Irish
League Forums Supporters' 5-a-side Tournament at Armagh City’s
Holm
Keith Bailie's squad of players set off for Armagh from Newtownards at 9am last Saturday morning hoping to improve upon their results at Ballymena 2004 where Ards lost all three games letting in twelve goals and failing to score.
Out
of last years supporters’ squad were Adrian Monaghan and Drew
Burgess who were on holiday and Gary Stannage who missed out due
to work commitments. Joining last years veterans Keith Bailie,
Andrew McCullough and DJ McCullough were Keith Gilmore, Alan
Potts, David Killen, Stuart Killen, Ryan O’Neill and Dougie
Redmond.
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| Davy keeps a watchful eye |
The
5-a-side tournament is held each year for supporters and is run by
the members of the Irish League Forums. This year 18 teams were
divided into 3 groups of 6 with the top two from each qualifying
for the Quarter Finals along with the best two 3rd placed teams.
Those who failed to qualify went into the Plate competition apart
from the two teams with the worst records in the group stages, who
contested a Wooden Spoon playoff, something we were keen to avoid.
The
first game of the day came against a young Islandmagee side who
beat us 3-0 in last season's tournament. However this season
Ards put in a much better display holding The Islanders to a
credible 0-0. If truth be told Islandmagee were the better team
for most of the game with the Ardsmen resorting to giving away a
number of free kicks. No doubt the star of the game was our
excellent goalkeeper Dougie who kept us in the game and got us a
difficult point.
The
next game of the day was against Coleraine. Last season the
Bannsiders were the worst team in the tournament (the only side
worse than us!) but this year they were greatly improved. That is
not to say that we didn't give them a good game, in fact we
dominated play for most of the game failing to take our chances.
Coleraine however hit us on the break and scored with their only
chance to beat us 1-0. In a rather rough game Stuart Killen picked
up a dubious yellow card for obstruction and later on in the game
Dougie Redmond joined him in the refs book for dissent.
Our third game came against Glentoran. Unfortunately our team adopted the attitude of our senior team in recent years when faced with one of the Big Two and didn’t get into the game. We went down 2-0 with Stuart Killen scoring an own goal. A disconsolate Ards side stomped off to the Armagh City social club to regroup.
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It
was the same old story for Ards in game four against Cliftonville.
The Reds defeated us 1-0 while Ryan O’Neill, DJ McCullough and
Alan Potts all missed chances to get our first goal. Ryan's
early chance being the most clear cut. Substitute Keith Gilmore
came very close to equalising with a long-range effort in injury
time. Other notable incidents were DJ picking up a harsh yellow
card for dissent and Dougie deciding to do a Robbo and take on the
Cliftonville team, which almost resulted in a goal for the Reds.
As it stood Ards had only picked up 1 point and had failed to score in any of their seven matches over the past two tournaments. We were rock bottom of the group and faced the dreaded wooden spoon play-off if we did not win by at least two goals. Unfortunately for us we faced a Glenavon side who were chasing qualification to the Quarter Finals and who defeated us 5-0 in the final game last time around. However an inspired Ards display using all nine squad players recorded an historic 2-0 win giving Ards their first tournament win and their first tournament goal.
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| Dougie's a spectator |
The
goals game from an inspired Keith Gilmore who fired home two
cracking efforts to give us a two-goal lead. Once again Dougie put
in an excellent display keeping his second clean sheet of the day.
Davy Killen did an excellent job as our lone defender, in midfield
his brother Stuarty bossed the midfield while Ryan ran his socks
off in the early part of the game before being replaced by DJ who
continued his excellent work.
Alan
Potts and Andrew McCullough were introduced to shore up the
defence late on with Keith Bailie coming in late in a chasing
paper role which almost resulted in third goal for the Ards men,
Bailie seeing the ball just scrap past the post.
This
left the Group A league table looking as follows
1.
Coleraine 8pts
2. Cliftonville 8pts
3. Glentoran 7pts
4. Islandmagee 6pts
5. Glenavon 6pts
6. Ards 4pts
Despite finishing last in their group Ards avoided the wooden spoon playoff as they had the best record of the three last placed teams. Of course Ards did not make it into the Quarter Finals of the Cup but we did secure a place in the Plate Quarter Finals where we met the Linfield supporters. By this stage the Ards boys were feeling the effects of an early start, five tough matches and a few pints of beer and slumped out 2-0 but by this stage we had already done what we had came to do and that was to score and win.
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| not a ringer - that's the ref! |
As
Ards went back to the pub, Linfield continued on through to the
Semi’s where they were defeated by Loughgall, who eventually
lost to Carrick Rangers in the Plate Final. The Wooden Spoon went
to last year’s hosts Ballymena United who lost to Larne on
penalties after a 1-1 draw. In the Competition proper Institute
made it two wins in two years beating Portadown 2-0 in the Final
with Stuart getting both goals.
I'd
like to thank all of the players who came out and played for the
Red and Blue Army, I'm sure they all agree that they had an
excellent day. I’d also like to thank all the other teams for
the good banter particularly the Reds and the Crues. Most
importantly we’d all like to thank the organising committee who
made the tournament possible and all the people at Armagh City FC
who provided us with facilities, burgers and beer. Maybe one day
in the future we can invite you all down to the Portaferry Road to
host the tournament.
PHOTOS: courtesy of Wilbourner
ardsfc.co.uk
