Declan Devine hoping early return of Derry City fans will give club advantage in new season
Derry City manager Declan Devine is pictured ahead of the 2021 SSE Airtricity League Premier Division season at Ryan McBride Bradywell Stadium in Derry. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Derry City manager Declan Devine is hopeful that the quicker pace of vaccination in their locality will allow the Candystripes to get back fans in the stadium as quickly as possible - even if football remains behind closed doors south of the border.
Devine's side are in an unusual position given they are based in the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland and therefore have to go off different public health guidelines.
The FAI would therefore be presented with a dilemma if Derry were in a position whereby their health chiefs were comfortable with supporters returning to the Ryan McBride Brandywell.
All of the other sides in the League of Ireland are waiting for guidance from government - via the FAI - as regards opening the gates.
"I would take every advantage we can," said Devine. "The statistics up here are fantastic. Long may that continue.
"Hopefully we can all get the vaccines ourselves in the next coming weeks. If that was to materialise, I think it would be a huge advantage to us, because last year it was a major disadvantage to us, having two health systems. One worked for us and one worked against us. We are in the process of taking every advantage we can get.
"If we can get people into that ground earlier than anyone else, absolutely brilliant. I would jump at the opportunity for that to happen. We need fans back, it’s absolutely rubbish without them, let’s be totally honest. It’s soulless.
"We played Larne in a friendly towards the end of last season and there were 600 people at the game. Honestly, because it was so long since we actually saw fans at a game it felt like there were 6,000 at it. It was brilliant, it was absolutely brilliant.
"Hopefully we can get there very quickly as a league.”Devine is under a bit of pressure locally with Candystripes legend Liam Coyle suggesting he could be out of a job if the club miss out on Europe again this year.
"Everybody is entitled to their opinion," he replied. "From my point of view, I look in the mirror every morning, I know what I'm trying to achieve and I know what I'm good at. I know what my job is.
"Derry over the last 12 years have finished more in the bottom half of the table than the top half of the table. We've won two senior titles in the top division in our history.
"The expectation levels managing Derry City Football Club are always going to be high and we're also going to have to look at where we are as a football club and what we want to achieve.
"No matter who is manager of this football club, there's going to be pressure on them. Two years ago, I was in a very safe job (with the IFA). When Derry come knocking on the door and ask you to be their manager, you take it and you take the pressures and all the pitfalls that come with it."
Devine also expressed confidence that the loan signing of exciting Manchester City player Joe Hodge will not be cut short.
The capture of English born Irish international Hodge generated a lot of attention but there was disappointment when it emerged he had damaged his back and would miss the beginning of the season having returned to base for treatment.
Fears of a longer layoff have raised doubts that he may never get to play for the club but Devine gave a more upbeat reply.
"You've got to understand he's at a club where they are going to give him the best medical attention they can give him," said Devine.
"He's got a small hairline fracture at the base of his back. Sometimes it can take four weeks, sometimes it can take six weeks, sometimes it can take ten weeks. It's down to how often he's getting scanned which will be every fortnight and from there we're sitting and we are in constant contact with Man City.
"I speak to the boy often and we'll just see where he is. He's been told to take a minimum of a four week rest, and hopefully when he gets rescanned again it'll show the thing is cleared up a good bit. We're very hopeful we will have him here. We were actually very hopeful we'd have him for the season, not just this short period of time (until July).
"I'm very confident we will have Joe Hodge back playing for Derry this season."
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