Danny - The Knight Templar

As I start to write this blog, I have absolutely no idea when it will be published. All I know is that if you are reading it then it is already known that Danny Murphy is no longer the manager of Cork City FC Women. It’s Friday night the 13th of December, the date that gave birth to histrionics over bad luck, derived from the rounding up of the Knights Templar by King Philip of France on the same date in 1307. The templars were the great secret keepers of their time, but I doubt any of them kept a secret as well as Danny Murphy did. 

Danny, by his own admission, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, indeed there will be people around the league who will be delighted by his downfall. A big mouth for such a small stature, quick with a fuck off for an opposing player or official, sometimes too harsh or brash with a word for his own players but in private an apology always followed. A Cockney still at heart but uniquely a Cockney Rebel. The best LB to ever wear the City colours, a man who bought into everything that the club meant to the fanbase and the City, a Cockney who eventually allowed his love for the club and his desire to see the women’s team progress, to overshadow his judgement which then resulted in some terribly poor decisions. 

Back in 2022 when Las Damas was just a CCFCW podcast, Eileen called out the club owner for what she saw as a lack of investment in the Women’s side of the club, her phone rang and she was summoned for coffee, told to wait until next year and investment would come, she was being unfair on a new owner, it was out of line and not grounded in reality. 2023 came and went, Cork City finished bottom of the league, winning only one and drawing three of twenty league games. Investment, what investment? 

In 2024, things improved drastically, City won five and drew three of their twenty games, picking up 18 points in the process. The improvement on the pitch was clear, the recruitment had been excellent, and the first half of the season especially saw several displays that hadn’t been seen in a long time. This was on the back of players like Orlaith O Mahoney, Colleen Kennedy-O ‘Connell, Dorothea Greulich, Barrett Eidson and Una Foyle joining the club. City had finally made strides, but a question always burned deep for those of us who watched week in and week out. How had the recruitment been so good when it was clear that the club had invested very little or even nothing into the squad?

The answer has come as a shock to everyone, step forward Danny Murphy and his magic money tree. Two seasons after Eileen had been scolded in Douglas shopping centre for questioning the level of investment, Cork City were once again heading into the season with a distinct lack of investment in the Women’s side of the club. Yet players came from Germany, the USA via Iceland, Dublin and other random spots, performance improved, results improved, all Shamrock Rovers with their 200k p/a budget collected in TX were second half yellow cards. Bohs were beaten three times, twice in the last minute of league games and once late in extra time of a cup quarter final. An inevitable drop off in the second half of the season couldn’t hide the strides that had been made and the feeling was that more good recruitment this off season and some graduates from the academy being slowly introduced would lead to more progression in 2025. 

However, Danny the Knight Templar had been keeping a secret from everyone. He was financially helping players and staff out, a few quid to help with rent or petrol expenses. Money that people thought was coming from the club was coming from Danny’s pocket, the club meanwhile had no idea what was going on, they, just like the rest of us, believed that Danny had built a team and a staff on the back of his personality and promise to put people in the shop window. 

At the same time, the club had introduced an incentive-based scheme which would see a sum of money put into a pool for every game won which would then be dispersed amongst the squad on a merit-based system once the season was over. This was done but only after some early misunderstandings around the timing of payments and the players still feel aggrieved that cup games were not honoured in the pool. 

Once Danny went on a solo run it was only going to end one way. You cannot do what he did and not expect consequences, no matter who you work for. The company line is the company line, if you don’t like it, then resign, which is exactly what Danny should have done this time last season. But he didn’t and here we are now, a sorry mess, that the more I think about it, could probably never have been avoided. The circumstances may have been different but there was always going to come a time when Danny and the club would irreparably butt heads and go their separate ways. 

In one corner, you had a club legend with a burning desire to build something great on the Women’s side of the club and in the other corner you had a club whose favourite answer to a Danny question was “It’s not in the budget”. A blow up was inevitable from a very early stage. Danny believed that if he could do something last year then the club would have to back him this year, he took an inexcusable line in the way he did it though, its naive and border line stupid but I’m sure it was driven by a desire to better the club in the only way he knows how, by trying to win football matches. 

I can imagine the shock felt by those in charge when Danny told them what had been going on, the bigger shock was when Danny told them that he couldn’t afford to do it again next season and the club would have to step in and pick up the tab. “It’s not in the budget” was surely sounded out and the cold sweat broke out around the table as the words “I’m not getting stuck with this bill” echoed around the room. The club won’t be stuck with the bill, that bill is Danny’s alone, these were personal arrangements between two parties, it's just it was between Danny and the people involved and not the club and those people. Most of the money has been paid and arrangements are in place between the parties for any outstanding sums to be paid in due course. As things currently stand, the club won't be paying expenses to players next season, “It’s not in the budget.”

Speaking of budgets, Danny was announced as Director of Women’s football sometime during the summer, what wasn’t announced was that he wouldn’t officially take up that position until the 1st of December. I can only presume the reason for that was the wage increase “wasn’t in the budget” and therefore would only kick in from the start of the new football year. I believe Danny was somewhat surprised to discover last week that a budget for the Women’s side of the club was decided last September and that he, as senior women’s team manager and more importantly, the Director of Women’s football was never consulted on said budget. 

So, how did we end up in this mad situation? Fundamentally it must come down to the whole “It’s not in the budget” mantra that exists at Cork City FC Women. Every other club in the league offers some form of expenses or payment to some if not all players. Clubs realise that Women’s Football is a loss maker and probably will be for the next ten years or more. Other clubs don’t promote the cost of buses or match day meals as investment in the Women’s teams, they recognise that running costs are running costs and investment in the women’s game here, comes in the form of player recruitment and facilities. Clubs have cut their budgets for next season, most notably Shamrock Rovers and Bohs but both will still be amongst the biggest in the league. Waterford enter the league next season with a budget, Treaty will continue to do what they do, DLR will duck and dive and make the most of every penny they spend. Sligo will probably have the second smallest, but it will still be light years ahead of Cork City’s. 

An owner who continually tells the fan base that they have invested €1.4 million, can’t find a few quid a week for the Women’s side? Can’t find five minutes on their appearance on the club podcast to mention the Women’s side of the club in any kind of depth. The players listened to that podcast, and I can say without fail that to a player, they felt marginalised and more importantly disrespected by the lack of any time given to them or their past and coming season. Danny is gone, so the club is without a senior manager, to add to the fact that both u19 and u17 manager’s left in the offseason and also now without a director of Women’s football. If you looked up the definition of “catastrophic off-season” in the dictionary, surely you would just find a picture of the CCFCW crest. 

One has to presume that City will struggle again next season, we all hope that is not the case, but logic dictates its inevitability. Waterford, Treaty and others are circling but they will probably have to wait until after the squad meet the club owner on Tuesday 17th December, to hear which if any players are willing to move on. When a club clearly doesn’t value the Women’s game or even its own players then there isn’t really any upside. I doubt anyone within the game is shocked that City don’t have a budget for looking after players in 2025, it’s an open secret that they lack the desire to invest in that side of the club. I’m sure we will hear more about bigger buses and the cost of diesel, but nobody is buying it anymore. Very simply put, actions speak louder than words and we now know that the limited-on field success was not a result of the club, but it was in spite of the club. Danny has paid for his decisions with his job but who at the club will be held responsible for Danny feeling like he needed to take those decisions in the first place?

Las Damas will continue to ask the questions of every club in the league that others won’t. Women’s football in this country is on a precipice and it can go one of two ways, but it will never prosper, nor will the national team ever prosper without a strong national league, so how long will the LOI hand out licenses to club’s who refuse to invest in the Women’s game here?

There will be no phone call for Eileen following this blog, no summons to listen to what have over time proven to be mis spoken words. It may well mean that Path Chats is back for another season but the one thing it will certainly mean is that Eileen in a meeting with a multi-millionaire won’t have to pay for her own coffee again…