Wednesday 26th December 2018. Kick off 3.00pm.
On Wednesday we travel across the city to face our old rivals Linfield in the Boxing Day “Big Two” match at the National Stadium at Windsor Park, the fixture likely to again command the year’s biggest club league attendance in Ireland.
Last year this fixture was by far the highspot of an otherwise dismal season as we enjoyed our first Boxing Day win for a while when goals from Curtis Allen and a late winner from Robbie McDaid overturned a first half opener for Linfield from Cameron Stewart. There will be at least five changes from last year’s starting line up as four players – Kym Nelson, James Knowles, Dan Kelly and Jonathan Smith - have since left the club while another – Calum Birney – is suspended.
Our last Christmas visit to Windsor, two years ago was a 1-1 draw when a later equaliser from Aaron Harmon cancelled out a first half goal from Mark Haughey. Despite being just two years ago just three of the fourteen players who featured that day – Elliott Morris, Curtis Allen and late substitute James Ferrin – will be in contention for a place this time.
With our last two games postponed, we go into the game with four first team regulars - Ross Redman, Calum Birney, Joe Crowe and John McGuigan – suspended with Crowe also out for Saturday’s home match with Crusaders. However the rest of the squad is fit and available for selection.
Ronnie McFall said on Sunday afternoon: “Obviously I’d rather be taking on Linfield with a full squad to pick from but as well as Nathan Kerr in his regular place I have very good, experienced players like Garrett, Ferrin and Kane who will allow me to reshuffle the back four in a way that lets us go there confident. We could have done with playing our match at Newry on Friday night but we were in for a very intense session on Saturday and we’re in again tomorrow morning so everyone will be totally ready and up for this one.
Boxing Day “Big Two” matches have always been massive occasions and a good result can set up the second half of the season. I thought we definitely deserved more than we got out of the first two matches with the Blues this season but I’m fed up saying that as it’s about time we stopped making unforced errors against the better teams and actually started getting wins in these games. There’s no0 better [place to start than Windsor Park on Boxing Day.”
The Board, Management and players of Glentoran would like to wish all of our supporters, sponsors and volunteers a very Happy Christmas and to thank all of you for your support throughout the year.
