AS AN 18-year-old Arsenal player, Patrick Cregg boarded the team bus and headed to the Millennium Stadium to watch his team win the FA Cup. Most footballers would revel in recalling such an experience. The Falkirk midfielder is not most footballers.
Cregg's grimaces were world gurning championship standard on being invited to regard the 2003 success over Southampton as providing personal motivation for securing victory over Dunfermline Athletic in the Scottish Cup semi-final this afternoon.
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Nothing stands out," he said of that afternoon in Cardiff. A response hardly begrudging when it turns out that the Dubliner was a non-playing, track-suited rather than suited, member of the Arsenal party... who didn't even get asked to the post-victory party.
"The boys who weren't involved didn't go to anything afterwards," he explained. "The culture wasn't like that. It was hard to feel a part of it as I hadn't even played in any of the games leading up to it. So it didn't mean anything."
The fact he has been on the losing side for Falkirk in two League Cup semi-finals means Cregg considers he doesn't have a "good record" in cup competitions. It could be argued that losing in the last four against Motherwell in 2007 and to Rangers this year isn't bad going for his club.
Equally, without one-off occasions Cregg would never have played for Arsenal. All three of his senior outings came in the Carling Cup – a tournament Arsene Wenger affords quasi-reserve status. That probably explains the Irishman's appearance in the quarter-final away to Manchester United in 2004. But he is entitled to draw satisfaction from his run-out in front of 67,000 as the Londoners found themselves a goal down and a man down, Robin van Persie red-carded. "I came on for 25 minutes, which was good, even though we lost. I couldn't save the game," he smiled.
John Hughes saved the tidy ball player of slender stature from weekends without first-team football when he coaxed him north in 2006. Now, it is up to Cregg and the rest of the Falkirk squad to save Hughes, six years in charge at the club. The player believes that pay-off would be richly deserved. Falkirk will struggle to stay in the Scottish Premier League after falling four points behind second-bottom Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Even allowing for that fact, Cregg cannot understand why the Bairns Trust, in a letter to the club, last week demanded the instant removal of a manager at so delicate a stage of the season. Cregg's endorsement of Hughes is all the more convincing since the midfielder has found himself in and out of the side this season.
"No player likes that, but his man management is really good," Cregg said. "He speaks to you and he's fair. He's been honest with me and I respect him as a man an a manager. I think he has the potential to become a really top manager.
"I was surprised by what happened last week. I didn't see that coming. Before he arrived, the club had never stayed in the SPL two years in a row and he's achieved that. He's got the infrastructure right. Look at our facilities. I don't think many clubs in Scotland have got a training centre like ours. He's also got the youth set-up right. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Supporters pay their money, so they're entitled to their opinion. They could have a hard week at work, or could be arguing with the wife all week. They go to the football to get their frustration out. That's what a football supporter does.
"The manager's done a great job. I don't agree with the criticism. It's got to be a minority who were behind it (the letter]. The man's record speaks for itself. He's kept us in the league on a shoestring budget and he's brought young Scottish lads through. And he's a young Scottish manager. He's the right man to have in charge. I think most fans recognise that. I don't think they are on our back. I think it's just frustration because we finished seventh twice in a row. It could still be a great season for us, but we need to win back-to-back games in the league, which we haven't done this season."
Cregg does attempt to disguise that each of the four league games Falkirk will play are more important than the encounter they will contest at Hampden today. But the top flight side daren't lose against bitterest rivals operating a level below or else the pressure on Hughes' men in the post-split games could be cranked up to an intolerable level.
Dunfermline, free from expectation, are horribly dangerous opponents for a fragile Falkirk side. Which Cregg fully appreciates.
"We are bottom of the league so they'll be going in with confidence," he said. "They'll be thinking: 'they're bottom of the SPL – do they merit being in the SPL?' " The next month will provide the answer to that. If they do enough to merit a place in the Scottish Cup final this afternoon, meanwhile, it will be no thanks to the Bairns Trust.
