Ruaidhri Higgins: "I thought I was being brave, being strong and showing leadership, but ultimately I was wrong"

Derry News Sports Editor Gary Ferry sat down with former Derry City manager Ruaidhri Higgins this past weekend to discuss, in detail, his time in charge at the Brandywell. Ruaidhri speaks in-depth about losing out on the double, his pride of his achievements and the pain of losing his brother Kevin.

How have you been since you left Derry City?

Really good. It’s been nice to be able to wake up in the morning and just focus on the people around me; go for breakfast if I want, go for lunch if I want, spend a bit of time with the wains and Lisa and brothers and my ma and da. It’s been really, really good from that point of view, and nice and relaxing to be honest. I’m going to Portugal this week with some friends and we’ll have a drink and I’m looking forward to it.

In the press conference right after the FAI Cup final, you wanted to stay on and said you backed yourself. What happened in the days that followed?

I’m not going to come out straight after the cup final and say I want to go. It’s not the right thing to do. It’s not about me, so I wasn’t going to make things into a big story straight after the cup final; I didn’t want that. I had a good conversation with Philip (O’Doherty), a few days after the cup final. Initially Philip had indicated that he wanted me to stay. He was obviously a big supporter and backer of mine, but we spoke and I told him how I was feeling. We had a really good conversation; he’s a brilliant man. He really, really is. I genuinely believe it is the right thing for everybody. There’s such a thing as outstaying your welcome. You feel it in your gut and we concluded it by deciding that the best thing for everybody was that I move on.

Did you want to be there in the past few months?

I actually had a conversation with Philip earlier in the season when I was having a bit of a tough time, but Philip was very, very supportive. We were actually in the middle of a half decent run at that time, but I always get through it, I always find a way, but there have been times where it’s been tough. What I did find tough was the fact that the league title was still in our hands and a section of our support turned while it was still in our hands. That I found really difficult, I couldn’t understand it. Surely at that point you should be saying ‘Let’s help them turn the tide here’. I just found that strange.

In saying that, it’s important to reiterate that it was a section of Derry fans, and not everyone, but I think it’s important that everyone learns from that because if we are in that situation again. Of course, the performances at that time weren’t brilliant and results weren’t brilliant, and its fine to vent and hammer people when it’s dead and buried, but when it’s still in your own hands; I think it’s important that people learn from that, because it creates anxiety amongst players, and that’s ultimately what it done.

We still take huge, huge responsibility of course we do, but winning together and losing together, there’s something to be said for that.

Does that anxiety in the players explain the cup final performance, and the performances in the final weeks of the season?

I think so. There was huge pressure going into the cup final. We tried to keep it as low key and calm as possible and prepare for the cup final as we did two years previously. It looked like there was fear and anxiety in the performance. It was over a period of time that we went off the boil. In the last couple of months we were poor in terms of results, but there were actually some decent performances. Obviously, some performances were poor also and we can’t excuse that, but there was definitely an element of anxiety and fear over them last three, four weeks. I felt that it was still in our own hands and it just got a bit toxic towards the end.

Was there a disconnect between the players and the fans?

A section. I have represented this club for 12 years and this is a much more powerful club when there’s a real connection. A lot of these players have helped out the club back on the top table of Irish football. Alright, we haven’t won the league, but we have been in contention a couple of times, we’ve played in Europe, we’ve played in two cup finals and brought 20,000 people to the Aviva twice. We’ve had the biggest cup final victory in FAI Cup history in one of the all-time great cup final performances.

I know it’s a results business; Pep Guardiola has lost five in a row and people are turning on him. I just find the game baffling at the minute, I really do. I don’t think there’s another sport in the world like it. There’s no perspective in football and I think it’s ruining the game in a lot of ways. I’ve had so many supportive messages from people around the town who went and got my number from somewhere. I’ve had so many people on the streets, I’ve had middle-aged women and elderly women hugging me for memories that we have created for their them their children and their grandchildren. Let’s not forget in 2020, Derry stayed up on the last day at Cork.

I inherited a squad that was rock bottom of the league three-and-a-half years ago. I couldn’t sign anyone for three months, but we ended up getting into Europe. I can hold my head high. Obviously, the league championship was the one that we all wanted, but leagues are hard won and you need so many things to be right for that to happen, and in the end, we just didn’t have enough, and I think there’s a lot of learning for everyone on and off the pitch. I will be hoping and praying that the really good people around the club- the supporters, Philip, Lawrence Moore, Bert Martin, Karen Pyne, people who have given their heart and soul for this club for little or nothing in return. I know I’m leaving some people out but I just pray that they get what they deserve over the next couple of years. Obviously, Tiernan has experience winning leagues, so hopefully he is the men who can get it done.

Did you feel you were let down by some players in the last few months especially?

No, because ultimately, it’s my job to get the best out of people. I do believe that when there are contract situations going on, I don’t think it helps, but then you can’t use that as an excuse either because you’re still getting paid. I just felt that we lost any decent form that we had at a really bad time and we couldn’t claw it back. It’s a collective responsibility and I certainly wouldn’t pin it on anyone.

I felt we played with a bit of fear and anxiety in the closing stages for different reasons and ultimately it cost us. It’s no consolation to people, but the learning for me has been absolutely huge. There have been some brilliant times and some really, really low times, but amazing learning. That first season will probably go down as my proudest achievement. Philip took a massive chance on me. I had never managed before and I remember someone asking me ‘What’s your biggest fear?’. We were four points adrift of Longford at the time, so my fear was that ‘I could potentially be the first manager in the club’s history to take us down’. That was the way it was going. That was my fear, but we ended up getting into Europe.

When I look back now, I didn’t enjoy that enough because the expectation went through the roof then. I earned the right after that first year to go and bring in four or five top end players, but expectation rose and I never gave myself the opportunity to realise what we did that year. You look at that team and how it grew. I think what they achieved in that first year was special; the likes of Joe Thomson who was one of the top midfielders in that league, Ronan Boyce in his first season, Cameron McJannet, Ciaran Coll, Eoin Toal, Danny Lafferty; people like that really. Really stepped up and they drove it forward and put us in a really good position to go and compete. That definitely accelerated the whole process.

Did you enjoy that 2022 FAI Cup final enough?

When the third goal went in, I knew it was over because we had too much experience on the pitch to not see it out. You talk about a dream; how we were able to manage the group leading into that cup final was perfect. Patrick McEleney had played something like 14 on the spin and he was really fit an at himself. Cameron Dummigan and Patrick had formed an unbelievable partnership. Would things have been different had them two been available to me a lot more? I’ve no doubt they would have been. The preparation for that final was perfection and we had everyone fit and everyone firing. We were in such a good place.

I remember standing in the middle of the Aviva Stadium and looking around and going ‘Wow, things have changed around here a bit’. I remember Philip being quite emotional and saying ‘Look at what’s here’. It was the realisation that Derry were back on the map. Success is obviously winning tropes and qualifying for Europe, but creating memories for people, creating generations of supporters, a new stand being built behind the goal; I class all that as success. It’s now not frowned upon to support Derry City Football Club. I love seeing the joy on, particularly the faces of children, and seeing how engrossed they are in the football club, and I take massive, massive pride in that and so I should.

A few months after that cup final, you lose Kevin.  Should you have taken a break then?

Aye, is the short answer. Those things come back to bite you further on down the road, and that’s what it did. I should have taken a month to six weeks completely away from it and turned my phone off. Since Covid, I haven’t had a full week off, which is four and a half years. I had four days in the summer in Spain, but you still be taking calls. I thought I was being brave, being strong, thought I was showing leadership, but ultimately, you end up with delayed grief, and that’s basically what happened. It bit me a few times and they were really, really, really tough periods. From my own state of mind, in the last four or five months, I’m in a much better place, but I did have two periods where I found myself in a place which I never, ever experienced before and never want to experience again. I got up every day and I went into work, and I think now ‘How did I do that?’.

Is there enough support for a Derry City manager and stay healthy, mentally and physically, given all the demands of the job?

I can’t way that I felt unsupported. There are good people in the background who were good with me there’s no doubt about that. I did have a couple of people who I spoke to regularly who really helped me. I have a brilliant relationship with Lawrence Moore, who knows what grief if all about himself, and we used to have regular conversations. He was brilliant at checking in. He was such a support to me. Dodie McGuinness as well was really supportive, as was Philip. But people are busy in their own lives.

When I look back no it’s crazy what I did. I went to Sweden for his funeral service before we brought him home. That was on a Thursday and I was in Tallaght on the Friday. I missed the first night of the wake at home, which I shouldn’t have done; that really, really frustrated and annoys me. I met the squad at the hotel on Friday and Kevin’s coffin had just been carried into the house at about ten past six and Lisa rang me to say ‘Kevin has just been brought into the house’, and I became very emotional and I remember that feeling, going ‘What the f*ck am I doing here? I should be at home’. We’re such a close-knit family and Kevin would obviously have wanted me to do what I did, but still. There were two nights of a wake at home and I missed one of them for a game of football. We won the game, brilliant, but I have no doubt the players went out that night for that reason and put their bodies on the line. But you do make strange decisions when you’re in that mindset. If I could flip it, I definitely wouldn’t have been in Tallaght anyway.