Bangor Ladies Football Club, the official ladies section of the Clandeboye Road side, go into an important League Cup fixture in the Intermediate B Division on Wednesday night (25th), travelling for a tricky away fixture up in Crumlin Village against the local ladies side.
Andy Craig will take his side up there feeling a bit rusty with the club’s last three scheduled league games being cancelled or postponed for one reason of another - so it will be a big ask for the side to hit the ground running in this big cup encounter.
One plus, is the fact that Bangor did face Crumlin recently and came away with a credible 3-2 win, courtesy of a valuable hat-trick from their top goalscorer in 2006 - Deirdre Savage.
The fixtures are starting to back up all over the division and the North Down side look to be facing a difficult couple of weeks with the daunting possibility of having to play two games a week over the traditional holiday fortnight. The Bangor side now have four unplayed league games - two against Newtownabbey Ladies, then games against Dungoyne and Ards Raiders.
Bangor Ladies travelled to play Armagh in the cup in May
This situation not helped at all as the ladies club has been facing a severe lack of facilities in the North Down with no pitches being made available for ladies football over the summer months - this due a blanket council policy of closing all Council pitches for maintenance over the summer months.
With their home venue, Clandeboye Park unavailable until after July 10th, due to important ground repair - the situation has been made more difficult with no council pitches whatsoever available in the Borough of North Down.
Although the club did have access to secure and safe facilities in the Borough last season - this year the Council seemingly can’t accommodate the sport of ladies football - the local side having to travel to Ards in order to play a 'home' game.
Glentoran Belfast United - holders of the Premier Divisional Cup 2007
Incidently Ards Borough Council, have five pitches available for summer football and the situation in North Down and attitude of the Council suggests is a sad reflection on what is after all - one of, if not - the fastest growing sport in the world.
That aside the team will be concentrating on playing and putting the Crumlin game away which will put them through to their first ever league cup semi final.
Other fixtures in next weeks cup programme see runaway league leaders Newtownabbey Strikers face Saint Matthews, PSNI taking on Ards Raiders, and Knockbreda playing Dungoyne.
One date which can be confirmed is the Club’s Dinner, which will take place in Carnalea Golf Club, on Friday, 29th June, where all members are invited to come along. This venture is due to the Clubs successful partnership with Icelandic side Club Flykir who will be maintaining their link with Bangor Ladies. The club having been the behind the move of North Down teenager and Northern Ireland international Ashley Hutton over the Reykjavik at the start of the month.
Members are requested to be at the popular scenic location on the North Down coast at around 6.45 p.m. for a 7.15 p.m. kick off.
Lite training will continue this Sunday and all up and coming fixtures will be confirmed at that time - with the emphasis as most of these cancellations were not the fault of Bangor Ladies. The Club have contacted Newtownabbey Ladies and Dungoyne to offer alternative dates - but have yet not been accommodated, therefore we will hope to reschedule these matches to suit ourselves.
Fylkir coach Bjorn Bjornsson with Ashley Hutton (right) and American Cici Marrero
Last Edited on 22-Jun-2007 8:56 AM
