Exclusive: ‘We want someone to invest in a legacy project here’ - Kevin McHugh

When online entrepreneur Kenny Bruce bought his hometown club, Larne FC, in 2017, he had a bold vision.

Bruce, the co-founder of Purplebricks, the online estate agency, Bruce’s ambition shook even his own Board of Directors.

"I would like Larne to have the Champions League music played at Inver Park one day," Bruce said.

This summer, after Larne won a second Irish League Premier Division title in a row, Tony Britten’s composition blared around Inver Park, a stadium and a club transformed since Bruce’s homecoming of sorts seven years ago.

Larne were in the Championship with average attendances in just double digits when Bruce’s takeover was approved, but now they stand the envy of many in Irish football.

The story of Bruce is pointed to strongly by Kevin McHugh as he pores over the possibilities for Finn Harps.

The Donegal club is owned by the Finn Harps Co-Operative Society Ltd, an entity formed in 1996 after a failed takeover bid in a summer that followed Harps’s promotion. The Co-Operative Society has given Harps a certain stability and its fan-owned model holds plenty of appeal, but the obvious drawbacks have hit starkly in the last decade.

“An investor is required - and I think everyone accepts that now,” McHugh, who doubles as both Harps’ Head of Academy and first team assistant manager, tells Donegal Live.

“To invest in Finn Harps wouldn’t be a normal, run-of-the-mill investment, we have something unique here in Donegal, the County itself, the fans, the staff, the heritage, the current base of players, a thriving academy, for girls and boys, and all the other exciting new projects at the club, we have so so much potential, and it just needs that extra investment to push it all to a new level.

“As staff within the club, we have a responsibility to make sure that in five, 10 or 20 years we have a thriving football club here. 

“We are on that journey now, so the investor would have to fit the Finn Harps blueprint that is currently being finalised. We have a plan, we have a set of priorities both short-term and long-term and it’s important our new investor believes in these also and has the same outlook to invest in a club overall and see it grow.”

McHugh scored 186 goals in 438 appearances for Harps as a player having made his first team debut in August 1998. The Killea native has lived with most of Harps’ modern-day highs and lows. 

Harps have more teams under their umbrella now than ever before and the increased demands pull hard on the purse strings with facilities, travel and administration all sought at levels never seen before around the club.

While Darren Murphy’s first team, with four games to go in the 2024 season, are well in the hunt for a play-off spot after a recent dip in results, McHugh has urged supporters to look a little deeper.

“Finn Harps unfortunately have suffered from mismanagement regards the spending of money over the last number of decades, resetting every preseason with no vision or long-term strategy” he says. 

“That has left us behind other clubs in the 1st division and to move forward, we have had to accept this.

“The good news is, we do have a plan here at the football club which our chairman is driving. It’s a very clear plan, a sustainable plan that will allow us to come out of survival mode and into development mode.

“In the middle of all this, Murph has to try to keep the team as competitive as he can on the pitch, which he has done, all with one hand tied behind his back in many ways regards budget, facilities and the fact we have travelled more than any team in the country this season.

“The fans to be fair, they do get it, and realise that this is where we are currently at and are on this journey with us, they have been absolutely superb in both their support and understanding of our current situation and the players and staff are working hard to repay that support.”

Finn Park, the home of Finn Harps FC

Harps now have players in their system from U11 and last season had teams in the Women's League of Ireland at U17 and U19 levels for the first time. A senior team in the Women’s Premier Division is the hope for the near future.

The first team squad for 2024 has included Gavin McAteer, Oisin Cooney, Darragh Coyle, Stephen Doherty, Max Johnston, Kevin Jordan, Aaron McLaughlin and Sean O'Donnell who have graduated from the Harps academy while on-loan striker Sean Patton had his talents nurtured at Harps.

“People talked recently about investment and ‘marquee signings’ – that was our tactic for the past three decades and how has that worked out for us?” McHugh says.

“We have big players here already,” McHugh says. “We are guilty of overlooking what we have closest to us. We have a lot of talent currently at the club, young and experienced players, yes we will look to further strengthen in 2025, but we must value what we have in place already.

“We restructured the whole academy between 2016-18 and how teams merged into the National League teams an eventually the first team. I presented this to the Board at that time on how it could help the football club long term, but unfortunately it fell on deaf ears back then. Being the person I am, I ploughed forward regardless as I did not rate the opinions of the majority in that room anyway.

“Six-seven years later, thankfully we now have a thriving academy with brilliant staff who are working hard to help produce even more players for the first team. This is not the case at the majority of clubs in Ireland nor the UK and it’s something we should be proud of and build upon as we look to complete the stadium and facilities.”

Finn Harps players before a game this season

The new stadium across the River Finn in Stranorlar is necessary to secure Harps’ future. Finn Park’s dilapidated state was highlighted this year with floodlight failure forcing the club to play some games in daylight hours. Spending money on the old place, at this stage, would enter the ‘reckless’ folder.

News last week that Dundalk, one of the League of Ireland’s flagship clubs, almost went out of business and are still not out of the woods served perhaps to highlight McHugh’s ultimate point.

He says: “Dundalk, Christ almighty, they nearly went out of business. They were the best team in Ireland for years and were playing against Arsenal in Europe. 

“If you sat down and had a magic wand to take Dundalk directors back where they were deciding on where to invest that money they had, I guarantee you now they’d invest in facilities and the long-term future of the club, not just playing staff.

“You really couldn’t get a better example recently than Dundalk to hammer home the point: With no long-term strategy, no investment back into the club. you really are only a kick of a ball away from going out of business.

“We have something different here at Finn Harps FC and we need to think outside of the box. We have to think long-term and think about safe-guarding the club. Gone are the days of making reckless decisions and throwing good money after bad.”

Harps have had tentative approaches in recent years from possible investors or buyers, but none have progressed much beyond the initial soundings.

It is clear, though, that the club is seeking not just a cash injection, but a new model that better suits and serves its place as a senior League of Ireland club.

The site of Finn Harps new stadium in Stranorlar

“You only have to look no further than up the road to Larne,” McHugh says. “You can see there what a proper investor can bring, someone who cares about the club firstly, the community, the academy, and facilities. 

“Kenny Bruce made sure the facilities were right. You’d start with the facilities and the structures. You can’t go into those buildings with the same mindset and same structures. I look at what he has done at Larne, and we’d love to have a copy-and-paste of that. 

“We want someone to invest in a legacy project here in Donegal, not just throwing money at playing staff. We need someone to fit our blue-print and invest in a community, academy, facilities, structures, this would then allow us as a football club to have a model that would enable us to invest into our playing staff and progress in a responsible and sustainable manor.”

When Murphy was appointed to succeed Dave Rogers in late 2023, he outlined a vision that might have shook some into believing that he was lacking an immediate ambition.

McHugh, though, says his plan was just what Harps needed at just the right time.

He says:  “The manager coming into a club now has to fit what you’re doing, not the other way about. Gone are the days of bringing a manager in and handing him a budget to do whatever he wants, there is to much at stake now.

“If you have a club with a set of principles, you have something to move forward with. Murph has been a huge part of the way we are moving. He has been there done it and seen some things that didn’t work previously which are priceless.”

“I have to praise the experienced players we have in the squad now - and you’ll always need them to help the younger players progress. We are blessed with Dave (Cawley), Tony (McNamee), Jamie (Watson), (Ryan) Rainey, Noe (Baba), Matty (Makinson) and the likes - those men have been very open to the young players coming in. 

“We have 15 and 16-year-olds training with the first team. Physically, they will not be up to it for a while, but these men get that and help them through which makes transition that bit easier”

“To be fair, that’s down to Murph and the ethos he has created in the dressing room. I believe we have a great group of staff from Shane (Elliott), Nicola (Ayres), Eoin (Logue), Gary (Wallace), Eamon (Curry), Tommy (Canning), myself and Murph. We all get along very well and are very driven to improve every area of the club”