2016.
“It’s history. It’s a chance of history.”
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