Derry City manager Ruahidhri Higgins
It is all thanks to the massive favour St Pat’s Athletic did the Candystripes on Sunday by beating Bohemians in the final of the FAI Cup.
The match, with 40,000 fans inside Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, finished 1-1 at full time with St Pat’s winning 4-3 on penalties.
The win secured Derry’s place in Europe in the 2022 season and gives the fans something to look foward to next year.
St Pat’s had already secured European football by finishing second in the League of Ireland so they had to beat Bohs to help Derry into Europe.
Derry City finished fourth in the SSE Airtricity League and now the club will be pushing to become league winners.
This has certainly been helped with the signings last week of Michael Duffy and Patrick McEleney who manager Ruaidhri Higgins described as “two of the best players in the country”.
Coupled with the landing of Will Patching, Derry will now be a force to be reckoned with as the club strengthen the team to be come league title contenders once again.
On the signing of Duffy and McEleney, Higgins said: “I have worked with both Michael and Patrick over the past few years and am delighted that they have agreed to come home.
“We have brought two of the best players in the country to the club. The honours they’ve both won over the past number of seasons tells its own story.
“They have loads of goals in them too, but just as importantly, both players bring a real desire and winning mentality into the dressing room.
“We’re in a very tough league and you need the very top players to compete.
“These two lads are very definitely in that category and I know our supporters will be looking forward to seeing them back in red and white in 2022.”
