BRICKS IN PLACE FOR PURPLE REIGN..

No title as yet but Larne’s Premier return will be a boost for top flight

leaving the club to embark on a professional career in England. Star names of the local game helped onpitch results improve drastically and despite missing out on last season’s top six split, they were always going to be the team to beat this time round.

But Larne have not just added proven talent, they have recruited from outside the typical Northern Irish talent pool.

Irish-nigerian midfielder Fuad Sule joined from Barnet, English striker Benny Igiehon joined from Boston United, while Huddersfield Town teenage duo Dominic Tear and Isaac Marriott both arrived on loan in January. Modernised coaching methods and a focus on physical conditioning has also been fundamental to Larne’s success.

“When I met with Tiernan Lynch (right), I knew this was somewhere I could go and improve myself as a player too,” English defender Ben Tilney, who joined Larne from Milton Keynes Dons last summer, told Match On Tuesday.

Larne have won 21 of their 26 league matches to date this season and they have dropped just two points and conceded four goals in their 13 matches at Inver Park.

It’s not only on the pitch that is remarkable, but off it too – the club are averaging close to a regular 1,000 attendance in Northern Ireland’s second tier. These figures are not solely down to success on the pitch, but the work of chairman Gareth Clements, his board and commercial director Gavin Clements.

The club are investing money, but they are doing so shrewdly, creating a long-term, sustainable vision with an understanding of how to grow a football club as a business and this could go hand-in-hand with sporting success.

“What the club is doing for the