CONVOY Arsenal haven’t had senior glory to put on display at Orchard Park in eleven years but captain Evan MacBride is hopeful that will change today,
Convoy won the Division Two title in 2014 and while they have tasted promotion on two occasions since, most recently in 2019 which was MacBride’s first year in senior football, they haven’t got their hands on a league trophy since then.
“We got promotion in 2019 into the Premier Division under Michael ‘Hammy’ Rodgers but we got relegated the season after that,” MacBride said ahead of this Sunday’s match with Kerrykeel ’71.
“I’m 23 this month, it’s a nice honour (to be captain) and it would be great to lift the trophy on Sunday afternoon.
“There’s a great packed squad and we are very young, a lot of the team are younger than me so it’s bright for the future and hopefully we can put a good side out in Division 1.
“We’re lucky in Convoy that we have a lot of Under 18s and youth coming through and hopefully they can help us push on.
“We have Darren Harvey, Gary Brolly then Calvin Bradley and Luke Kelly came in this season from Killygordon so there is good experience too.
“There hasn’t been a trophy since they won Division Two in 2014 so it would definitely be nice to bring a cup back to Convoy on Sunday.”
Convoy were relegated last season from a competitive Division One last season and the club were keen to bounce back.
With Johnny Doherty taking over as manager, they went through the first 15 league games unbeaten before a 1-0 defeat to Letterbarrow last time out, which has left them with a winner-takes-all match against Kerrykeel this Sunday.
“Johnny has done a lot of work this year and he’s a great man for the club, even his work with the underage teams.
“We’re training hard and our fitness levels have definitely improved since last year and it’s a good reward then to get promotion and hopefully a league title next.
“The goal when we started out in July was probably promotion.
“After last season with relegation we wanted to bounce back and winning the league would definitely be a bonus.
“There’s a lot at stake and it’s all about whatever team wins, if we draw it’s not too bad and we can still win it but it’ll be a bit of a battle.
“We’ve had good nights in Orchard Park like when we beat Cockhill Celtic (Youths) 2-1 and we unfortunately got beat by Letterkenny Rovers Reserves 3-2 but we put up a good fight that day and just fell short.
“It was a disappointing loss against Letterbarrow but we have only lost once in the league so overall it has been a great season which is good to see.”
Convoy won promotion after that loss, but they didn’t get to celebrate winning it on the pitch as Dunkineely Celtic didn’t field, so MacBride and co are hopeful they will be able to do so this Sunday in Rab’s Park.
A point ahead of the home side, a draw is all they need to take the title but MacBride assures that they won’t be playing for a draw.
“Yeah we were a wee bit disappointed, I don’t know what the reason was behind Dunkineely not fielding and that’s how we sealed promotion but it would have been nicer to win it on the field that day if we beat them.
“But promotion was the main objective after last season and that’s what we’ve done so we’ll look to push on this Sunday.
“It’ll be a good game against Kerrykeel, they’re a quality side and we drew at Orchard Park before Christmas and they’ve been flying this year.
“There’s a lot at stake so it’ll be a hard battle down there.
“It will be whoever is the best team on the day will win it and that’s it, it’s the sort of game you want to be playing in and it would be nice to win it on the day and you can say you won it fair and square so we’re all looking forward to it and there’s been a lot of talk about it the last week.
“We’ll not be going out to play for a draw anyway, we’ll be looking for the three points to get the job done. They’ll be up for it too and we’ve been chopping and changing between each other in first and second all season so hopefully there’s a good crowd there too.
“Our squad is nearly fully fit, we lost JP Malley before Christmas and young Ryan McGroarty is also out but other than that we have the full squad so we’ll be ready and up for it on Sunday.”
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