Irish Cup Final 2022

S T E P H E N B A X T E R

M A N A G E R

Stephen Baxter is relishing the challenge of locking horns with the man he once viewed as “a hero” before becoming one of his best friends.

He said: “You never sit back and pat yourself on the back. David Jeffrey won six or seven doubles at Linfield and never did that. The celebrations lasted a night, then it was back to work. It’s relentless. “Milestones and things like that are nice but your DNA is getting straight back to it. You have tomove with the times and that’s the life as a football manager. “You have to have that great desire to win, and if you don’t then you should not be in football – or certainly not at my club.” Since defeating Cliftonville in the semi-final Baxter has had to navigate his way through five tough league games, with several players nursing niggles. But they’ve maintainedmomentum ahead of the showpiece and both he and his players are raring to go. “The squad is looking great. When we won the semi final I knewwe were stepping into five highly charged, competitive games against the best sides in the country,” he said. “With the size of squad we have, we were starting to get ourselves into a position where we had a few knocks that we’d have tomanage.” He revealed the deal was that everyone would play a minimumof two games, possibly three, while some of his players appeared in four of the matches. The Crues boss continued: “I had tomix that through the games and there were four or five changes for every game and there was one where there were eight changes - which I got a little bit of stick for. I actually found it a little disrespectful but people look at certain things from afar and don’t think through what they’re talking about. “But when you hear that sort of thing I let that noise go over my head. It’s all about keeping people fit and we’ve managed to do that. “The teamwere phenomenal. The balancing act worked out to try to suit us and I believe it’s worked in our favour because I’ve been able to rest players while keeping our momentumgoing. “People wouldn’t have forgivenme if we’d come into the Irish Cup final with four or five people unavailable because of injury.”

Baxter’s Crusaders take on David Jeffrey’s Ballymena United in the Samuel Gelston’s Whiskey Irish Cup final this afternoon in a battle of two of the most successful managers in the history of Irish League football. Both have won everything the game has to offer, but despite their respective trophy hauls in the past the two born winners will be as hungry as ever for success at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park today. “David Jeffrey is a lifelong friend of mine. We go back to when he came back fromManchester United and signed for Linfield,” said Baxter. “I was just a wee boy signingmy first contract at Ards at 19 and David was a hero inmy eyes. “We played our first game against each other and David headedmy ear instead of the ball - and probably purposely. I had a black ear for a fortnight! “He was a tough, tough guy and a great player. Then a couple of years later I joined Linfield and he was the captain and we became very good friends, along with four or five other lads.” Years later the pair became professional rivals as managers and Baxter had to learn from Jeffrey as a youngmanager. He pointed out: “You’re always learning fromhim and I always wanted to get close to what he was doing and slowly but surely we got on top of them a couple of times. “We are rivals and we try to beat each other but the respect we have for each other is enormous. He’s a giant of a man and a person I respect somuch.” Baxter recently celebrated 850 games at the helm for the Crues but, like today’s counterpart Jeffrey, he has never been one to rest on his laurels.

Words Mark McIntosh, The Sun

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