Clarke and Pike head East Antrim revolution at Moyola Park

The manager, is one time Ballyclare Comrades goalkeeper Billy Clarke, an ex Grange Rangers manager, who also had spells as coach at Carrick Rangers and Islandmagee. Rated as one of East Antrim’s top coaches, Billy received tuition from gurus such as Don Howe and then Scotland manager Craig Brown, whilst working for his European coaching badge. Having originally come to Moyola as coach, Billy has now taken over the managerial reins, stepping up after Brian Hutchinson’s departure.

Yet even with two ex ‘number 1’s’ in charge, Moyola, ironically, were still on the hunt for someone to look after the goalkeepers and someone who was making a name for himself as one of the country’s up and coming goalkeeping coaches, Lee Wilson (Newington Rangers and Glentoran Ladies) who was also spending one night a week at the Oval with Davy McClelland (ex Larne) coaching the Academy keepers.

WIlson joined Moyola last October, and it wasn’t long before he was putting a familiar face through their paces, in Aaron McGrath, also snapped up from Newington Rangers.

While Clarke soldiered on himself as the new boss, he knew he needed a new assistant and thoughts began to stray back to the Knowe, and Newington, where manager Stuart Pike had at one time tried to bring him on board as the new Rangers coach.

It didn’t take long for Billy and Lee to convince Stuart that Moyola Park, with their brand new 3g pitch and floodlights, were a club going places, and since then Clarke and his new assistant have had a busy summer trying to build a squad to match the facilities.

“The set up really is outstanding,” Pike said. “The players we’ve brought have settled in well, – and Castledawson isn’t that far away, it’s just up the motorway. We’re confident the squad is better than last year’s, and we hope to get ourselves in the mix around Christmas time. We start off with a home game on Friday night against Killymoon Rangers, and I’m really looking forward to it.”

While keeper McGrath has returned to his old club, there are three new Newington ‘rangers’ in striker Christopher Shimmon, midfielder Jonny Gilliland and defender Ryan Cardwell. Another notable recruit is Larne Tech Old Boy Daryll Kernohan. Kernohan is a player whose ability hasn’t been in doubt, and maybe out of the ‘goldfish bowl’ of Larne, he can settle down and really show what he’s capable of.

Daryll, of course, has also played at Inver Park, as has three of the other new local recruits - Niall Curneen (Wellington Rec), Ryan Kane (Ballyclare Comrades) and Christopher Morton, snapped up just last week from Larne Tech Old Boys. Moyola were also in the running for Bertie Fulton, only for the ex Larne man to return to his ‘old boys’ at the Tech.

So, as well as the three-man management team, there are now seven East Antrim players with possibly more to come. Therefore, it’s only understandable that quite a few of our local readers will be keeping a close eye on Moyola Park and Championship 2 this season.