On rare occasions in sport there are triggers that fill people with emotion and make the hair stand on the back of your neck. It happens generally when an individual, team, club, county or country with whom we have a close involvement achieve something rare and special.

On a personal basis I will never forget June 18th 1994 in the Giants Stadium, New York, ahead of the Ireland v Italy World Cup game when Amhran na bhFiann struck up. December 4th 2005 as the final whistle sounded in Lansdowne Road and Drogheda United - the team I had followed since I was a nipper - at long last won the FAI Cup.

October 19th 2007 on a never-to-be-forgotten night when Guy Bates cracked home that late winning goal against Cork to win the league championship in truly dramatic fashion for the first time ever for the Boynesiders.

The Champions League final in Paris a couple of years back, when another of my childhood favourites - Arsenal - took the field against Barcelona, was also an occasion to behold as that haunting melody 'The Champions' greeted the arrival of the teams.

However, it took the playing of that same tune twice in the last fortnight to bring on that feeling in the pit of the stomach, that tingling sensation from head to toe, chill down the spine, back of the neck syndrome as Drogheda walked out representing Ireland in what was yet another first for the club, town and its people in the Champions League.

It cannot have been lost on anyone that this was the pinnacle of a rags-to-riches story that could not have been envisaged back in late 2003 when a small, ambitious group with a clear vision of the future took control of the club and installed Paul Doolin as manager.

And when one of the most successful players in the history of the Irish game took the reins, he did so in good faith, placing his trust in direc-tors who talked a good game at a club with a chequered history and absolutely no trad-ition when it came to success or winning major trophies.

Back in the late autumn of that year, the club was fighting to stay in business and staring relegation in the face.

What has happened in the interim is nothing short of phenomenal. Four significant pieces of silverware now adorn the trophy cabinet, along with a third successive European campaign that has seen the club advance past round one each year and in that first year go within a whisker of winning through to round three and a crack at making the group stages of the Uefa Cup.

The directors at Drogheda who have invested heavily in terms of money and time, besides achieving success on the park in tandem, are on the verge of delivering not alone a new stadium but a business model that will ensure the viability and financial stability of the club into the future.

This at a time when negativity and lack of ambition abounds in League of Ireland circles, with a few notable exceptions. It is no surprise that the majority of its clubs flounder and in some cases implode in a league that is leaderless, penniless, wants to stymie investment and has no clear vision or business plan for the future.

I digress. Let us put this one aside for another day and concentrate on the positives as Cork City and St Pat's go into the second leg of their respective European ties with every chance of winning through, thus proving that professional clubs in a full-time league is the way forward.

Wins home and away against Estonian champions FC Levadia have written another chapter in the United story, and as you read this piece Drogheda will have reached yet one more historic milestone in this current glorious era. They will have played their biggest competitive game ever against one of the aristocrats of the European game, Dynamo Kiev.

The most successful club side in the history of the former USSR and Ukrainian champions in 12 of the last 15 seasons since their accession from the Soviet Union will have been engaged in the first leg of the second qualifying round of the Champions League. Is this for real?

Yes it is, and it is wonderful, exciting, unbelievable - a dream come true for everyone in this little Irish town and hinterland as little Drogheda lock horns with a football power from a city with a population of almost three million inhabitants.

'Immeasurable' best describes what our football club has done for the image and profile of this, for far too long, downtrodden area nationally and on the European stage. In terms of self-belief, confidence and pride, the benefit to its people is unquantifiable.

No matter what the outcome against Kiev, Drogheda United have done us all a power of good. And what is more, as the song says, Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now - not even the NRA.