Bangor 5ths 10 v 0 Lisnagarvey 6ths

Bangor fifths kept on the promotion trail with a surprisingly large defeat of Lisnagarvey sixths on Saturday. Having scraped a 2-1 win in Hillsborough earlier in the season, the fifths expected a tough game from an experienced outfit.

The match didn’t start too well, Captain John Mitchell and second top scorer Calum Togneri had to umpire the first half because Garvey only had eleven men, and umpires were scarce in Bangor on Saturday. Bangor made all the early pressure, but took 15 minutes to open their account, Michael Ferguson getting in on the action again after being set up by Craig McDowell. Then 5 minutes from the end of the half, a somewhat fortunate second came. Mitchell failed to play advantage just as a Garvey defender was about to clear his lines and blew for the free, the defender then passed the free to Michael Ferguson who found Gerry Hamill who made no mistake in making it 2-0.

Mitchell was not sure this game was dead as a contest and expected the visitors to come out hard in the second half.

Ryan Garland had very kindly rushed back from the fourths game in Lisburn to umpire the second half, and Nathan Brennan also picked up the whistle. Unleashing C-To, Calum Togneri into the game.

Fans who were still busy getting their halftime hot chocolate might have missed a lot of action, as the BGS hitman grabbed an astonishing 4 goals in as many minutes at the start of the second half! The midfield trio of McDowell, Scott and Reid were instrumental in the build up to these goals, the swiftness of which literally knocked Garvey for six and killed the game as a contest. Still some attacking play was still to be had, Reid was linking well with Hamill and creating chances, Gerry grabbed his second of the game before setting up Craig for his first goal for the fifths. Bob Espey then showed why he never uses his strong side, scoring a diving reverse, and Mitchell continuing his rehabilitation from injury picking out Matty Neill-McCready who scored the pick of the bunch, a dipping effort that caught the top of the backboard from the top of the area for his fourth of the season. Paul Scott nearly added another from a short, but his effort hit the net and not the backboard.

Many thanks to Ryan and Nathan for umpiring, Man of the Match went to an inventive Warren Reid in the Midfield