Comeback King

A blast from the past here with 20-year-old Graham Coughlan lifting the First Division Shield as captain of Bray Wanderers in October 1995 after beating Waterford United in the final.

Mick Bennett’s Blues had won the first leg of the final 3-0 at the RSC with goals from Joe Lawless, Richie Hale and Declan Power in the competition which preceded the beginning of the league the following week.

However, Bray shocked the Blues by turning it around in the second leg at the Carlisle Grounds. Philip Gormley scored two first half penalties before Richie Parsons levelled the tie with twenty minutes to play. Wanderers keeper Pat Trehy then saved from Lawless and Brian Barry in a penalty shootout and Parsons scored past Scott Garlick to win it for Pat Devlin’s side.

Coughlan had only joined Bray from Cherry Orchard that summer with a move to the UK on the cards, but Devlin immediately made him captain of a young team that also included Kieran ‘Tarzan’ O’Brien, Trevor Berry and Robbie Coyle.

 

 

Soon afterwards, Graham signed for Blackburn Rovers who were the reigning Premier League champions at the time. He won promotion to the Scottish Premier League with Livingston (winning their Player of the Year award) before really making his mark in four seasons with Plymouth Argyle. He was a key figure in the Pilgrims winning the Third and Second Divisions (now Leagues Two and One) in 2002 and 2004 and was named in the PFA Team of the Year on both occasions while also winning the Second Division Player of the Year award.

A real fans favourite as a teak-tough defender, he was captain and Player of the Year for Sheffield Wednesday in 2005/6 and was later skipper of Shrewsbury Town too. He became player/assistant manager at Southend United in 2011 and moved solely to management after retirement in 2013.

As a manager, Coughlan has led Bristol Rovers in League One, Mansfield Town and Newport County in League Two, and Boston United in the National League. He took a short-term role with Barrow in an advisory capacity from March and finished that role yesterday. Today, he is the new manager of Waterford FC and has an even bigger task ahead of him than Bray’s Shield comeback in 1995.