St Patrick’s Athletic are the 2023 Sports Direct Men’s FAI Cup winners following a 3-1 win over Bohemians in front of a record crowd of 43,881 at the Aviva Stadium.

The atmosphere in the ground was electric and there are very few occasions in the Irish sporting calendar that have quite the level of electricity.

It was the ninth best attended Cup Final across Europe this season, beating the attendance for the finals in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.

There were the by now standard succession of flares but the dublin Fire Brigade were ready and apart from a few scorch marks, no harm done. There is little at this stage that the clubs or the FAI can do to stop the flares entering the ground but maybe an education piece on the potential danger of throwing them onto the pitch is needed.

The day began with a special event in the President’s Suite as well where the Bank of Ireland Healthy Football league award was presented to Treaty United and the EA Sports LOI Academy Player of the Year Awards were handed over by Stephen Kenny to Niall Sullivan of St Pat’s, Cian Curtis of Shamrock Rovers, Mary Phillips of Athlone Town and Ceola Bergin of Wexford Youths.

Jaden Umeh of Cork City and Romeo Akachukwo of Waterford will get theirs on return from republic of Ireland international duty.

The Cork City Jubilee team that won the Cup back in 1998 was presented with commemorative medals, among them the CEO of the Welsh FA Noel Mooney.

Cathal Dervan then interviewed Ian Bermingham and Turlough O’Connor, standing in for Tony O’Connell, the two entrants to the FAI Cup Hall of Fame.

The FAI does these things very wel and there was a great atmosphere in the room with all the senior management present alongside outgoing President Gerry McAnany.

It was a privilege to be asked to host the occasion and then to enjoy the game.

This was the first year of Sports Direct’s sponsorship and there will be further celebration next week with the hosting of the Women’s FAI Cup Final between Shelbourne and Athlone Town.

The record attendance – which broke the previous record held since 1945 – was a testament to the community work that both clubs have done over the last few years.