This season marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Finn Harps and the Donegal club could well be celebrating with their first major honour since they lifted the FAI Cup for the one and only time in 1974.
Tonight the most geographically disadvantaged club in the Eircom League take on UCD in a match that could go a long way toward deciding who are the champions of the First Division.
Mention Finn Harps to any older League of Ireland follower and one name springs to mind: Brendan Bradley. The Derry striker burst onto the scene in the early 1970s and went on to score 235 league goals - and that's a record nobody else has gone near to breaking.
Harps were one of the "big guns" for much of the 1970s; ventures into European football were almost to be expected, and few clubs relished the prospect of making the trip to the Ballybofey backwater.
But since the advent of the two-division structure in 1985/1986, they have spent most of their time in the First Division. Occasionally the "sleeping giant" awoke. They got promoted to the Premier Division in 1996 and reached the FAI Cup final in 1999 only to lose in a second replay.
But now things are stirring once again on Finnside. And once again there's a Derry flavour to proceedings at Finn Park. Felix Healy, the former Northern Ireland international who was once worshipped at the Brandywell, where he played and managed his native Derry City, is the new hero.
Harps go into this evening's match on the back of a 17-match unbeaten league record. The most remarkable aspect of this run is that since the appointment of Healy, the club has not lost in the league. His only setbacks have been in the League Cup and FAI Cup.
With three clubs automatically promoted at the end of the season, Harps are now turning onto the final straight, eight points ahead of fourth-placed Kildare County. The real question is can they actually win the title.
Healy contends that "every game will now be like a cup final" and "the nearer you are to the finish the harder it gets." But around Finn Park, expectations of better times ahead are rising. The one blot on the season, though, has been a drop in attendances.
"We've been in the top three or four all season but the crowds are down by about 15 to 20 per cent. Summer football has been awful for us," notes chairman Peter Toner. But now the onset of wet and windy weather - the norm for the souls who flock to the old ground - could be just the tonic for the final five home games.
"We're hoping for a bumper crowd against UCD - if we can get over 2,000 I'll be over the moon," Toner continues. "And when we go up, not if, we will be hoping for crowds like this every week."
He describes the present run as "fantastic" and notes the team is virtually all local (the exceptions are Eloka Asokuh, a Nigerian, and Fermanagh man Tom Mohan). The club's under-21 side has also just clinched the north-west division title.
Finn Harps are knocking on the door of the Premier Division once again.
