FORMER Reds favourite Jamie Harney may be living on the other side of the world – but he and his former team-mate Conor McDonald will be wearing their Cliftonville jerseys and watching Saturday’s Irish Cup final in the hope that the Red Army can end their 45-year wait on lifting the coveted silverware.
In August 2022, Harney left Cliftonville and his football career behind to make a life for himself in Melbourne, Australia.
In his first season at Solitude, the Tyrone native found himself playing in an Irish Cup final, losing to Coleraine 3-1.
McDonald also played in Barry Gray’s cup final team that day. Now the pair find themselves reacquainted Down Under.
Harney enjoyed spells with West Ham and Colchester – famously playing for the Hammers’ youth team against Lionel Messi in a friendly game with Argentina.
He returned home in 2017 and signed for Cliftonville where he enjoyed five fruitful seasons before opting to leave for Australia, post-COVID.
Before leaving, he was torn because football was all he’d known since moving to London as a 16-year-old.
Speaking from his Melbourne home, Harney says: “I struggled to find my identity for a while here and what I actually stood for - and it’s still a path I’m on now.
“I moved to London when I was 16 and I played football every day from then on. That held me back in terms of moving to Australia as football was all I’d ever known.
“As good as an Irish League career is and playing for 10 or 15 years, and then seeing the likes of ‘Cats’ [Ryan Catney] coming to the end of their career, was that going to be enough for me?
“So, I needed to see what else was out there…”
Working in recruitment, the 28-year-old has taken to the Aussie culture like a duck to water. He’s played a bit of football, taken part in a few triathlons and played a “serious amount” of golf that has seen his handicap fall to 10.
“Melbourne is the cultural capital out here. You’ve got the tennis here in January, the F1 in March and you have every type of music, gigs, the best food – everything you could want – and the AFL starts in March where it’s only 30 dollars to go and watch games.
“I stuck my head out and did a few different things because it’s such an active country. There’s nothing like it. If you’re not up at the crack of dawn doing something, you’re the odd one out.”
After a difficult start to his Cliftonville career, Harney morphed into a composed and steely central defender – the kind of qualities that the Red Army take to their hearts.
Reflecting on his five seasons at Solitude, he says: “I thought about this the other day. I knew the club was quite big when I was playing and how much the club meant to me, but you can only appreciate the influence the club had on me the longer you’ve been away from it.
“The only thing that would probably bring me back home is family and playing for Cliftonville – but I think that boat might have sailed. It’s hard to put into words the impact the club had on me.”
Although he’s never watched the 2018 Irish Cup final back, he says it was “one of the greatest atmospheres” he ever played in.
He still has pangs for his Cliftonville days and will be reunited with some of them over the next few weeks with former team-mates Ronan Doherty, Ryan Curran and Chris Curran all getting married.
But, for now, all he can think about is Cliftonville’s crack at Irish Cup immortality on Saturday afternoon.
“It’ll be on at 11.30 on Saturday night here,” Harney says.
“Conor McDonald also played in the 2018 Irish Cup final and is one of my best mates out here. We plan on grabbing a few beers and going to his house and watching the final with our Cliftonville tops on.
“I’ll be nervous for it. All I can think about, and picture is Chris Curran lifting that trophy. Nobody in that league deserves it more.”
He adds: “If you’d asked any of the Cliftonville players who I played with, would they rather win the league or the cup, I think most would have said the cup.
“If you were ever to win it, you would have been on a similar pedestal to the legends of the club. That was the biggest motivation – and trying to get to the level of the likes of ‘Janty’ [Barry Johnston], ‘Cats’ [Ryan Catney] and ‘Geo’ [George McMullan].
“I was probably never going to get to that level, but that certainly motivated me. I definitely understood that if you won the Irish Cup with Cliftonville you would die a happy man.”