There was a lot of optimism surrounding Cork City FC at the start of the 2014 SSE Airtricity Premier Division Season . A new manager – club legend John Caulfield – had come in. Caulfield had signed players such as Michael Rafter, Anthony Elding, Liam Kearney, Billy Dennehy, Darren Murphy and Mark O’Sullivan, players that had experience and could make a positive change to the squad. Youth team players such as Brian Lenihan and Gary Buckley were ready to step-up to first-team football. So, as the new season came and the first fixture versus the 2013 champions St Pat’s loomed, a lot of supporters , including myself, felt that this could be a sucessful season for the club. Well, the team has most definitely exceeded expectations. As I write, Cork City are on the brink of SSE Airtricity League glory. They are currently a point ahead of Dundalk FC who they play in a title-decider at Oriel Park tonight. City started off with a respectable 1-1 home draw with St. Pat’s. They followed that up with wins against Derry City and Bray Wanderers. A real statement was made in the next match against Shamrock Rovers. City cruised to a comfortacle 3-0 win with the Dennehy Brothers, Darren and Billy, and Mark O’Sullivan scoring the goals. There was a real buzz around Turner’s Cross after the match as well as a general feeling that this could actually be a very good season. City continued to win games comfortably before a 4-0 trouncing by Dundalk and a 3-2 loss away to St. Pat’s. Many thought that this was the end of the “title charge” but others thought differently. City immediately bounced back with a 2-0 home win against Derry. They continued to grind through games with...

“I want you to believe.” “To believe what?” “To believe in things that you cannot.” The term “classic” is thrown around a lot these days. It seems almost every day there is a new “classic” popping up somewhere in the world of literature, film or television. I doubt that many of these supposedly “classic” works meet the criteria for “something that is judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality of its kind”. Insufficient time has elapsed for the “new classic” books that are springing up everywhere to be considered on one level with Shakespeare or Dickens. Dracula, an 1897 novel by Bram Stoker is a true classic; moreover it’s the definitive tale of vampirism. Dracula is particularly notable for creating the traditional concept of a vampire, which Bram Stoker achieves by taking the scattered traits set out in earlier works and twining them together to form the iconic Count Dracula who drinks blood, creates other “undead” monsters, can turn into a bat and speaks with an unnerving Eastern-European accent. But, at least for me, the Count was not the most interesting part of the novel, nor was he really present in the main bulk of the story. Instead, Bram Stoker spends the first half of the book weaving an intricate mystery around the Count’s motives and various suspicious incidents in London, without clearly revealing how they all tie together until the second half. Those of you who were looking forward to reading an action-packed scare-your-pants-off bloodbath will most likely be disappointed. The best part of the book is the depiction of Victorian society (or societies). As it was written in 1897, it paints a far more authentic picture of the world at that time (obviously) than anything produced nowadays....