Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
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IT may be a foreign land and a newfangled league for Marijan Antolovic, but the Croatian goalkeeper needs no schooling in what it means to play for Glentoran.
The 6ft 5in shotstopper, who has been super so far in what has been a huge stride forward for the Oval outfit this season, says all the right things when talking to Match On Tuesday about where the club have come from and where they want to go.
He’s familiar with the storied and glorious history of the Glens and how it has weighed badly on the sides which came before, but also how he and his team-mates can use it as inspiration to drive themselves on.
It’s been exactly a decade since the late Alan Mcdonald led the east Belfast men to their last league title, with the intervening years a welldocumented roller-coaster of setbacks, crises and catastrophes.
The vast majority of that turbulence came off the pitch it must be said, with crippling £1.7million debts taking the club to the brink of ruin – to the extent, in fact, that one of their biggest creditors even had the front gates locked.
But what transpired on the field of play was also unbecoming of the Irish League’s second most decorated side, save for the two Irish Cups they won under Eddie Patterson, with years and years of underachievement characterised by rank mediocrity and the selling off of their prize assets.
But Antolovic and the rest of Mick Mcdermott’s foreign legion who arrived over the summer – including his Croatian compatriot and dead ball specialist Hrvoje Plum – have the luxury of being untainted by what went before.
After another small but significant statement on Saturday, when they fought back to claim a draw against Crusaders to extend their unbeaten run in the league to nine, they can boldly and confidently look to the future, with Antolovic determined to see Glentoran restore former glories and get back on top of their perch.
“I know that the Glens are one of the biggest clubs in Northern Ireland, that they’ve won many trophies, and I think we’re on our way back to where the club belong, on top of the league,” he said.
“We started the season not so well, but I think we look better now, and I’m sure that every one of us in the team can do better.
“I think the best is still to come from us, we have the potential now that we know each other better.
“We’re becoming a team, not just a group of good individuals, and that’ll be our strength in the second part of the season.”
No one around Glentoran would dare to say it, and there’s been a reluctance even in the media to tip them up, with memories of their chastening near-meltdown still raw.
But with the league so open and unpredictable, and with the Glens able to close the gap on third-placed Crusaders to just two points should they win their game in hand, Mcdermott’s in-form men cannot be discounted from the race for the Gibson Cup.
At 30 years old, Antolovic is way too experienced to hand a hostage to fortune and set his team up for a fall, but he like everyone else recognises that the Glens are back. “We just try to give the best from ourselves every game and try to win,” he said.
“We are just trying to look at the next game. We know we have the quality to go for a high position, but we have to show that every week.
“That’s the best way for us to show what we can do, by doing it from match to match.”
Few businesses have embraced globalisation with more gusto than football, with the big leagues across the world a playground for players from all four corners of the globe. But even still, for a long time there, the Irish League was a place apart.
Starved of any meaningful investment, it was never seen as a destination for footballers, and to that end was always populated extensively by players born and bred here.
Recently, however, things have started to change. The move to fulltime football by a clutch of clubs has seen to that, with Mcdermott’s internationally-flavoured Glentoran at the forefront.
Our long, bracing and punishing winters aside, Antolovic says he’s starting to get accustomed to life in Northern Ireland.
He said: “From the time I came here, I’m enjoying training and playing matches for Glentoran.
“Everyone at the club, from the manager and his assistants to people who work at the club, were hospitable and have helped us settle here.
“I’m used to everything, I just can’t get used to the weather, sometimes it’s just too much rain!”
His baptism in the Irish League is
Antolovic’s first serious run of games in a few years after he was used sparingly at previous club Osijek.
He didn’t know Mcdermott or Paul Millar before stepping foot inside the Oval over the summer.
However, the connection came through his countryman and former Croatian international goalkeeper Tomislav Butina, who worked with the Glentoran manager during their time together in the Middle East.
Antolovic reckons he was always