Supporters’ Club Notes (26/03/2018)
FIVE STAR WIN
On a lovely night for football, we scored five times against Athlone Town to bring our home tally to ten goals. We also remain unbeaten at home. It was great to see young local lad Aodh Dervin start the game and play so well too. But as many in the decent sized crowd commented, it was probably the poorest ever side to don the Athlone jersey. Normally, there’s a large travelling support but they too failed to materialise. In truth, we could have doubled our tally and still wouldn’t have been flattered. A few supporters wondered why we played in our away strip; seemingly the referee wasn’t happy with the Athlone strip but they had brought no away strip so we changed instead. Maybe that was why we started so poorly and were a goal behind before we even settled into our seats. But once we got into our stride, it was only a matter of how many goals we could notch up. Despite some poor clearances by their keeper, he did make some brave stops and together with our shyness to shoot, it finished up only 5-1. But playing without a number of first team regulars, we are not complaining with the three points on offer being safely bagged.
GALWAY AWAY
Our next game, away to Galway United will be a different kettle of fish to Athlone; indeed it’ll be a different kettle. Friday, March 30th is the date and 7.45pm is kick off time at Eamonn Deacy Park and it promises to be one tough game. If you’d like to travel by coach, you can book by contacting 083 167 0304 by lunch time this Wednesday. Hopefully, it’ll be a very good Friday for us.
CAR BOOT SALE
The dust has barely settled on our first Car Boot Sale and already our next one is upon us. The Easter Bank Holiday Monday, April 2nd is the date for your diary. Gates open at 4am with the opportunity for early stall holders to pay the nominal fee. As usual, it continues on till 3pm when the big clean up commences. The March Car Boot Sale exceeded all expectations. Despite the poor weather forecast, a huge crowd witnessed a remarkable day of trading and all have promised to be back on Monday for more of the same. When it comes to Car Boot Sales and volunteers to run them, it looks like we’re league winners.
MATCH PROGRAMME AND MORE
Once again well done to our team behind the match programme. The cover was a classic pic from the 1980’s taken from the Longford Memories Facebook page. And while on the subject of Facebook, there’s an extensive gallery of photos from our game against Athlone on both our Facebook pages and the club website. On Sunday, a good few regular Town supporters headed up to see the Gaelic match. It was interesting to compare the facilities between the CCS and GBPP.
STEPHANIE
It was lovely to see Stephanie Roche, Dean Zambra’s best friend at the match on Saturday night. Despite having her leg heavily strapped following an injury, she willingly made her way from the stand to be photographed with the Gael’s U10 girls team. Currently, Stephanie is a striker with Sunderland Ladies and is an Ireland international. Apart from her international scoring prowess, she’ll be fondly remembered for her remarkable goal scored for Peamount against Wexford Youths in October 2013.
Thankfully, that stunning goal was captured on camera and duly went viral. Later, she was short listed for the 2014 FIFA Puskas Award for the Best Goal of the Year. Stephanie was the only female nominated. She eventually made it to the last three alongside James Rodriguez and Robin van Persie – who both scored their goals in the 2014 World Cup.
Talking about the massive publicity that surrounded that goal and her subsequent media coverage, Stephanie was just happy that the women’s game was in the limelight. Well, the Gaels U10 girls and their mentors were over the moon to have shared a little of that limelight on Saturday night last.
PLAYER OF THE MONTH – MARCH
The Player of the Month will be chosen after the game against Galway United and the presentation will be made at the next home game. Each month, the presentation will be made from the list of current members of the Supporters’ Club. If you’re lucky enough to be drawn, please be available at the players’ tunnel as they come off the pitch after their warm up.