Caulfield's Cork City passion burns bright

There is a real buzz on Leeside these days as Cork City supporters cannot escape the optimism and enthusiasm that the appointment of John Caulfield has brought.

Right from his first press conference, where “Johnny  C” announced that he has “lived for the day” that he would get this chance, the former Avondale manager has continued to make all the right noises in winning over any sceptical fans.

Players too were suitably impressed as Caulfield first wooed Darren Murphy back from England before tempting FAI Cup winner Anthony Elding and Setanta Cup / League Cup winner Billy Dennehy to join his new charges.

When Extratime.ie caught up with the former Cork City striker, he readily admitted that the first few weeks had been a “whirlwind”, even “hectic” at times, but insists that he has thoroughly enjoyed his time at the club so far.

Despite hanging up his boots over a decade ago, the passion for Cork City Football Club still burnt brightly and Caulfield hasn’t been a stranger to Turner’s Cross.

“After playing for so long with the club, I still went to the games and a lot of the home games.

“I’ve been involved as a supporter when we won the league in 2005, the cup in 2007 and the first division at that great night at Tolka.

“I suppose I’ve been there so long, I’ve seen the topsy-turvy from being a player to being a supporter.

“So I just felt that I’ve been in amateur football for eleven years so the opportunity was now or never at the time and I felt I had the experience.”

Taking the step from amateur football to the managing one of the country’s biggest clubs in the Premier Division and comparing both, Caulfield is clearly not daunted or phased by the task at hand and reckons he knows what to expect.

“It is a lot more intense, it is a bit of a whirlwind and it is a bit of a honeymoon period as well from the point of view of the reaction around the streets and around where I live. It’s been absolutely fantastic.

“Obviously there’s been huge interest from the local media because Cork City’s such a huge club down here. It’s very hard for outside people and outside clubs to understand the coverage and what type of club Cork City is.

“You hear people say they know what type of club it is, but they don’t. You have to be from here or have played for the club.

“You can play with Shamrock Rovers, you can play with Bohemians and you can walk around Dublin and no-one knows who you are.

“If you’re a first team player at Cork and you’re successful, everyone will know who you are. It’s a fantastic opportunity for guys and its high profile.”

The Rebel Army’s new manager knows it will take more than knowing what the club is like to be successful and highlights man-management as a big area of importance.

With eleven years in amateur football under his belt however, he insists that he is already well-versed in this skill and has plenty of experience in the art of managing individuals – being as fair as possible while working within his budget.

It has not been all plain sailing however as Caulfield told us of the two biggest challenges he faced since arriving.

“Firstly, all the players bar two were finished with the club which is unusual. Normally you will have a sort of rollover period where maybe half of them are out of contract and maybe half of them are in contract.

“But we had a situation where it was disappointing to find out that everyone bar two players were out of contract.

“The second thing is that unfortunately agents have come into football – which was non-existent when I played.

“Like you have with sales guys, there’s good agents and there’s bad agents and in my opinion a lot of people are giving very bad advice.

“It’s getting to the stage where agents are sales guys that get paid for selling guys on. So are they acting in the best interests of the players? I would have mixed feelings on it.

“I need to build the club up stronger. I need to build proper systems within the club so that our young players can have trust in the club and in myself and in people that I appoint.

“They can then get proper advice before they go to agent or before they go off and sign up with any agent without discussing it with us.

“That’s the big challenge and I suppose in my own head I have ways I want to tackle it and go about it, but I suppose at the end of the day my priority is that I get a first team and get results because if I don’t do that properly I won’t get to setup the structures that I intend to do.

In the short term, Caulfield is clear on where he stands.

“I’m Cork City manager. I want players who want to play for Cork City first of all – I want players with the passion to play for the club.

“The way I feel, if we can be successful you know the crowds will pack into the Cross, you know that the atmosphere will be fantastic. I know that. And I want fellas to buy into that.

“But if a fella is hanging me out for €50 or €100 up the road, my attitude is let them off. If they don’t want to play for us, I don’t want them.

“I accept that money is involved, and I accept that they have to fight for the best deal, I understand all that. But at the end of the day they have to have the passion and show that they really want to play for the club.

“The other side is, at the minute we have too many players running across to England for a trial here and a trial there. Three days here, five days there, playing matches. Absolutely crazy situation.

“Whereas I want [a situation] that when a team comes over from England and watches our players, they are buying them off the shelf. So there’s no such thing as trials.

“A situation where they’re saying: ‘look it, he’s after playing two seasons at Cork City, he’s played 90 games, he’s 22 years of age, he’s ready to go’. There’s no minding him, there’s no babysitting him and they give us a decent price for him and they give the player a proper wage.

“That’s where I am seeing we need to get to.

“This lunatic stuff in the off-season with guys over in November… we’ve had three or four players over in England. Three days here, going back to this club and going back to that club.

“I just keep asking, ‘Is it the right thing for ye lads? What does this show the club in England? Do they have any value in you?’

“Telling you they’ll have another look at you in two weeks’ time, to come back in two weeks’ time. Why don’t they buy you?

“I just feel that guys are really selling themselves short. I mean, I’d be the first to say that if we sell a fella off the shelf, the club pick up whatever money whether it is €100,000 or €200,000 and whatever add-ons.

“And if the player goes out and gets his deal of €2,000 or €3,000 a week, shake his hand and say ‘Look it, you deserve this. It’s a good deal for you and it’s a good deal for us and we’re all winners’.

“This is where I feel there is too many guys acting on player’s behalves who are not acting in the correct interests. They’re only trying to move a fella, and if he becomes desperate they’ll move him at any price which to me is to the detriment of the player.

“I suppose guys are 19 or 20, and they just see the bright lights over and they just think that if they don’t get over to England, they won’t make it.

“That’s probably the most difficult part of taking over, because it’s frustrating that people don’t want to listen to the truth and don’t want to hear the good advice and they’re inclined to listen to someone they don’t know anything about who will give them some fairy-tale story.

“I mean a trial? I could send someone to England tomorrow to any one of 12 or 15 clubs if I wanted to, but I wouldn’t send them unless I thought they were ready to go and ready to be signed.

“That’s probably the side I need to master more, and if I can get structures within the club and if I can be successful and the club keep me on for a longer time I am hoping to deal with all that type of stuff.

Despite the constant speculation and the numerous trials, Caulfield is still confident in retaining most of the Cork City squad from the 2013 season and hasn’t given up hope of signing some of the players who have been travelling to clubs in England.

“The only player that has left us is Shane Duggan. He is the only player that is gone, and he was gone before I came in. No other player has moved, and I would be confident that most of them would be Cork City players next season.

“The logic is, two of them have been offered big deals by Shamrock Rovers, and they’re throwing stupid money at them. I’ve told them that if they want to play with us that this is the place to play and that their transfer to England isn’t going to happen at this stage for two of them.

“Even though they’re still hanging on and their agents are still hanging on that they might get a phone call or they might get this or that, being honest with you their deals are more or less gone.

“In fact there was no deals anyway, they were only going on trial, and they’re still hoping for that magic phone call to come out of the blue and I would be 99% sure that that call is not going to come anymore.

“The problem is they have got offers from Dublin, particularly Rovers. Pats have put in offers for one or two of them as well, and they’ve upset them a little bit.

“But as I said if they want to play to want to play with us, they want to play with us.

“If they want to move to Dublin and relocate to a new situation and a new environment in a place where they don’t know anyone, that’s their call.

“Being honest with you though, I think that by early next week I’ll be disappointed if I haven’t them wrapped up.

“Danny [Morrissey]’s in a different situation, because he had a deal that fell through at Huddersfield and he’s somewhere else at the minute.

“But to be fair he’s still in the melting pot, he hasn’t gone anywhere. I’ve met him and I’ve met his parents and no-one has offered to sign him yet. They’re hoping that someone isn’t going to make that magic phone call as well, but no one has.

“So I’m confident that most of them will be re-signed, and if they’re not re-signed by me I’d say that most of them will not be going to England. The only choice will be if they decide to go up to Dublin – which I would think would be a very bad move for them.

“You have to play a bit of tough ball, they’re probably finding me a bit tough and probably didn’t realise I was going to be like this.

“Maybe fellas thought that I wouldn’t be able to stand up to the rigours of negotiations, but I want to be straight with guys. At the end of the day, if I do a deal with a guy the deal is over with and I only want to talk about football.

“But if a guy tries to hang me out, and hold on and act the maggot for two or three weeks and drag things out try and screw for another €100 I don’t have, I’m moving on.

“I’ve a small bit of money left for a couple of the guys and if they hold me to ransom I’ll ignore it and move on and sign someone else. The beauty at the moment is that most of the league is still out of contract and there are a lot of good players still out there, but obviously you’d prefer to keep your own local players if possible.

“So I am hopeful and I am confident that most will be here.

As far as new signings go (from outside of last year’s squad), Caulfield tells me that he is very close to one more “marquee signing” with everything virtually agreed. He hopes that the club will be in a position to announce the new signing in the coming day.

Other than that, Caulfield will be concentrating on re-signing the other players but says that he will definitely be bringing in one new player and hopes to do that before the weekend.

With the final pieces of the jigsaw being added to his squad, the Cork City manager is already looking to the pre-season. He admits his interest in a tie against former Cork City boss Tommy Dunne at Galway, while also hopes that the club can host one English side in the build up to the 2014 season.

It is getting late, but Caulfield’s enthusiasm does not waiver. The topic moves to tactics where he tells me that people get “too wound up” over formations.

“It will really work around the players and personnel that we have. What I certainly hope is that we are going to be very attacking-orientated. That we’re going to be exciting to watch and that when a crowd come to the Cross they’re going to say ‘Jeez they’re a great time to watch. They’re getting the ball down, they’re getting it down to the endline, they’re getting balls into the box’.

“If we can start doing that, we will be hoping that Elding will be the guy who can put the ball in the back of the net.

Having watched on from the stands in the 2013 season, Caulfield witnessed some cheap goals that were given away and also hopes to address the problem – particularly from set pieces.

While there has been a lot of good will since his appointment, the manager of the Rebel Army hopes this hasn’t worn off by March and urges the fans to turn out in numbers.

“We have fantastic supporters, really genuine Cork City people who really want us to do well, but a lot of them have drifted away and just haven’t been there the last number of years.

“I just hope that I can get a team and that we build enough publicity around the start of the season that people come back to watch us and maybe we can back to big crowds again.

“I’m just hoping that they make a special effort at the start of this year, and get into the ground and get behind the team and see can we get that atmosphere going again from the touchline – and hopefully we’ll be able to deliver.”