‘We all know how much the club means to the town’ – Dan Pike focused on staying up after Dundalk avoid doomsday

Pike, Dutch midfielder Koen Oostenbrink and Scottish duo Jamie Walker and Ross Munro were playing the same waiting game as everyone else with a connection to Dundalk. They had no idea if their club was going to survive the week ahead.

“With all the rumours that were circulating, we were like, do we need to start packing our bags? Do we need to start fearing for the worst?” says Pike.

Monday was a strange day for the players, with credible suggestions owner Brian Ainscough was ready to pull the plug.

“When the deadline was mentioned, we were all a bit like, what’s happening here?” adds the 22-year-old.

​“Obviously we were in training on Monday, we had a quick meeting about it and said we don’t really know what’s going on. It was kind of like, we just have to put that to one side because we have a game to prepare for on Saturday [away to Sligo Rovers].

“The gaffer [Jon Daly] was keeping us up to date as much as he knew, he was very open and honest about it, so I can’t thank him enough for that. Peter Halpin [CEO] kept us in the loop as much as he could. It was just a frustrating time for the whole club.”

Some members of the squad went down to the ground on Monday afternoon to seek news, updates that eventually became more positive and led to the situation where doomsday has been avoided.

On Thursday, the new owner John Temple will meet the squad and outline where they stand, after making a commitment to underwrite wages for the remainder of the season.

Pike will be interested in the plans for beyond that. His situation highlights the dysfunction of Dundalk’s year under Ainscough.

Even though debts were rising behind the scenes, Dundalk recruited Pike in July in an 18-month deal, with the length of the contract an attraction to a player on his way out of Tranmere Rovers.

“That was really appealing for me, because last season when I was at Tranmere I was on a one-month contract to start, then three months through to January and then five months until the end of the season,” explained Pike, speaking at the EA Sports launch of FC25.

“To have an 18-month contract, I was like, wow, a bit of security. Then all this happens and I’m thinking, what’s going to happen here?”

“I was always paid on time, so this was the first I experienced of it. I obviously had no thoughts about it [coming to Ireland], that there’d be any reason why I wouldn’t be paid. But it is what it is, it’s happened and you’ve just got to keep being professional about it and focus on the last six games now.”

With Dundalk battling to avoid the drop, Pike knows the outcome of the run-in is likely to shape where he stands going forward.

After a whirlwind process that saw Temple take the reins, a grey area still surrounds the consortium that he is heading up.

He met yesterday with Donal Greene, a former Dundalk player based in Slovakia who was heading up a second bid that was overlooked by Ainscough in favour of going with Temple.

Greene, Temple, Halpin and former Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern – who has been helping out as an intermediary – were part of discussions with a view to the possibility of working together going forward. No firm commitments have been made.

Temple has taken Ainscough’s 80pc stake in the club, with the other 20pc owned by American-based backers that were brought in earlier this year. They are expected to play a role in whatever happens next. Temple has indicated that he is willing to speak with creditors himself; it remains to be seen if the option to enter SCARP, a form of examinership, will be exercised.

Retaining Premier Division status would naturally impact on the finances and Pike says the squad will relish that singular focus

“We all know how much the club means to the town,” he says, “And we have seen what the town has been through the last few days. We are all eager to repay them.”