*Newmarket Celtic manager, Alan Gough. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
A CHANCE to win a first league and cup double since 2020 is on the line for Newmarket Celtic when they cross swords with fierce rivals Avenue Utd this Saturday.
Whether it is a Cup final or a league outing, every game is treated with importance for Newmarket Celtic according to manager Alan Gough.
In his first season in charge of the Newmarket-on-Fergus club, Alan has led them to an unbeaten campaign in the Premier Division to see them win the league for the first time since 2023. They are looking to win back to back Cup titles, a feat which would also see them win the double in Clare for the first time since 2020.
Application has been a strong point of Celtic’s season, Alan told The Clare Echo. “It is a game we are looking forward to, we’ve had a really good season this year, we’ve managed to turn around an eight or nine point deficit on Avenue from last year. I always speak about the players and the application from this season which has been fantastic, from the coaches, our strength and conditioning and our goalkeeper coach Johnny Ryan because we played a game this year when Shane Cusack was away, Dermot Gannon went in goals and got injured, Gary Cusack came in then and did tremendously well so we’re blessed to have a really good staff but the credit goes to the players for the work, application and attitude this year”.
When he took on the role of manager, one of Gough’s immediate targets was to bridge the gap with last year’s league champions Avenue Utd, which they successfully did. They finished the league with forty four points, seven ahead of second place Bridge Utd and eight ahead of third place Avenue.
Even though he is a close friend of Pat McDaid owner of Ennis Carpets who sponsor the Clare Cup, Alan admitted that they didn’t set any objectives so far as the Cup was concerned at the beginning of the season. “I never really thought about it to be honest with you, I set our standard about trying to close the gap with the teams ahead of us which we have managed to do this year. This is really for the fans but we’re in a final now and we want to have a good crack at it, hopefully we will come out victorious”.
Reaching the semi-finals of the Munster Junior Cup where they came up short against Aisling Annacotty was a run that has also served Newmarket well. “I think anytime we’ve gone out this year we’ve given our best, I’ve said to the lads at the start of the year that they have to represent themselves, this club and this community, without question they have done it tremendously well. I am incredibly proud, I am managing a junior club and we are getting the absolute maximum out of these players, they are the ones doing the running, they have been training in it up to their shins this year and the boys have been absolutely fantastic”.
Despite a strong opening half where they went 3-0 up, Newmarket Celtic made matters more difficult for themselves when it came to the second half of Friday’s Cup semi-final against Bridge Utd but they managed to get the all-important victory on a score of 4-3. “We gave some bad goals away to be perfectly honest, Darragh (Leahy) getting sent off was a major issue and a major turning point, I don’t want to comment on the referee because it is a difficult job, we have to be better in how we manage the game, we didn’t manage it particularly well, we were 3-1 up then 4-1, there was twelve minutes of injury time and we were told there was six, semi-finals are about winning and we got over the line, we’re delighted to be in a final and we look forward to it”.
For Newmarket it was a more competitive semi-final compared to Avenue Utd who ran riot against Sporting Ennistymon with an 8-1 win. “I think Cup finals are all on the day, semi-finals are all about winning, Avenue won comprehensively in theirs and we had a very difficult game against a very good Bridge side, we’re there and we’re looking forward to it. We’ll have the lads as prepared as we can be, hopefully we will have the lads from the Newmarket-on-Fergus hurling team available to us to supplement our squad”.
Galway based Alan said the club view every game with the prominence it deserves. “I look forward to every game and every game you play with Newmarket is a big game, it is not that it is against Avenue, if we go out and get beaten by someone it puts a spanner in the works because you saw how tight it was. We beat Ennis Dons in the ninety sixth minute when Jack Kelly got a goal, we played Shannon Town a few weeks ago and just after half time Shane makes an unbelievable save to keep us in it, then we score in the eighty fifth minute so there has been plenty of that over the course of the season. Every game we play for Newmarket Celtic is a big game, we embrace that and respect every opposition, we will go out and give it everything we can on Saturday”.
Having managed teams in Galway, Mayo, Longford along with playing stints across the water with Fulham and Portsmouth, the fifty five year old quipped, “You make me sound like a journeyman” before pointing out that the players have bought into his methods, helping them to go within ninety minutes of a Clare double. “The way I was brought up, I am a bit old school, I believe every game you have to give everything you have, I come back to the shirt and how we have to represent this community, we can’t be half-arsed, we have to be all in, I’m all in and the players are all in, we have been all year. Some of the key words we spoke about this year were integrity, honesty and enthusiasm, the group have responded magnificently to that this year”.
