Tuesday 10th October
Kick Off 7.45pm
Clandeboye Park, Bangor
Tomorrow evening we travel to Clandeboye Park to meet Playr-Fit Championship side Ards in the quarter final of the Toal’s County Antrim Shield for the second consecutive season.
Last season’s match was a relatively straightforward 4-1 win, though none of the Glens scorers are with us this season. Ally Roy scored twice in the first three minutes, Kirk McLaughlin got the third with a wonder strike and Danny Purkis bundled the call home for the fourth late on. Three years ago we beat Ards 5-4 on penalties at the Bet McLean Oval after a turgid scoreless draw.
Now in a fifth successive season in the Championship after relegation from the Premiership in 2019, Ards find themselves in ninth place in the current Championship standings. Under the stewardship of former Warrenpoint and Portadown manager Matthew Tipton, Cup matches have brought more joy to date, with an impressive 5-1 win at Ballinamallard taking them into the next round of the League Cup and a 2-1 victory over Queens University setting up tonight’s Quarter Final tie.
Amongst the current squad, defender Karl Hamill, midfielder Patrick Cafolla and winger Salou Jallow have all previously played first team football for Glentoran and ex Crusaders and Portadown full back Michael Ruddy and summer signing James McLaughlin from Coleraine both boast considerable top-level experience.
Warren Feeney: “There’s no one more disappointed than me about how the past three weeks have gone for us. I thought in the first half hour against Linfield were fairly comfortable, but it was the same lack of confidence when we went behind that we’ve shown recently and we couldn’t get over that for the rest of the match. The only way to get out of that is to work hard, which we are, and to get a couple of good performances and results under our belts. Our fans have been great up to now, but when players’ confidence is low they need the fans to be loudly behind them to help them out of it. I know that can be difficult when performances are poor but anything else won’t help their confidence at all.
I said last week that this club needs to start winning trophies and this is the chance to get into a semi final and take it from there. People can be dismissive of the Shield but Roy Coyle told me at the weekend that his first trophy as a Glentoran player and as a manager was the Shield and that it gave him the confidence to press on and win the bigger trophies A bit of silverware on the table can change the mod very quickly and be a platform for the future. That’s how Glentoran needs to see the likes of the Shield”.
This game is pay at the gate.