A largely positive tenure: What next for Ollie Horgan?

I DON’T know Ollie Horgan personally but it strikes me that he put his heart and soul into managing Finn Harps.

On Wednesday Harps confirmed that Horgan and the club had, after nine years, decided to part company by mutual consent.

Nine years is a long stint at any club but I’d imagine at a yo-yo outfit like Harps, which, above all else, would have been constrained by limited finances, it would seem like a lifetime.

It goes without saying that Horgan’s job from the very first day he walked through the door at Finn Park would have been no easy task.

When he took over Harps were a struggling Airtricity League First Division team, yet for six of his nine seasons in charge at Finn Park the Ballybofey side played in the top flight.

That took some doing and no doubt there were many highs and lows along the way. The highs have to be the two play-off wins which secured promotion to the Premier Division in 2015 and 2018 – both against Limerick incidentally.

Perhaps the biggest low was getting relegated in the season just finished and I think everyone knew, including Ollie and the dogs in the street, that it was the end of the road for an eventful but largely successful partnership.

I have never spoken to Ollie – although he was an occasional onlooker at Darragh Park – but reading between the lines he seemed quite the character.

Quite obviously he knew his football and to have lasted that long at Harps he had to be hugely resourceful and a bit of a wheeler dealer when it came to securing the services of players.

No matter who takes over, it goes without saying that they have massive shoes to fill.

Despite that, there will definitely be interest in the post and among some of the names already being linked to the job is Donegal’s former All Ireland GAA manager Jim McGuinness, who is keen to pursue a career in association football, Horgan’s former assistant Paul Hegarty, Head of the Finn Harps Academy, Kevin McHugh and Gavin Cullen, the former Omagh Town keeper who has enjoyed much success with Ulster Senior League outfit Cockhill Celtic.

For the hell of it, let’s throw a few other names in the mix, former Stute boss Kevin Deery, local Championship managers Harry McConkey and Tommy Canning, the Friars brothers, Sean and Emmett, Horgan’s assistant last season, Gavin Dykes, or Paul Kee, who recently returned to the management game with HW Welders.

It should be a very interesting few weeks and no doubt the rumour mill will be in overdrive until Ollie’s replacement is found.

But what next for Horgan himself?  It is true that during his reign Harps were twice relegated however there’s no getting away from the fact that for six seasons, and sometimes against all the odds, he also kept them afloat in the Premier division.

Most will agree that the positives of his career at Finn Park far outweigh the negatives and therefore he holds a certain amount of value in the managerial market place.

Maybe he’s done with the beautiful game for the meantime, but I suspect with Ollie football is very much in the blood and therefore if the right challenge presented itself I would imagine he might find it difficult to resist.

I have no idea what Ollie’s situation is going forward, suffice to say that if any leading club had a managerial vacancy in the coming weeks and months then Mr Horgan might just be someone worth considering as a potential candidate.

All told his record at Harps, through thick and thin, and no matter the circumstances, was, in my humble opinion, pretty impressive.