Section O Says Hello! (06/06/13)

Good evening Ladies and Gentleman once again from the other side of the ground. After a short break to test ourselves in cup games against two very different sides in terms of league position and stature, we are back to our bread and butter ...topping the league!

Pike Rovers (Insert fish pun here...)

The Cup has always had a special place in all Town fan’s hearts for obvious reasons. For many Town fans, the cup games, not just cup finals, which we have been involved in over the last 12 years or so, have been the most memorable games. It could even be said that there may have been a touch of GAA mentality from some Town fans when we were at our most successful in that they would see the Cup games as almost bigger and more important than the league. This it would seem, is certainly not the case anymore, particularly this season as the majority of Town fans only have one thing on their minds.....promotion! There certainly wasn’t too many disappointed faces a few weeks ago in Hunky Dory Park as the small but vocal Section O lads sang the lads off the park having lost 6-0 in the League Cup. “Couldn’t care less” seemed to be the general consensus, “this year is all about the league”. A similar reaction was heard from the lads who travelled to Richmond on Tuesday and sang their hearts out for 120 minutes. It is for this reason so that last weekend’s cup game against Pike Rovers wasn’t met with the same amount of enthusiasm as some of our other games this season. We’ll be the first to put our hands up to admit that some of us even left our usual Saturday ritual of decorating Section O in flags to just half an hour before kick off! The majority of us would have much preferred for it to be an ordinary league game and a chance to increase our lead at the top of the table. Presumably that must have also been the attitude of the general Longford public judging by the poor attendance! The lads from Limerick were the only Junior team in the 2^nd round of the FAI cup. Before the game there were rumours that they were missing up to 12 players with many injured and some even off on their holidays, possibly sharing the same blasé attitude towards the game as many of the Section O lads did. One group who certainly didn’t seem to share this attitude however were De Town players! They came out and dominated the game from start to finish without taking anything for granted. O’Sullivan in particular from the very start looked extremely hungry for goals and sure enough he finished off the game with a well deserved hat-trick. The pick of which being his third goal when young Josh O’Hanlon, who had been looking very dangerous down the right wing since coming on, got to the line and chipped the most delicate of crosses across the box which was just asking for Sully to knock his head onto it. Sully, Shaw, Purds and Quinner all had plenty of chances throughout the game and really, we were unlucky not to have won by more with the Pike Keeper “Gary Neville” saving their blushes on a few occasions. The game was then sealed in the very last minute when O’Hanlon was brought down in the box, winning a peno, to which Salmo coolly finished, capping off another solid performance from the skipper.

It was certainly a rather subdued atmosphere in Section O compared to normally, especially considering it was a 4-0 win. All credit has to go to the players however for a truly professional performance. A positive example of their hunger to win could be seen when Keith Quinn had to remind the referee, who was having a not so professional performance, that it shouldn’t matter to him how much we were winning by after the referee told Willie Tyrell to “Go easy, you’re winning 3 –0”. This along with another example of the referee up in Mervue shouting back at a fan would really make you question the quality of referees in this league. That discussion is for another day however and for now our eyes turn to the FAI cup draw on the 17^th June. Our priority this year may be the League and securing promotion but I would lying if I said that a few of us here in Section O don’t have our fingers crossed for a boozy bus trip in the sun up to the likes of the Showgrounds or Tallaght this summer!!

“Take a hike Pike!!!” Marty 5.8

Away Days – El Clasico!!

Finally the big one has come! Athlone may have fallen off the pace of late in terms of their performance in the league but this is still an away trip that many of us have been looking forward to for a long time! Section O are running a bus over for the short trip to Athlone next Friday, the 14^th, leaving Foxes bar at approximately half 6! At the moment the Section O lads are all working hard trying to raise money in order to subsidise the bus for everyone to make the trip as cheap as possible, so you will have no excuse not to go! If you are interested in going please text your name to 0877619299 asap as we will be trying to find out what size of a bus we will need as soon as possible!

FIFA Competition

After the success of our last FIFA competition, we plan to have our next one very shortly. The plan is to have it in the next week or so before the Athlone game so we can try and subsidise the bus next Friday. The tournament will be held in Foxes bar one of the days next week, so please keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages for more information!

Tweet(s) of the Week

Although this is usually reserved for player’s tweets, this week we’ve a few tweets from a few opposition fans from the Premier division saying some nice things about us after our recent trips in the Leinster Senior Cup and League Cup…cheers lads!

Dodge @siedodge (Pat’s Fan) “Longford Fans class tonight, Never stopped”

Salem Saberhagen @Shane_o_reilly (Pat’s Fan)  “Longford fans were singing the home and away theme tune earlier #Excellent”

Gerard @GerardGrimes11 (Drogheda fan)  “Think Section O are a great group!6-0 down against us and they sang the whole game!”

Chant of the Week

“Kolo, Kolokolo, KoloKolo, Kolo WHERE’S NKOLO???”

This week our chant of the week is an old one mixed around a little. We have neither seen nor heard from Etanda in quite a few weeks now and we would like to know his whereabouts. Etanda became a Section O cult hero after only a few games this season. We decided to put our money where our mouth was and officially sponsor him, not to mention coming up with the most fun chant to sing since the one about Eric wandering around the Market Square on a Saturday night!! Things seemed to be going great with Etanda until he claimed he “slept in” when standing us up for our last FIFA tournament in Foxes. That was ok….we forgave and forgot…we still sang the song, Etanda still played…until a few weeks ago when he wasn’t appearing on the team sheet or even in the stand at games…so now we want to know…..WHERE’S NKOLO?

Section O Membership

This year the Supporters club are offering a new “Section O” membership to attract younger supporters who wish to get involved. Membership costs the same as the Supporters Club, €10 or €5 for students. We at Section O intend to hold regular meetings where younger fans can ask questions and express their views which can then be brought forward to the Supporters Club.

Keep updated

If getting a hold of the match programme every fortnight to get your fix of these brilliantly put together notes just isn’t enough for you, make sure to keep up to date with all Section O news by liking our page on Facebook or following us on Twitter at @section_o_ltfc! There is also a new Section O….eh “section” on the official Club site www.ltfc.ltfc.ovh, where we will be hoping to add weekly news as well as any fan pictures we can get our hands on.