'The 2009 season brought my club to a new low. Heed the warning: "Adandon all hope, ye who enter here."
'Second City, ' is the follow up to Neal Horgan's critically acclaimed account of Cork City FC's 2008 season, entitled 'Death of a Football Club?'This book chronicles Cork City FC's infamous 2009 season. Horgan brings you into the dressing room as club chairman, Tom Coughlan, attempts to explain to the players just why it is that the Revenue Commissioners are seeking to wind up Cork City FC in the High Court. Horgan mixes contemporaneous diary entries together with retrospective commentary. In the latter he concludes that the absence of a plan by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) for professional football in Ireland was the root cause for the 'annus horribilis' experienced by Cork City FC in 2009 as bounced cheques, delayed payments, evictions, pay cuts and a return to part-time football become the issues that dominate the players' lives.
In the unfolding drama, that quickly turns from comedy to tragedy, there are fleeting appearances from Roy Keane and Ipswich Town, Dermot Desmond and Glasgow Celtic, and Christiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid in a sporting story which wil have a deep resonance for Irish football fans.