Drogheda United get back on the park for new season
A REFEREES seminar on Friday has scuppered Drogheda United’s plans to play Sligo Rovers behind closed doors at Abbotstown that night, but the clubs hope to meet at United Park on Thursday instead, with a 7.45pm kick-off.
The match was still awaiting final approval as we went to press on Monday afternoon but is expected to go ahead in what will be Drogheda’s second pre-season friendly of 2020. That will be followed by the visit of Bohemians next Tuesday (7.30) in a match which will be played for the Vincent Hoey Perpetual Trophy.
The Boynesiders’ preparations for the upcoming league campaign kicked off with a 1-0 defeat at home to Derry City last Friday, in a game where Tim Clancy used 21 players, and the manager pronounced himself happy with how it panned out.
‘The most pleasing thing for me was the fact that we got 45 minutes into everyone practically, and there were no injuries,’ he reported.
‘What we wanted to do was play a mixture of lads in both halves and I wasas happy with how it went, and we might possiblyy do something similarilar against Sligo.
‘But I don’tt think there’ll be as many changes and some of the lads mightt get 60 minutes into the legs in this game.’
New signings Ross Treacy, Jack Tuite,ite, Hugh Douglas, Richie O’Farrell, Derek Prendergast and Brandon Bermingham all got 45 minutes of action against the Candystripes, as did Under-19 duo Frank Cabraley and Kevin Mohammed, with Clancy pointing out that centre-half Mohammed plays in a position where Drogheda have only three recognised centre-halves in the first-team squad.
The manager also confirmed that David Bourke (pictured below) has become the club’s goalkeeping coach, having left Shelbourne when Drogheda’s Paul Skinner moved to Tolka Park back in November. Skinner doubled up as a player/coach at United Park but pickedp up an injury and llost his place to Luca Gratzer. MeMeanwhile, the chaos and conconfusion surrounding rousurrounding the DiDivision 1 fixture turfixture list is set to ccontinue into FebFebruary - the monmonth in which the seseason is due to commcommence - after Limerick FC were granted edgranted permission to apply for a licence to compete.
The FAI released a statement on Friday evening, saying they were satisfied that the club had successfully come out of examinership on December 11th, and that the Independent Licensing Committee ‘is due to meet next month to assess all applications from Premier and First Division clubs ahead of the 2020 season kicking off’.
Earlier in the week Limerick FC had launched High Court proceedings against the FAI, claiming the FAI hadn’t invited them to submit an application to play in the First Division.
The so-called First Division Alliance are also fighting to have Shamrock Rovers’ B team removed from the competition, even though they were included in the official fixture list released two weeks ago. They held a meeting with the National League Executive Committee last Wednesday, with some clubs threatening to boycott the games with Shamrock Rovers or even pull out of the league altogether, but there have been no further developments.
Drogheda have also expressed surprise at being excluded from any first-stage funding for their planned new stadium, in the latest round of Large Scale Sports Infrustructure Grants.
A club statement said the club were ‘dismayed’ and urged voters at the upcoming General Election to press candidates on the subject, pointing out that the proposed facility was a ‘municipal venue to be benefit everyone’.