LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Niall McCabe has walked off the pitch for the final time, and with him goes the last grain of sand in the original hourglass of Louisville City FC.
He wore No. 11. He stayed 11 years. Nobody tell the numerologists.
McCabe wasn’t just part of LouCity’s first team. He was the part that never left. The man who lined up on Day One at Louisville Slugger Field — back when the corner flag had to dodge home plate — and stayed as the club outgrew baseball diamonds, moved into its own cathedral, and became the USL Championship’s standard-bearer.
Born in Dublin, raised in East Wall, McCabe came to Louisville by way of Young Harris College in Georgia and an open tryout. Show up. Bring boots. Don’t blink.
He didn’t. He made the team. Then he made history.
He played in every season Louisville City has ever had. More than 100 appearances. Second-most caps in club history. Third in assists. Third in minutes played. Ninth in goals scored. He didn’t just age with the club — he matured with it.
And through it all, he never gave the impression he was in it for himself. He played like a man who knew somebody else had bought the ticket. It was your Saturday. He was going to make it worth your while.
He played in the cold. He played in the heat. He played in the middle of midfield traffic and never used a blinker. He wasn’t the flashiest, just the most familiar. He was LouCity’s Irish coffee: strong, reliable, and best served at dusk.
He was a player’s player. Demanding of himself and of everyone around him. In his farewell statement, he thanked teammates and staff “for making me better.”
“I’ll miss the intensity and competition we had on the daily,” he wrote. “I know sometimes I was probably a bit much, but I just wanted to win. Everyone says it, but I’ll miss the changing room just as much — all the ping pong, games of Mafia and Left Right Center. Enjoy the little things because it goes by in a flash.”
You can’t tell the story of LouCity without him. It’s hard to tell where the club ended and he began. He was there for two championships (2017, 2018), and all the heartbreaks in between. For the beginnings that became traditions. He helped raise the first trophy and the first tentpole. He was there when 6,000 fans made it feel like twice that many. And when they built something no one thought possible.
“To the fans who spent hard-earned money to watch me play games, I appreciate you showing up in the freezing cold or the blistering heat,” he said. “You created an incredible environment for me to play in and stuck with me from Slugger Field onward to Lynn Family Stadium.”
He contributed at least one goal or assist in every season he played. His 11 seasons with a single club — in any league — is nearly unheard of. In USL Championship history, it’s unmatched.
When he said goodbye this week, it wasn’t with a microphone. It was with gratitude. To the fans. To the boardroom. To teammates, old and new. To his wife Ashleigh and their kids, who shared him with a soccer club for more than a decade. To the city that adopted him, and the franchise he helped define.
“Eleven years for number 11 is a nice way to end it,” he said.
It is. But numbers don’t do it justice.
“Niall has been an amazing role model to our community for over a decade,” said James O'Connor, the coach who signed him out of that first tryout and who now serves as club president. “I can still remember him in that first year working his tail off in preseason at 6:30 a.m. as we were surrounded by eight inches of snow and had to train indoors. He pushed hard to maximize what he had and made sure his teammates were as committed as he was. It’s been an amazing journey we have all shared.”
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