Glentoran 0 – 1 Derry

Anticipation
When we wake up next Monday morning, we’ll be saying to ourselves, I can’t wait till Friday, the league kicks off for us with Bray Wanderers visit to the Brandywell.

Well yesterday morning, it was different, I woke up and the only thing on my mind was the Glentoran v Derry match at the Oval come 7.45pm in the evening. The start of the 2007 season for Derry. It had been a long 12 weeks and 1 day from the FAI Cup final over St Pat’s, the wait was over.

Headed in to work for a half day and the talk began, although there’s not that many Eircom League supporters in the place I work, almost everyone knows when Derry City are playing, might have something to do with me. The anticipation slowly built during the day and it really kicked in when the Derry jersey went on my back at 1pm, and I headed out to door to meet up with the lads.

Getting There
Met up with Morph “The Hitman” Smyth in town at 1pm, and got the Luas out to the Red Cow hotel to meet up with the rest of the lads. Stephen “No Nickname” Large and Graeme “Scoops” Taylor were already sitting at the bar waiting on food, so the grub was ordered and the day was about to kick off.

We had two cars heading up; Car 1 had Gary “Big Daddy” White driving, “The Hitman” riding shotgun and “No Nickname” and “The Child” in the back. Car 2 had The Twins, Darren McConway and Neil Karran, Scoops and Paddy “The Blonde” Ward in the back.

So Car 1 heading off at 2.30pm, with Gary White giving the rest of us strict orders to be at the door of the hotel at 2.30pm pronto as he wanted to hit the road ASAP. I have to admit I found this highly unusual as the rest of us were having lunch in the hotel and “Big D” is fond of his food, but that matter was soon cleared up when he brought out his Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends lunch box with his sandwiches and pack of crisps, and I was surprised that he managed to fit 4 Ham Baps in to it.

What’s Said in the Confessional Stays in the Confessional – Not Likely?
Well after “The Blonde’s” stint in Big Daddy’s Confessional (also known as the back seat of “Big D’s” car) last year with him confessing his undying love for Blonde’s it was my turn to open and mouth and firmly insert my foot into it.

After a good hour in the car, many a wise crack already passed, and Maverick being played, we were passing a lot of road works and “The Hitman” commented that the traffic always seem to slow down at this point even knowing they was no real need for it, to which I loosely responded “Sure it’s all the blokes slowing down to eye up the builders”.

Well 100 yards down the road “The Hitman” pipes up “What d’ya think of that builder Willy, he’s kinda cute!”, and the ribbing began, I’m hoping it will end some time around next April. My only saving grace is that I’ve already been nicknamed “The Child” after last years European Tour, otherwise It would have been Will “Bob the Builder” McCann.

Pre-Match Gargle
Well Car 1 ended up in Belfast just after 5pm, although we probably would have gotten there sooner if the car didn’t slow down all the time passing builders so that the lads could continue ripping the piss out of me, and we headed straight for the Odyssey, and “Big Daddy” headed straight to the Tapa’s Bar for some food and drink. And as always, when it comes to food, he made the right call, the grub was good and the pint of San Miguel also hit the spot. Then it was down the stairs for a few more gargles and to meet up with the rest of the troop.

A few beers were had and the Ryan “Ratboy” Smyth showed up from Derry with the match tickets in hand, and the anticipation went up another notch and then we headed towards the Oval.

The Match
If any of you have already read my previous attempts at doing a good match report you’ll know I fail every time, but hey, I can’t be perfect all of the time. For a much better match report check out CityWeb’s one at http://www.derrycityfc.net/season/07/news/displaystory.php?storyid=40

The match kicked off with Jennings, Rogers, Kelly, Oman, Hargan, Deery, Molloy, Martyn, McCourt, Bermingham and Farren as the starting 11. (shamelessly nicked from the about website).

Considering the Glens were mid season and match fit and this was Derry’s first competitive game in 2007, I thought we played very well. You could notice some of the rustiness that you would expect, like the odd stray pass, the first touch letting the players down (although I can’t really say anything about first touches, as if I try to control the ball in the box, someone usually ends up collecting it in the centre circle).

The things that did stand out in the match was the incident leading to Pat Fenlon being sent off, with the Glens Number 2 attempting to stamp on Paddy when he was on the ground and then squaring up to him when Paddy got up, to be honest I’d surprised the lad never got sent off in the match, as he did get a Yellow after that. Don’t blame Pat for going ballistic as the crowd was behind him on this one. From the new comers I though Dave Rogers had a great game and Bermingham did OK.

The game changed when Kevin McHugh came on for Bermingham, McHugh played brilliantly for us last season, whether it was on the wing or up front, and he didn’t fail us this time either, as on the 87th Minute when he rifled the ball into the back of the net after good work from Molloy and McCourt in mid field.

As always the Derry City Supporters showed up in force, the flags, the drums and the harmonica where all there, some good chants rang around the Oval, fav’s from this were

“Are you Shelbourne in disguise?”

“You’re just a small team from Belfast, a small team from Belfast.”

Of course all the old favourites were in they as well and the guys on the drums played all night.

That goal made the drive down to Dublin that much shorter, as you all know and probably have experienced, there’s nothing worse than having to make the trek back home after a defeat, but that wasn’t on the cards for the masses of Derry fans that made it to the game and long may it continue.

C’mon the Candystripes

Setanta Cup - 1st Up Glentoran

It's been 12 weeks since Derry's last competitive match in the final of the FAI Cup, where we all know they came out 3-2 victorous winners against St Pat's in Lansdowne Road.

Our first competitive match is in the Setanta Cup, where we have again been selected to play in the toughest group. This year the group consists of ourselves and Drogheda United from the League of Ireland and Linfield and Glentoran from the Irish League.

First up in the cup is Glentoran away. Glentoran are currently mid-season and have already played 11 competitive matchs in 2007, 4 Wins, 2 Draws and 5 losses, they currently sit 3rd in the Irish League 6 points behind Linfield. Both Glentorn and Linfield were in our group last year and against the Glens, we won 3-1 at home and lost 1-0 away. So hopefully come tomorrow night there'll be pay back for the defeat last year.

There's a squad of us heading up from Dublin for the match, and it will be my first time in the Oval, so hopefully we get the right result to talk about on our way back down.

Setanta Cup Predictions
To make it interesting and to try and raise some funds for the Dublin Supporters Club, I decided to run a Setanta Cup Predictions competition. We have 20 people entering, 18 predictions in so far, just waiting on the other two coming in tomorrow. So far, out of the 18, Derry are the firm favourites with 13 people saving they'll win the cup, 2 go for Cork, 2 for Linfield and 1 for Drogheda - although this might be slightly biased as most of the entries are coming from Derry fans.

Full predictions can be found here Setanta Cup Predictions . To view the file choose the FREE option to download, wait until the timer runds out, enter text and press enter to download. Out of 19 predictions in for tomorrow nights games we have 11 people going for a Derry win, 3 for a Glentoran win and 5 for a draw, with the favourite scoreline being Derry winning 2-1.

Bring it on, it's been a long wait for the start of the new season, but we are now less than 24 hours away, and hopefully we can build on the last 2 seasons and Pat Fenlon can continue his winning ways back winning the league.

C'mon the Candystripes

Match report and crack from the trip up in Belfast to follow in a few days time.