Ger Nash wants to make Cork fans 'proud' on taking role

RTÉ News​

20-05-2025

Having watched Friday's last-gasp defeat to St Pat's from the stand in Inchicore, new Cork City manager Ger Nash takes charge of the team in his first league game at Eamonn Deacy Park in Galway this week.
The 38-year old former Ipswich Town player was installed as Cork's new boss last Thursday, succeeding Tim Clancy who resigned abruptly following the 2-1 loss to Derry City less than a fortnight ago.
It's a first senior managerial job for Meath-born Nash, who was first team coach at Swedish club GAIS in 2024-25, helping the unfashionable club finish sixth in the 16-strong top flight last season.
It's been a long road to his first gig as a number one. Nash was a former youth player with Leixlip United and later Belvedere, spending three years at Ipswich Town in the mid-2000s. Called up for the Republic of Ireland U21s at one stage, Nash was forced to retire at just 20 after a cruciate ligament injury.
This started Nash on a coaching career, working on the staff at Ipswich Town in various roles, coaching the U23 team in the latter half of the 2010s. He subsequently worked under Unai Emery as the Aston Villa U18 coach, alongside a stint with the FAI as a High Performance Coach.
"I was a young player and unfortunately my career didn't go the way I wanted it to," Nash told RTÉ Sport's Tony O'Donoghue at Richmond Park last week.
"The plus side to that is that I became a coach quite young and I spent a few years honing my craft and working hard and trying to get to a good position in the game.
"So yeah, my journey's taken me to a few different places, in England and obviously a little bit of time in Ireland and obviously the Sweden latest. So good experiences and hopefully that's prepared me well for what's ahead."
After departing Villa in the summer of 2024, Nash pitched up in the unlikely location of Gothenburg in Sweden, as assistant manager of the recently promoted GAIS.
"I've known some people at the club for a long time and I joined last season. We finished sixth, and when I left Sweden last week, we were sixth in the table as well, so it's a club that's really punching above its weight and doing a lot of really good things and has a lot of really good people involved.
"I think we ask players to be brave and go and do things and test themselves to get better. So I feel you have to do that as a person yourself to try and improve as well. So that was the idea behind it."
Nash confirmed that Cork City had reached out to him to become manager before but he was unable to take on the role.
"Look, there was an opportunity, I've had discussions with the club before and it's a huge honour any time any club asks to speak to you, but I had some things going on in my personal life and different things. But I'm obviously here now and I can't wait to get cracking."
He takes over a club which sits ninth in the table, only above bottom placed Sligo Rovers on goal-difference, after a difficult start to life back in the top flight.
They have picked up just two points from the last five games, their last win coming at home to Waterford on 21 April, their second victory of the season.
Following his departure, Clancy gave an extensive interview to the Cork Evening Echo newspaper, outlining some of the issues he faced, including his former assistant Jamie Hamill's return to Scotland for family reasons, the strain of juggling the demands of the management role along with personal considerations and a seemingly never-ending injury list.
He also cited the increased costs of building a competitive team in the current League of Ireland environment, while acknowledging that the club were "trying to do the right things."
As regards the possibilties of adding to the squad, Nash wasn't inclined to be drawn yet.
"Obviously, we want to strengthen, we want to make the club as strong as we can be. We'll always be looking to do the best we can with what we have, and those things are ongoing, those talks are ongoing.
"But absolutely we want to give the fans the best team they can fighting for everything on the pitch."
"My coaching philosophy will be based on trying to put a team on the pitch that represents the area where people are from, that's really simple.
"My belief in what you see in the people of Cork is that they're really a fantastic sporting area across many sports, obviously.
"They're passionate, and that's what I want the fans to feel.
"So we want to play front-footed attacking football and make the fans proud of what they see on the pitch that it represents them."