Northend link-up with Blackburn Rovers gets off to successful start

Three coaches from Blackburn Rovers were hosted by the progressive Ballymena club to hold a football development programme at the Ballymena Showgrounds during Monday and Tuesday of the school half term holidays..

With over 120 boys and girls registered each day, Northend’s Football Development Officer, John Devlin, the architect of this programme commented “This has been a fantastic first step for the Club in our partnership with Blackburn Rovers, with their coaches highly complimentary of a number of our players.

“We are planning to repeat the football development sessions with Blackburn Rovers during August as our club gears up for preseason training.”

Meanwhile, the U13s turned in the Club’s performance of the week in the Lisburn league, when they comprehensively beat Portadown Youth by a 7-1 scoreline.

Elsewhere in the Lisburn league there were narrow defeats for the U14s, U16s and U17s.

The U11s continued their good form with another good win over academy side TW Braga and U12s United team lost against Irish league academy side Crusaders.

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Northend United U9s boys and girls are really enjoying their football at present and followed up last week’s good win over Magherafelt Sky Blues by turning in another top performance this week against Coleraine side, Bertie Peacocks.

Alex McDonald’s Baby Blues team turned in a match winning display. Highlight of the day was two goals from Clodagh Maguire, one of the many girls starting to play in Northend’s younger teams.

Northend: Calvin Termonia, Dylan Glass, Robert Crooks, Ronan McCormick, Mark Campbell, Clodagh Maguire, Lewis McDonald, Luke Campbell

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Northend United 3, TW Braga 0: Northend went ahead on 15 minutes when a corner was half-cleared to the edge of the box where Ben O’Neill was on hand to hit it first time with his weaker right foot into the net.

As the half came to a close, goalkeeper George McClean’s brilliant kick sent Jay McKeown clear to place the ball home for Northend’s second.

A third goal followed in the second half when Shea O’Broin headed towards goal and sent a powerful low shot from an acute angle past the Braga keeper.

Northend: G McClean, J Magill, C McAvoy, B Adams, Z Erwin, B O’Neill, S Bristow, S O’Broin, K Wakefield, J McKeown, B Bell.

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Northend Youth 2, Crusaders 6: The Ballymena side have been unfortunate to suffer injuries in key positions and they were two goals down at half-time.

Within three minutes of the restart, however, they were level with two outstanding goals from Tyrone Mitchell, the first after he won a tackle and evaded several challenges before finishing from the edge of the penalty area while the second was a skilful lob.

But once Crusaders got back in front following a disputed corner, they went on to win.

Northend: S McDowell, D Magill, J Adams, O Campbell, K Cosgrove, T Mitchell, K Barr, L Hector, C McMurray and D McKay.

Northend Youth 2, Moyola Park 1: This was a game in which Northend had to play well as Moyola were comfortable winners in the second game of the season.

Northend started to play the ball around and wasn’t to long before the inform Niall Devine found Ciaran Martin who took the ball out wide and with his pace managed to find Niall Devine to open the scoring.

It wasn’t too long before they were up 2 as Ben Harkin found Martin out on the right again in exactly the same type of move but this time it was Caolan Lennon who got on the score sheet. In a rare attack Moyola were awarded a penalty after a mistimed tackle. Gabriel Farias saved the penalty but unfortunately for Northend the rebound was converted.

Northend: G Farias, S Crawford, B Harkin, J Connor, C Lennon, N Devine, C O Brien, C Martin, A Pescaru, K Dziadkowiec

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Northend United 7, Portadown Youth 1: Ryan McQuillan scored the first goal when the ball came back to him from a corner and he curled a lovely shot into the far corner. Adam Campbell got the second after ten minutes when he broke free from half way and he shot early into the roof of the net.

Five minutes later it was 3-0 Ciaran Campbell showed some lovely skill passing three opponents before chipping the keeper but watched as it came off the bar before tapping it in.

Just before half time Patrick Ferris made it 4-0 after missing a penalty earlier.

The second half was more of the same from Northend. Patrick Ferris popped up to score his second of the day.

Harry Wylie made it 6-0 midway through the half after also hitting the post. Portadown did get one back from a clearance on their half way line and the keeper misjudged the bounce but Patrick Ferris rounded off the day with his hat-trick.

Northend: C Richmond, J Montgomery, R McKillop, H Wylie, P Ferris, C Campbell, J Morrow, A Campbell, R McQuillan, C Higgins, P Esler, N Devine, J Casey and C McGaughey.

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Northend United 3, Hillsborough 5: Northend stormed into a two goal lead and crashing another shot against the crossbar before Hillsborough got on the scoresheet.

However a soft goal allowed Hillsborough back into the game and a late goal took the shine off a good team performance.

Northend: J McCalmont, M Stewart, C Forsythe, L Rea, J Dallas, J Kirkwood, C Meeke, D Robinson, R McMullan, J Currie, Z Clarke, C McDonald, S Foster, C Barr

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Wakehurst 1, Lisburn Distillery 3: Wakehurst, missing a few regulars, led at half-time after Matthew Kirk smashed in from a Campbell free kick, only to fall to three second half Distillery goals.

Wakehurst: A Montgomery, J Penny, B Millar, A Shaw, A Campbell, B McGarvey, J Fleming, J O’Loughlin, T Barr, D McCalmont, M Kirk, M Erwin.

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Banbridge Rangers 1, Wakehurst 0: After missing a number of chances themselves, Wakehurst were beaten by the only goal which came midway through the second half when a dangerous free-kick into the Wakehurst box ended up in the back of the net,

Wakehurst: L McFall, J Stevenson, L McAllister, J Lowry, J Timms, S Bennett, T Campbell, M Cochrane, O Dick, D Bell, A Milligan, J Anderson, J Dawson.