As Dublin isn’t too far from the Northern Irish border, I took the opportunity to tick off football country number sixty-one with a visit to the Newry Showgrounds. It was an easy drive, and I was there early enough to park up close to the ground and wander past the nearby Gaelic football stadium to a petrol station that sold gloves and hats. It’s chilly in Northern Ireland in February.
The game was listed as a home fixture in the Irish Cup for Newington Youth, despite it being at Newry City’s ground. Maybe they’d switched venues for some reason. Newington are a club in the second tier of Northern Irish football with Newry in the top tier.
Newry City are fairly new, having been formed when Newry Town went bust a few years ago. They still play at the same ground though and it’s the place where Pat Jennings used to play for them back when they were Town. I liked Jennings. He was my favourite footballer until I discovered the Boro and Jim Platt took his mantle.
It was ten quid admission, and I was given an Irish tenner as change from my English twenty. Anxious not to be stuck with it I soon offloaded it for some raffle tickets and a tray of chips with curry sauce. The ground holds seven and a half thousand in theory, but it’s dropping to bits and currently limited to just two thousand. I don’t think that capacity was threatened for this fixture.
Newington showed more intent early on, but it was Newry that took the lead after a quarter of an hour, hitting the lower league team on the break. Newington were level within ten minutes though when the Newry keeper somehow managed to let a back post header slip underneath him. I doubt that Mr Jennings would have conceded that one, even at the age of seventy-eight.
Newington went ahead on the half-hour with a close-range tap in. The Newry fans were furious and blamed the lino for keeping his flag down. He did seem reluctant to get involved in the offsides, which is not really something you want from a bloke running the line.
I watched the second half standing behind the goal as Newington had numerous chances to put the game to bed. They didn’t take them though and after one effort went wide, a girl near me exclaimed “Shiver me timbers” in a similar tone that I might use when uttering “FFS”. It was worth the trip for that alone.
It finished two-one, and it was Newington that went through to the next round.
Tags: Jim Platt, Pat Jennings, Shiver me timbers
Trail of the Lion King 
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