The 20-year-old Limerick man will play with Dagenham & Redbridge when they face Rotherham United - the final game of the English soccer season takes place in Wembley Stadium and will be live on Sky Sports at 3pm.
“I can’t wait for it - it’s brilliant. I really didn’t expect this to come about this season,” Damien told Leader Sport.
“To play in Wembley is a dream - some Premier League players don’t even get to play in Wembley during their careers. As well as playing in Wembley, playing for Ireland is the other dream for any young fella growing up,” he explained.
“I am just so happy that this has happened so early in my career. I am still young. I’m 20 so it’s great that I am going to play in Wembley because not too many 20-year-olds get to do that,” said Damien who is the eldest son of Paul and Helen.
“This will be my first time there. I’ve never been there even to watch a game. We are going down (to Wembley) on Friday to have a look around and hopefully then on the match day we won’t take as much notice. All the lads can’t wait. Hopefully we will win it now because I would be gutted to loose a final in Wembley.”
McCrory started out with Croom United and played with Wembley Rovers before the call came from cross-channel.
The Limerick man signed professional terms with Plymouth Argyle in May of 2008 after progressing through their centre of excellence over a two-year period. He spent time on loan at Port Vale last season and at the beginning of this season before heading to Grimsby where he made 11 appearances. This February McCrory was among the many deadline day transfers when he signed a two-and-a-half-year deal with Dagenham & Redbridge after joining from Plymouth for a five-figure sum.
McCrory left these shores as a left-sided midfielder, but has been converted into a defender at Dagenham.
“It has been a great end to the season for us. We have won a lot of games and have actually won a lot of them with late goals. When I first joined them, we were just outside the play-off places,” he said.
“In our last game we were in the play-off places and all we needed to do was win to guarantee us a play-off place, but as it turned out we only had to draw because of results everywhere else, but we won it against Darlington anyway.”
The Daggers finished in seventh place in the league table and faced Morecambe over two legs in the play-off semi-final. After a 6-0 first leg victory at home the Daggers were half way to Wembley.
“We really battered Morecambe in the first leg and after that the mood has been brilliant and the confidence is high with everyone. Everyone is hitting form at the right time and full of confidence,” he said.
Champions Notts County, Bournemouth and Rochdale have already booked their places in League One for next season and now Dagenham & Redbridge are 90 minutes away from the biggest day in their history.
“People were saying that Dagenham were not even a league team a few years ago and they have been on the up and up for the last few years. These are the best moments in the history of the club. Our usual gate is about 3,500, but we have already sold 13,000 tickets and people expect us to have something like 18,000 or 20,000 supporters in Wembley. So there could be a crowd of 40,000 and that would be brilliant,” McCrory added.
Damien McCrory returns to Croom next Tuesday, but this weekend Croom will invade London: “There are about 25 coming over for it. They are all staying in hotels near where I live so hopefully we will have a good time if we win. The two legs of the play-off were on Sky Sports so it was great that people could see me play.”
Jonathan Cosgrove
Knockainey’s Jonathan Cosgrove has been selected in the Irish squad for the qualifying rounds of the European Deaf Football Championships.
Cosgrove and colleagues will face Slovakia over two legs - starting this Sunday, May 29 at the Home Farm FC pitch in Dublin’s Whitehall.
Jerome O’Connell
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