Saturday evening sees Glentoran Women’s first senior cup final of the season as we face Cliftonville Ladies at Blanchflower in the final of the County Antrim Challenge Cup (KO 7.30).
This promises to be an epic clash between the two sides who have been untouchable in Northern Ireland football in recent years and will feature a massive chunk of the current Northern Ireland senior squad. On our side that includes Nadene Caldwell, Demi Vance, Chloe McCarron and Emily Wilson. In addition no fewer than six of the current Northern Ireland under 19 squad - Aimee Kerr, Kascie Weir, Megan Neill, Rachel McIntyre, Sarah Tweedie and Sofie Keenan – are likely to be in Kim Turner’s squad.
Although league top scorer Kerry Beattie departed for Hearts last month, the Glens still have a number of the league’s top scorers in the squad including Demi Vance, Rachel Rogan (both on 14 goals in all competitions so far) and Emily Wilson (10). In seventeen matches in all domestic competitions so far the Glens have scored 96 goals with only ten conceded,
Although Cliftonville are the current holders of this cup, Glentoran won it for the previous three seasons. Most recently – in 2022 – a double from Joely Andrews (who recently left to join Hearts in Scotland) and one from Nadene Caldwell – still a mainstay of the Glentoran and Northern Ireland teams – gave us a 3-1 win over Crusaders Strikers at the Blanchflower Stadium. Nine of the victorious squad that night are likely to feature on Saturday while another – last season’s GWFC Players' Player of the Year Emma McMaster – will miss out due to an injury.
The Glens have lost just one of their last 36 league games, a disappointing 2-1 defeat to the Reds at Blanchflower last month. But they also lost to Saturday’s opponents to exit the League Cup when goals from Emily Wilson and Demi Vance weren’t enough to avoid a 3-2 defeat at Solitude back in April. In both games the Glens led at one stage so there will need to be a greater resilience on display on Saturday. However last time the two sides met in a cup final was in last season’s Irish Cup when we ran out 3-0 winners with goals from Kerry Beattie, Emma McMaster and Rachel Rogan.
This promises to be an epic tussle between two outstanding teams. For all the outstanding success the girls have enjoyed in recent years the Glentoran Family has not regularly come out in sufficient numbers. As well as a great match this also gives Glentoran supporters the chance to pay respect to a group of women who are an absolute credit to our club. Be there!
Pay at the gate for this one.
