McHUGH AND GORMAN RETURN TO HARPS

February 11, 2010

Finn Harps welcome back two familiar faces as Kevin McHugh and Anthony Gorman join the clubs ranks ahead of the 2010 season.  McHugh is one of the most prolific strikers in the club's history and will be hoping to continue on from where he left off four years ago.  Gorman, who in the past has served the club as a player and Manager, returns as Assistant Manager to James Gallagher.  Both will be officially unveiled at a Media Conference in the Balor Theatre, Ballybofey at 3.30pm tomorrow (Friday 12 th February).

Kevin McHugh has signed for the club on a one-year deal from Irish League leaders Linfield.  McHugh is considered a legend by Harps fans, and his arrival back at the club will prove a huge confidence booster ahead of the new season which gets underway at the beginning of March.

This will be McHugh's second spell with the club having left Finn Park at the end of the 2005 season to join Derry City.  After three seasons with the Candystripes where he picked up FAI Cup and League Cup winners medals, McHugh moved to Irish League club Linfield where he has played for the past year, before returning to Harps ahead of the start of the 2010 season. 

Only two players, Brendan Bradley and Con McLaughlin, have scored more goals than McHugh for Finn Harps.  In his first spell at the club, the Killea man scored 122 goals in 248 games for Harps and was top scorer for the club in six successive seasons from 2000/01 until he left Finn Park in 2005.  McHugh is one of only a handful of players to have scored more than 100 League goals in Ireland.

McHugh made his Harps debut at 18 years old in a 2-0 win over Fanad United in the League Cup in August 1998, coming off the bench to score Harps' second goal in the victory at Triagh-a-Loch. 

Anthony Gorman returns to Finn Park for a third time, having already had two spells at the club as a player, and was also Manager for a season and a half.  He made the first of sixty-one appearances in his first spell at the club against EMFA as an 18-year-old towards the end of the 1988-89 season.

He was then Manager Felix Healy's first signing after taking over as Manager during the 2004 First Division Championship winning season, marking Gorman's second spell at the club where he made a further seventy-eight appearances. 

Gorman also had spells with Galway United, Sligo Rovers and Waterford United prior to his departure into the Irish League and won his one and only League of Ireland honour in 2004 when he picked up a First Division Championship medal.  The Letterkenny man has won every honour in the game in the Irish League where he has played with Linfield, Portadown, and Coleraine.

He was appointed Manager at Harps after the departure of Felix Healy in July 2005 where he combined his managerial duties and continued to play, and remained in charge until the end of the 2006 season having presided over fifty-nine games.

After leaving Harps, Gorman moved to the Brandywell where he was Assistant Manager to firstly Pat Fenlon and then John Robertson at Derry City in 2007, and had a spell as Caretaker Manager whilst there.  After leaving Derry he had a short spell playing in the Irish League with Crusaders before moving to Lisburn Distillery as Assistant Manager last summer.  Gorman was also a member of the Letterkenny Rovers squad which won the Ulster Senior League title last season.

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