Kevin Deery ready to lead new-look Institute into a new season

Institute vs. Knockbreda

Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium

Saturday, 3pm

Kevin Deery and Mo Mahon will lead Institute into a new era at the club when they kick off their first league game, against Knockbreda at the Brandywell on Saturday.

In charge at ‘Stute for a second time, Deery has taken over the reins from Brian Donaghey, after the club narrowly avoided relegation from senior football in 2022/23.

What matters now for the new boss is the present, and building for the future. With nine new signings - Tommy Wray, Shane Boyle, Fionn McClure, Liam Mullan (on loan, Derry City), Bradley Callaghan, Sean Carlin, Mark Mbuli, Tiarnan McKinney and Michael Harris, there will be a fresh look to this ‘Stute team this season.

“There have been big changes but we have kept around 10 players from last season here as well, and we just want to get a bit of pride back at Institute,” Deery said.

“The level of performances and work ethic and all the things we associate with good football teams was probably lacking for the last couple of years for whatever reason. You can’t blame any single individual.

“Collectively, they haven’t been anywhere near where they should be, so it’s up to myself and my staff to get the hunger and enthusiasm back to enjoy playing football here at this cracking venue. I have good history here myself, so I don’t want my team going out and putting on mediocre performances, I want them going out and relishing that their home games are in this brilliant stadium and they have to produce the type of football that I enjoy watching.”

Working with a very limited budget, the challenge for Deery is to bring confidence and belief back to a club that has gone through hard time after hard time in recent years.

“It is challenging, but we’re here to work hard and we’re not getting rewarded anyway financially,” he continued.

“People are here for the love of football, and you can see that. We’ve put in two or three months already and we’re doing it voluntarily until the season starts. It’s refreshing that the boys want to play for the love of football again, and long may it continue.

“We’ll try and be as successful as we can. What that is we don’t know yet; honestly, we have to work week to week because we’re such a young an inexperienced team. We’ll have to re-evaluate at the end of the window and hopefully get one or two more bits of experience in to help these young boys on.”

Positive

Deery and his assistant Mahon have had to assemble a squad and prepare for a new season in a very short period of time, but the real test comes this Saturday against Knockbreda.

“Some of the performances have been really positive, but then we hit a couple of dips when we played teams with better players and bigger resources than us,” he explained. “We expect to lose some games, we’re not fools, but we’ve competed in every game. In spells in games that we’ve lost, we’ve looked good at times. It’s about the young boys grasping this experience and showering them with games at this level. Some will adapt and love it, but some may take a bit longer, so we have to be patient with them and get them maturing and enjoying football and competing.”

The former Derry City midfielder knows that success cannot be achieved overnight, and is not getting carried away with lofty ambitions just yet. But he knows what he wants regardless.

“I’m here to be successful,” he stated. “What that is at the minute is to finish a lot higher up. I don’t just mean by a couple of points, I mean a lot higher up, with far more points accumulated, challenge for that top six and get into the split where you can work your way into the play-off. That’s going to be our motivation this year.

“I’ve watched the league a lot; I know this league inside out. I came here at least 10 times here last year to watch them, and although they didn’t have a great season, most of the games I watched were probably 50-50 games. They were just shaded by an odd sloppy goal and they just couldn’t rejuvenate themselves to get back into the game.

“They lost a lot of points from good winning positions, so that’s something we can address and motivate them. If you go ahead or go behind in a game, you have to stay with it. You just need to keep going right to the end and as long as you can come off the pitch and look each other in the eye, that’s all you can do in a team sport.”