Nov28

Written by:
28/11/2011 20:23 

It was a nice, cold, sunny Saturday afternoon at the pitch up in Letterkenny as I was dropped off by my housemate. The match wasn’t kicking off until 1.30pm as there was a kids match on which held up our game. I wasn’t playing that day as I was still struggling with a foot injury after coming back from Athens. I’d been having a hard time with pain shooting up my foot from kicking the football so Mick my coach didn’t want to take any chances until I got this problem sorted out. We had a few players out sick, injured and banned from playing after what happened back in May at the National Cup Final.
 
Anyway, I was on the side line when the game got on its way and Michael O’Donnell was in goals instead of me. He did really well and pulled off some great saves. With 15 minutes gone we took the lead with Paddy Gamble beating two of Cheeverstown players and scoring in the right side of the goals – the keeper had no chance of saving it. We had a couple of chances to score a few more goals and Cheeverstown did too. Then half an hour into the game, a few things happened that didn’t go our way. I felt that at least two of the Cheeverstown players should have been sent off and the same for us as well. I just couldn’t understand the referee’s decision as I felt in my own mind that we had the last man back and the Cheeverstown players brought down our player down outside the box not once, but twice in the space of five minutes. A few people started to lose the cool and tempers were heating up on our team but we managed to keep the cool and went in at half–time 1-0 up.

Then in the second half we began playing good football and started to control the game. Next thing – a big kick of the ball from midfield just bounced right in front of Michael. He got one hand to it but just couldn’t get the ball under control and Cheeverstown scored to make it 1-1. That’s when some of my own teammates started to lose the cool but mostly it was down to the referee siding with the other team more than us. I know that at least a few of our players should have been sent off as the last 20 minutes of the game wasn’t great. There were some bad tackles and there could easily have been a red card for Cheeverstown or us.
 
With under 16 minutes to go we got a goal kick. Gareth kicked the ball out but just as he kicked it he slipped badly on the wet, mucky ground as it had rained badly the night before. Our back four didn’t see what happened and we started shouting that the ball was out on the left side of the pitch. With that Cheeverstown got on to the ball and into our box. Michael did his best to try to save it but it was too late – the ball was smacked low into the right side of the net and it was 2-1 to Cheeverstown.

There was about five minutes to go and we put the pressure on to try and get the goal to make it a draw but we missed a few chances. Cheeverstown came out on top for their first win of the league but as the old saying goes they might have won the battle but the war is not over yet. Plus there’s still a long season to go by which time I hope to be back playing. Also we got our first win on Saturday up at AUL in Dublin beating Cork 5-3, so that got us off to a good start in the league. 

Donegal 1 ……… Cheeverstown 2

So that’s my news. This Saturday night the whole team has been invited up to Hughie and Eamon Sweeney’s big 30th birthday party so from me and the team we’d like to wish specially Hughie who has been apart of the team for the last 10 years a big Happy Birthday.