Andy Boyle entered the history books on Thursday night by becoming Dundalk FC’s record European appearance holder.

Andy, who made his European debut for the club against Jeunesse Esch in 2014, moved clear of Sean Gannon at the top of the charts when he played his 39th European game against FCB Magpies. Former Dundalk FC midfielder Chris Shields is third on the list with 36.

We caught up with Boyler after the 3-1 win over the Magpies which secured Dundalk a second qualifying round showdown with Icelandic team KA Akureyri.

 On becoming the club’s record European appearance holder…
It’s nice, to be fair. A big part of coming back home in 2019 was to play regularly in Europe. I wasn’t aware that I was close to the record, to be honest, but 39 games is a nice achievement. It’s something I won’t really look back at until the end of my career, but there have been some good European nights along the way and obviously, we’re hoping that we can make some more memories this season.

On making his European debut in 2014
Jeunesse Esch, wasn’t it? In Luxembourg. It was a bit low-key compared to some of the other ones! I think St Patrick’s Athletic played in the same ground a few weeks ago and that brought back a few memories. I think we won 2-0, Richie Towell scored a couple of penalties, didn’t he? That was my first taste of Europe and when they come along, they’re absolutely great occasions.

On the win over FCB Magpies…
They made it tough. I think we were well worth the win but there are definitely areas that we can improve on. It was nice to see the third goal go in. When it’s 2-1, things can be a little bit edgy and anything can kind of happen. I thought we did limit them to very few chances but they were quite direct, probably not what many would have expected. When a team sits in that low block, it can be difficult. We probably could have played at a higher tempo in the first half but I think we kind of rectified it in the second half and 3-1 didn’t flatter us too much. We’ll have a look through it on Friday morning while we recover and then we’ll obviously turn our attention to a big game on Sunday.

On John Martin…
John has been brilliant and he has come up with some big moments for us. After the game, I was thinking back to some of the big goals he scored for us. You can see he has that little strap on his knee and he’s playing through a bit of pain at the moment but he came on and he had a massive effect. You can probably see how popular he is around the place and what a good character he has. I train against him every day and he is a real handful, one of those strikers who has got all the attributes. He’s still young and he’s one of those players that has definitely got levels to go.

On going back to Iceland…
We have good memories of Iceland from the game with FH back in 2016. When you look back at it, it was one of those nights where we didn’t realise the importance of winning that game. Winning that tie was massive and it set us off on that amazing adventure in 2016 but, as I said, we’re trying to make our own memories now. We spoke about that beforehand, that European nights are special and we want to enjoy as many of them as we can this season.

On Sunday’s FAI Cup tie with Rovers…
We need to forget about Iceland for a minute and, first and foremost, dust ourselves down and get ready for Sunday. The FAI Cup final is the best day out in the League of Ireland calendar. It’s the one game that we want to be involved in, and we’ll have to be our best if we’re going to go through.

On the busy schedule ahead…
Playing Thursdays and Sundays is the price you pay for success and getting into Europe but it’s something that over the years, you become accustomed to. It’s great rocking up to different venues and countries and they are the games you always want to be involved in. It was disappointing not being involved last year and watching from afar with a bit of envy. We’re back in Europe now, we’re through a round and we just need to make it the start of something.