The alarm clock is set for roughly 4.15pm today. That’s the time when Oran Kearney wants to hear the sleeping giant that is Coleraine Football Club awakened from a slumber that has lasted a lifetime.

The Bannsiders’ golden era in the mid-1970s — when they won three Irish Cups and the only League title in the club’s history to boot — is so long ago that it was before Kearney was even born.

Only a solitary Irish Cup has been won in the last 35 years — although there has been minor silverware along the way — as Coleraine fans have looked enviously towards Portadown, Crusaders and Cliftonville, who have all claimed league titles.

Like those clubs, the potential fanbase in the north-west is massive if the club can just spark a run of success and that is borne out by the fact that come 2,500 supporters in blue and white will back their team in tomorrow’s IRN-BRU League Cup final against Crusaders at the Ballymena Showgrounds (2.30).

And for Kearney the plan is for this game to be just the start of another golden age at Coleraine.

“We’ve always said it, and even coming through the door when I took over a year ago the first reason, more than anything, for coming here is that it is a big club and the potential for success in the future is huge,” said Kearney.

“We’re starting to shake that by the roots and we’re starting to waken that slightly.

“Last Saturday we had 800-900 fans at our league game against Glenavon, this week we’ll have 2,500.

“My big thing for the players is that on days like this Saturday and Boxing Day where there are extra fans coming through the gate they have to make sure we put on a good product so that we can try to get them back.

“Hopefully Saturday will leave a good taste with the fans and they will come back and support us in the future.”

It’s that great potential — which has gone unfulfilled under many more experienced managers — that motivated Kearney to sign a new contract with the Bannsiders that will keep him at the club until the summer of 2015.

The signs of what could be achieved are definitely there. Two weeks ago it looked like the final might have to be switched to Windsor Park in order to accommodate all the Coleraine fans who just have to be there.

Their first batch of tickets sold out within three days and the club sponsors came on-board to assist with temporary seating and save them the journey to Belfast.

“It's brilliant. We got a taste of it when we went to a pre-season tournament in Stranraer and took over 300 fans and that was just to Scotland for the weekend,” said Kearney.

“That told us — and the new players who had just came to the club — how big things could get.

“Now that the opportunity to play in a final has come along they’ve been brilliant.

“To have sold 2,500 tickets is brilliant for the lads.

“In the town itself, the Lodge Road roundabout and the Ballycastle Road roundabout as well as all through the town there are blue and white flags everywhere.

“Everyone has bought into it. More than anything the job is now in our hands to go and deliver.”

Kearney hasn’t quite been in the job a year, but very quickly the 33-year-old — the league’s youngest manager before Gary Hamilton was appointed at Glenavon — has put his own stamp on things very quickly.

The number of players signed during the summer hit double figures and he even managed to persuade former Linfield striker Curtis Allen and ex-Glentoran full-back Johnny Black that the best place to get over being axed by one of the Big Two was under his stewardship.

The Ballycastle schoolteacher also recruited former pupils Shane Jennings and Ciaran Clarke.

Kearney never lost a domestic final during his career — with his first medals coming during Linfield’s Grand Slam season of 2005-06 — and he doesn’t intend to let that record go.

“I always say that I am a lucky manager, but maybe I was an unlucky player so something has to go for me,” said Kearney, who would have won more trophies with the Blues had his career not been cut short almost three years ago.

“I was lucky enough to play in lots of good teams and it’s nice to have those medals, but this is my first final as a manager and I want to start that with a trophy.”