Northend seeking votes for Lloyds Community Awards

The Ballymena club’s project is centred around a Friday night grassroots football coaching project, based at the Clough MUGA

The Club can earn substantial funds for football equipment if it finishes in the top two in this region.

To allow it to achieve this, the clubs needs as many votes cast as possible in the following two ways:

SMS Texting. This is charged at normal text costs with no premium attached. Please text VOTE VKNA to 62229 to register your vote.

Email – log into www.lloydsbankinggroupcommunities.com/communityfundNI and record your vote for our Northend United Youth Club.

Entries close on November 1.

Meanwhile, Wakehurst U17s turned in a five star performance on Friday night at the Ballymena Showgrounds when they beat Irish League side Coleraine 5-0 in a National League match.

In a top display from the boys from Ballymena, Kyle Jackson and Bryan Etherson each bagged a brace of goals with Stephen Hare also getting on the scoresheet.

A delighted Wakehurst manager Glenn Speirs said after the match ”The boys have been working hard in training and it really paid off tonight.

“We haven’t been getting our just rewards in the last few matches, losing narrowly to Maiden City and Limavady United but tonight it all came good.”

In the Lisburn League, Mark Lecky’s U13s drew 1-1 with the League leaders, Shankill Juniors. The U12s and U14s lost their respective matches against TTBS Juniors and Oxford Sunnyside respectively.

In the North West and Coleraine District League, the teams continue to have a mixed bag of results, with Ally McGarry’s U8s winning one game and losing one game in a mini blitz.

The U11s were very unlucky when they lost to league leaders Moyola Park U12s by a 2-1 scoreline. Both U10 teams lost to Bertie Peacocks and Ballymoney Athletic in entertaining games.

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Northend Youth 1, Dungiven Celtic 2: Northend travelled to Ballysally on Saturday to play a three tournament blitz against Dungiven Celtic and Dungiven Youth.

In the first game the side went 2.0 down early but to their credit battled right to the end and pulled it back to 2-1 with a goal from Callum Hendron. The young side were very unlucky not to get the draw hitting the post twice in the latter stages of the game.

Dungiven Youth 0, Northend Youth 3: The second game of the blitz saw Northend starting brightly with an early goal from Callum Hendron. The second goal soon followed when Sean McDermott finished well.

All the hard work in training paid off when Pol Pius Donegan scored from his own corner to cap of a great day for the young blue and white hoops side.

Northend: P Murphy, A McPeake, L Devlin, C Lyness, D Patterson, S McDermott, C Hendron, PP Donegan

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Northend 0, Bertie Peacocks 4: The difference between the sides was Berties’ ability to react a little more quickly to situations within the game and the need for Northend to be faster when closing down their opponents. The U10s did however put in a good performance and it’s clear that a number of the boys are starting to get some consistency into their game. MOM - Kevin Cosgrove

Northend: R McGrath, D Magill, K Cosgrove, B O’Neill, J Adams, P Bristow, C Lennon, L Allen, C O’Brien.

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Northend 1, Moyola Park 2: Northend U11s came up against another very strong U12 team Moyola Park. Unlike the previous games Northend started from the first whistle and battled hard never giving their opponents time on the ball.

Northend took a well-deserved lead when Calum Kilgore who cleared from defence found Ciaran Campbell out right who played it to P Ferris and he crossed finding Jordan Wilson at the back post.

But Moyola had twice struck the woodwork at this stage while keeper Euan McSparron made several outstanding saves and the Castledawson side went on to score three goals. MOM - Ciaran Campbell

Northend: E McSparron, R McMillan, C Kilgore, C Campbell, H Wylie, J Morrow, P Esler, C McMillan, P Ferris, J Montgomery, J Wilson.

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TTBS Juniors 6, Northend 1: It was an early start for the U12s on Saturday as they went to Lisburn for a 9.30 kick off against a team pushing to catch the league leaders at the top of the table. Unfortunately for the management team they were down to the bare minimum of eleven players so therefore team selection wasn’t a problem!

Despite the very early start and shortage of numbers the Northend boys put in their best performance of the season getting back to playing their passing brand of football which had gone astray in the last few weeks.

Northend conceded a goal against the run of play. Two more goals followed for the Lurgan side before Northend got the break they so richly deserved. After a sustained period of pressure around the TTBS penalty box, the ball fell to Charlie Metrustry who struck a beautiful right foot shot high into the net giving the Lurgan goalkeeper no chance.

The half-time score was 6-1 and there was no further scoring after the interval. MOM - Oisin Connolly.

Northend: S Higgins, C Killough, O Connolly (c), C Meeke, J Coates, C Forsythe, J Lyness, C McDonald, C Metrustry, J Scullion, M Stewart.

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Northend 1, Shankill Juniors 1: AFter conceding a first half goal, Northend slowly turned the pressure up a notch after the break, and when a cross came in from Ruairi Campbell and Shankill failed to clear, Robert Iovu was the most alert, and pounced to level the scoreline.

The referee awarded a penalty to Shankill, when the ball struck Josh Mitchell on the shoulder, not his arm. Thankfully, justice prevailed, as the Shankill player saw his shot strike the bar, and bounce high and wide for a Northend bye-ball. MOM - Robert Iovu, Robert McCluney

Northend: C McGarry, S Frew, M Willighan, R McCluney, J Mitchell, R Iovu, N Craig, J Brady, T Patchett, C Gordon, R Campbell (c), S Lecky, P Kyle, C McDonald, T McAuley

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Oxford Sunnyside 4, Northend 1: Northend started this game taking the game to Sunnyside and it was no surprise when they took the lead.

Aaron Campbell delivered a good throughball to Graeme Macartney on the edge of the Sunnyside box and he drilled the ball past the keeper, with seven minutes of the game gone.

However, a defensive mistake by a Northend player allowed Sunnyside to level the scores five minutes later, when their striker picked up on a lose ball and drilled the ball past Josh Mark in the Blues nets.

Sunnyside ran in two goals just before half time in a carbon copy of each other when a ball over the top of the Northend defence allowed the Sunnyside striker to run on and slip the ball into the Northend net.

Sunnyside had the final say in the game when they scored a fourth goal 3 minutes before the end of the game. MOM - Josh Mark, Alex O’Boyle

Northend: J Marks, T Evans, J Hayburn, A Shaw, J Stevenson, A O’Boyle, D Bell, G Macartney, J O’Loughlin, A Campbell, E Mc Laughlin, B Millar, S Hutchinson, M Kirk, H McClurkin

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Wakehurst 5, Coleraine 0: Wakehurst dominated this match from start to finish and opened the scoring after ten minutes, when a free kick into the Coleraine penalty box was controlled by Kyle Jackson who slipped the ball past the keeper to give the Ballymena boys a 1-0 lead.

On the twenty minute mark, Wakehurst scored their second goal when that man Jackson was again on hand to finish off a good move.

Wakehurst maintained the high tempo of their game and were awarded with a third goal, minutes before half time. Anthony McAvoy chased down what looked like a lost ball and when he delivered his cross inro the Coleraine penalty area, Bryan Etherson was on hand to steer the ball past the Coleraine keeper.

Into the second half and Wakehurst carried on where they left off in the first half, taking the game to Coleraine.

The Ballymena boys again began to control the midfield and from an Etherson through ball after five minutes, Stevie Hare should have added to the score but he pulled his shot wide of the post.

Wakehurst eventually added a fourth goal midway through the half when Bryan Etherson controlled a Kyle Jackson cross and steered the ball past the Coleraine keeper.

However Wakehurst weren’t finished yet and Stevie Hare, who had worked tirelessly all night, got his just reward when he outpaced the Coleraine defence and slipped the ball past the Coleraine keeper, to leave the score 5-0.

This was a good performance from the boys and special mention goes to Bryan Etherson, returning to the team for only his second appearance of the season, following an early season injury.

Northend: R Gault, R Sloan, J Hanlon, K McCollum, N Swann (c), J Cameron, B Etherson, J Speirs, R Swann, A McAvoy, K Jackson, S Hare, J Nixon.