Craic On

5K Run

Hundreds of people turned up at the 5K Killea Run fundraiser in support of Martin Farren. It was organised by former team-mate Kevin McHugh who is the captain of Finn Harps.

Mark scored 114 goals in 209 games for Derry City and scored 10 in 19 games for Glenavon.

Mark had to fight hard to make a career in football as his spell in the youth team at Tranmere and then Huddersfield was largely unsuccessful mainly because he was dogged by injuries.

Back Home

He came home and signed for Finn Harps. However, he got only one substitute appearance in the whole season.

He left there to go to Monaghan where he got only 7 appearances and scored only one goal.

He then got a free transfer to Derry where it seemed he was bought as a bench player as that was where he started his career with Derry.

Flowered

But it was at Derry that he really started to flower.When given a chance to play he scored a hat trick against Limerick and that segmented his place in the team. He scored against Finn Harps, his old team, in the very next game.

In 2005 he was absolutely on fire finishing second top scorer in the league with 18 goals in 31 league games and 22 in all.

In 2006 he was largely instrumental in Derry wining the Cup that year. Indeed they only lost the League on the last day of the season on goal difference. he scored 18 goals that year.

Promotion

In 2010 his 20 goals were largely responsible for Derry getting promotion from the First Division.

According to Derry City manager, Stephen Kenny “Twenty goals (in the season) and he’s had to deal with so much going through his mind about his future health, never mind his footballing career”.

Retired

He retired from football after gaining promotion due to a benign tumour on the brain.

After treatment he returned in 2011 and in 2012 he became Derry’s all time top scorer overtaking Liam Coyle’s record with his 113th goal.

Throughout his career there he averaged better than a goal every two games which is the level of a top-class striker in any league.

DylanFest

He also did he DylanFest T-Shirts, posters, flyers and programmes for DylanFest 2008 from his shop in eth Malin Road. He also got it great publicity by agreeing to model one of the T-shirts – a picture that was published widely.

Mark had to fight hard at the start of his career and may have felt like packing it in many times but, instead, he fought hard, showed determination and in the end became one of Derry’s and Irish football’s all time greats.

One thing that Mark isn’t is a quitter. One thing that Mark is, he is a fighter.

As the Derry City manager, Steven Kenny said “He’s been unbelievably courageous, I don’t think people realise how brave he’s been, although certainly all the players do”.