TIERNAN Lynch remembers traipsing up and down Main Street in Larne trying to entice a few shop owners to throw the local football club a few quid.
It was the early throes of the 2017/18 season and Larne Football Club was on its knees. Inver Park’s doors were, quite literally, closed having been forced to play their first four games away from home.
They had a dreamer for a manager who wanted to change the world on a £300 weekly budget, and a bunch of student footballers from Belfast Met grappling with the physical demands of the Championship.
Spool forward to this evening and Larne Football Club will make history by playing their first-ever game in the group stages of a major European competition – against top Norwegian side Molde at the Aker Stadion in the Europa Conference League.
TNT Sports will screen the game ‘live’ (5.45pm kick-off).
Their dream peddler Tiernan Lynch will be on the sidelines with his brother Seamus and Gary Haveron - scheming, plotting and creating a surge of electricity that will sweep through the east Antrim town.
While he was putting Dundalk on the map during their 2016 Europa League adventure, Stephen Kenny said: “It’s how you connect with your supporters… It’s about the value of community and the impact a team can have on a community. It can’t be underestimated.”
A football club needs many constituent parts to make dreams come true.
It needs an army of ceaseless volunteers, a resilient board, community support, a shrewd tactician on the sideline, support staff, it needs smart, professional, affable people like Shay Kennedy (General Manager) and Chief Executive Officer Niall Curneen (he hates his job title) to maintain momentum every minute of the day.
Chairman Gareth Clements describes Curneen’s primary role as having “a helicopter view” of the entire operation.
None of Larne’s story, however, would have happened without the intervention of Larne businessman Kenny Bruce.
It’s match-day – a home game against Glentoran – and Curneen pours coffee into two Larne FC mugs at the Larne Academy of Sport – known locally as the ‘Cliff’.
Over the course of the last decade these facilities have become a hub of sporting excellence on the northern tip of the town.
While the football club has taken over the facility in recent seasons, the building retains its community element with birthday parties and other events open for hire.
There is no longer dead space in the building with every room transformed to complement the football club’s lofty ambitions of being a leading sporting light in the town for many years to come.
You see lasting foundations at every turn.
There’s a full-sized 4G pitch outside, an old boardroom has been converted into a computer suite for the 16-18-year-old students enlisted on the full-time scholarship programme in partnership with the Steven Gerrard Academy and Larne High School.
The large storeroom is now a fully kitted-out gym for the first team and students. The main hall doubles up as the club canteen and meeting area and all the club’s operational staff are here under the one roof.
Everything is painted red and white.
In the boardroom, Kenny Bruce’s laptop is open – you wonder does it ever actually close - his mobile phone flashes beside it on the table and he’s probably on his third mug of coffee.
The youngest of six children, Bruce grew up on a housing estate a stone’s throw away from the ‘Cliff’.
“My childhood memories were family, friends, football, camaraderie, everyone’s house being open to you, the smell of coal fires burning, which I still smell to this day.
“We grew up on a council estate. We weren’t privileged but I felt privileged...
“I’d four sisters, a brother and a fantastic matriarch – a northern Irish mother who was not to be challenged by anybody inside or outside of the house. She was the boss.”
When he turned 17, he left his native Larne for England. He followed in his brother’s footsteps and went to university in Southampton. Didn’t like it, left before pursuing a very successful career in the property market alongside his older brother who’d completed his law degree.
“I realised very early in my business career if you had a personality and you’re willing to work hard, you’re willing to put in more effort than the guys sitting beside you, you will ultimately be successful.
“I had work-rate, desire, worked seven days a week, 14-hour days… But you don’t forget the bowl you were baked in; be humble and be good to people stood me in good stead.”
The co-founder of Purple Bricks with his brother – an online estate agency – Bruce was approached around eight years ago to help the ailing football club from home.
“I absolutely love the way Larne play football,” he says. “I love the tempo. I love the way we score goals, and I absolutely love the atmosphere in the stadium.”
Match-day brings its own lightness of mood. Bruce, who sold Purple Bricks in 2019 and is involved in other technological businesses, never imagined he would ever be completely captivated by football.
The club’s owner fell to his knees, “emotionally drained” when the final whistle sounded on the heady night Larne edged out Lincoln Red Imps in the Europa Conference League play-off second leg at Inver Park.
Eight years of strategizing and no lack of sheer bloody-mindedness had landed the once perennial minnow of Irish League football in the ‘group’ stages of European football.
There’s no escaping Bruce dug deep into his own pockets to help Larne realise the unimaginable – but other Irish League clubs have done likewise and never got off first base.
It pains many Irish League rivals to admit it – but Larne did it right.
“My motivation initially was to give something back – just giving a few quid to a football club that had fallen on hard times,” says Bruce and smiling probably at his own naivety.
“I was approached by Graham McConnell and Sammy Smyth to reach out to the club and get involved. I thought giving them a donation to help the club get back on its feet and it would carry on what it was before.
“Then I met this amazing, inspirational guy – Tiernan Lynch – and his brother Seamus, and he had a vision that could be achieved on the pitch but could also have an impact off it. And we started on that journey. It started to become more of a strategic plan, a much bigger investment.
“And when we could see the impact that was having, it fuelled the ambition to do more of it – not just from a footballing perspective but very much from a community point of view.
“We have seen a number of fans, the appreciation from young people, from families across our community – all that has been the fuel behind that energy, desire and investment to try and keep this thing moving because of the impact beyond football.”
In the initial stages, Bruce didn’t think Tiernan Lynch was the man to lead the revolution in the provincial town.
He even floated the idea of the north Belfast man continuing as a coach with someone with more experience taking the managerial reins.
Lynch gave the idea short shrift immediately. He wasn’t traipsing up and down Main Street trying to keep the club afloat for someone else to take over.
At that time, Bruce’s business interests had brought him to America. He’d shared a few telephone conversations with Lynch before paying for the rookie manager’s ticket to New York where the pair met in the Hyatt Hotel just off Times Square
“The first time I met Tiernan face-to-face was in New York,” Bruce says.
“I had probably four or five good conversations with Tiernan leading up to that first meeting.
“I called him to say: ‘Look, I’m truly inspired by our conversations. I just want to talk to you about how you would feel before you come to New York about how the future might look like if the situation was that you could be a coach and someone with a bit more experience could come in and help you develop. And then you take the reins and grow the football club.’
“Tiernan made it very clear in probably about 10 seconds that he wouldn’t be accepting that in any way shape or form.
“This was a guy who had a £300 budget at the time and had the desire and ambition to be a successful manager and coach. Tiernan and Seamus had been very successful coaching at Glentoran.
“They’d come to Larne with student footballers... So, clearly, he wanted the opportunity to work with a guy who had been successful in business, was going to invest his money and try to make this grow, but he felt he was the right man for job and wasn’t going to compromise his own principles.
“I was truly inspired by that conversation and thought: ‘He’ll do for me’.
“If he’s got the guts to stand up to me and say: ‘That’s not going to work for me’ before I put any money in… I had instant respect for Tiernan.”
Over the next two days, Bruce and Lynch fleshed out a pathway for Larne Football Club.
Since then, Lynch has delivered two Irish Premiership titles, four Co Antrim Shields and brought Larne’s red and white army on several unforgettable European journeys.
But it’s the current European odyssey that far outstrips the others.
“There’s no question I’ve helped drive the car but, by God, Tiernan has built the car and put an incredible engine in it and is the brains behind everything we’ve achieved from a footballing perspective.”
So, it was no surprise Lynch was linked to the managerial vacancy at St Johnstone in the Scottish Premiership last week, only to declare his intentions to stay at Inver Park.
TOMAS Cosgrove saw the writing on the wall at his beloved Cliftonville after the club had lost the 2018 Irish Cup final.
“To be honest, I didn’t know anything about Larne,” says Cosgrove, who is likely to wear the captain’s armband in tonight’s historic match against Molde.
“The only time I would’ve been in Larne was to get the boat for a Celtic game!”
Moving to the provincial town has been one of the best decisions the Ardoyne man ever made as he has been an essential element in both Tiernan Lynch’s league-winning teams.
And Bruce?
Cosgrove smiles.
“You get what you see from Kenny. It depends on what day you get him on! He can be ruthless but if you give everything for the club, he’ll repay you.
“He’d organise wee trips away and lunches – it’s the small things that mean a lot to the players.
“If I’ve ever needed help or advice he’d always be there. I’ve an unbelievable relationship with him. He would ring me out of the blue – nothing to do with football – just to see how you are.
“He’d ask about my kids. My wee boy was in hospital and he was ringing to see how he was. It makes you want to give more. I’d run through a brick wall for the club.”
Full-time football. Recovery sessions. Chartered flights. Big game after big game. Another Euro adventure. Cosgrove is living the dream.
And the players give back as much as they can by visiting local schools, taking training sessions, making guest appearances and supporting local charities.
Everything that is visible about Larne Football Club is positive.
“I come from a working-class background and I’m getting on private jets to games! I remember playing in Europe for Cliftonville and it was like Indiana Jones getting on a plane with propellers. Even that was class.
“I’ve enjoyed every minute at Larne. I’ve found the people so nice. No-one ever has a bad word. They slag me about my accent but they couldn’t do enough for you. Everyone knows each other; it would remind you of a wee seaside town in Donegal.”
IT’S still a few hours until kick-off so Niall and I take a walk up the main street of the town.
He can’t walk past the Book Nook Newsagents without calling in for a chat with owner Gordon Cowie.
‘We need more merchandise, Niall,’ as Gordon points to the thinning shelves where club pencil cases, pens, mugs and scarves are sold.
“I had a German cyclist in the other day, who’s doing a tour at the minute,” says Gordon, “and he asked me where Larne Football Club was because he heard about the success of the club compared to where they once were. And that is the story.
“A few of us were sitting in my house last Friday night and we actually commented that Larne’s rise would make a wonderful film.”
Gordon, who’s worked out of the same premises for the best part of four decades, has seen it all - and while retailers will always be battling against a strong head wind, he believes the local football club’s currency has been the “tremendous buzz” it has created among the people of the town.
A few yards further down the street, Niall meets Gareth Clements, the club chairman, for coffee in the upstairs lounge of Aroma – a place where the Larne players frequent after training.
Both men eat and breathe Larne Football Club and they stress with the same energy and caution that no-one at the club can afford to rest on their laurels.
There’s a humility in the conversations they share and chat about how one bad home defeat can have a severe impact on the social club’s takings.
Financially speaking, the overriding desire at Larne is to reach the point where the club can wipe its own face.
“Achieving the group stages will make a significant difference to the finances going forward,” says Bruce, who has invested in excess of £5m since his arrival at Inver Park.
“You can make substantial profits from the group stages which would definitely hold you in good stead into the future.
“Is winning the league and a few European rounds profitable? No, it probably isn’t. But what comes with the dynamic of winning the league is it gives you exposure to try and lift the quality of the league, helps raise the player transfer fees, lifts sponsorship, lifts TV rights…
“I absolutely believe that it’s well on track - but it needs the whole league to lift not just Larne Football Club.”
Bruce adds: “Larne FC, which I never believed possible, is now in my heart. I have a great CEO in Niall Curneen who runs the football club on a day-to-day basis.
“I have a great manager in Tiernan Lynch who runs things on the football field. I trust them both implicitly. We’ve got a great board in people like Gareth Clements. Larne is on my mind all the time.
“I feel very privileged to be the custodian of the club over the last eight years. I hope that lasts for many more years to come. I’m enjoying it and there’s loads more to achieve.”
And that dream peddler who once paced Main Street asking shopkeepers to throw the local football club a few quid? He’s on the sideline in Molde tonight managing Larne in the Europa Conference League group stages.
A man with no imagination has no wings...
