This weekend gone, on a slippery playing surface in Dollingstown, Ben Arthurs went a ton up on the goal front; his second in an eventual hat-trick endeavour was his 100th in the yellow and blue of Bangor. It booked the Seasiders another three points for the kitty, which extends their lead at the summit of the Premier Intermediate League to eight points and brings Arthurs’ goal count this term to 26 across all competitions.
After this superb achievement, and in advance of a home duel with Tobermore United this Saturday where the striker will have his eyes on the net once more, it is worth looking back on how the 24-year-old reached the century within a five-year span – including an 18-month Covid-enforced break – and has inspired the Yellows during their rise from the ashes.
A fast start to life
Linking up on the seaside ahead of Bangor’s Centenary season, with the club having failed to achieve a step-up from the Ballymena Intermediate League at the first request, Arthurs arrived with a simple objective – to spearhead the Seasiders to promotion.
A 20-year-old previously on the books of Ards and H&W Welders, this was a line-leader with a bit of pedigree. The Arthurs name is not unknown in Irish League circles, bearing in mind the goal-getting his big brother Ross has been famed for throughout his career, but in 2018 Ben joined especially eager to make his stamp at the senior level.
He did not waste much time getting down to business. Delivering his first goal in a 4-2 home win over Desertmartin in August 2018, heading home from the edge of the six-yard area after Ben Roy had supplied an enticing delivery from the left flank, he set his stall with further strikes versus Cookstown Youth and Brantwood before the month was out.
A first-round victory over league-mates Glebe Rangers in the Irish Cup also had Arthurs’ name on the scoreboard. Five goals in his first fortnight, not too bad.
And defences couldn’t build themselves back up after the flood burst the banks. Ben filled his remit when he struck 38 – 27 of them in the BPIL – and earned Bangor their Premier Intermediate place.
Requiring merely 44 appearances, of which 36 were from the start, the last of those 27 in the league came on the Suffolk Road where the Seagulls clinched champions status in a 1-3 victory against west Belfast side St James’ Swifts.
Stat attack:
- Ben Arthurs has scored more goals against St James’ Swifts than against any other non-Premier Intermediate League club.
One with a knack for turning up when it matters most, his 64th-minute effort at DC Park that restored the North Down pride’s lead in April 2019 was one of the first displays of a since indelible trait.
Such that St James’ saw the front-man again net at their expense just a month later, when the Kircubbin ace bagged the clinching strike in the McReynolds Cup Final and helped make it a double-winning campaign. With Michael Halliday, Scott McArthur and Gerard McMullan having already built up a 3-1 lead, Arthurs put the cherry on top of a cake that was well worth devouring.
Being one of three opponents ‘Big Ben’ has scored at least five times against in a Seasiders shirt, the yellow-shirted institution must have been happy to see the back of him in a league setting at least. The same applied for Chimney Corner (four), Cookstown Youth (three), close challengers and rivals Glebe (three) and Dunloy (three), who all felt his wrath.
As for the Bangor faithful, though, Arthurs had entered fan favourite status ripe and early. A year earlier, it was the George Wilson Cup with the Welders’ Under-20s; now it was a fourth-tier title and a cup.
What more celebratory scenes would the tall forward bring? As it transpired, not exactly few.
Next step of the journey
Ready to answer the Premier Intermediate League action call, Bangor readied themselves for their Irish League return in the summer of 2019, two years on from dropping out.
Counting on the exploits of Arthurs and a 28-goal Halliday, the Glentoran icon likewise arriving at Clandeboye Park a year prior, a tantalising support cast of Roy, McMullan, Ethan Boylan, Jordan Lucas, Matty Johnston and Mark Cooling meant there was no shortage of attack-minded impetus.
And in their first match back in the Northern Ireland third-flight, at home to a then Stuart King-led Banbridge Town, the Seasiders made sure it was a winning return to action.
Stat attack:
- Three of Ben Arthurs’ 101 competitive goals have come against Premiership opposition, of which two were against Carrick Rangers. He also netted against incumbent Amber Army chief Stuart King while the former Linfield winger was in charge of Banbridge Town.
On a sunny afternoon, Arthurs delivered the second goal in a 2-0 win against The Town, following up on a fine opener by popular midfield dynamo Barry Walsh to book a first three points of a season that would have its highs and lows.
Indeed, that ever-so-cultured lob from Johnston’s through-ball had succeeded a crazy summer night in the BetMcLean League Cup first stage against the side King currently helms. There were past and future Bangor connections in that Carrick Rangers team – former Reserves Steel and Sons Cup winner Niall Currie on the touchline, while would-be left wing-back hero Reece Neale was among his substitutes – as the hosts eliminated the newly-promoted Premiership club.
The east Antrim boys were felled in extra-time, with Arthurs on target in the additional 30-minute spell despite Steven Hislop’s sending-off having reduced Hugh Sinclair’s contingent on the pitch. It was 2-2 after 90; it was 5-3 after 120.
At the tail end of August and the start of September, a couple of statements of intent were laid. A season documented by some wild scorelines, one such saw Ben take centre stage with a first-half hat-trick in November 2019, where the Seagulls secured a 6-2 victory over visitors Moyola Park – his first match ball and, shock horror, not his last.
The Peninsula star netted in other goal-fests – namely in a 3-6 win at Armagh City and a brace in an end-to-end 5-5 draw at home to Newington – but when greater public health priorities took hold, the season was cut short at the start of March and the goals would dry up for all.
Arthurs had 17 to his name, top scorer with Johnston (nine), Cooling (eight) and McMullan (eight) on the verge of double digits, and Bangor ended the season in fourth-place. By virtue of a points-per-game metric in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Portadown outfit Annagh United were promoted as champions.
Only a solitary strike – against Currie’s Carrick in a shoot-out defeat at Taylor’s Avenue, amid a peculiarly revised Irish Cup format – was added to the big man’s count by the time the PIL finally started back an amazing 536 days later.
Through hard times and good
By now, Bangor had a new manager with Lee Feeney replacing Sinclair in the hotseat, and the younger of the Neale brothers was Arthurs’ team-mate rather than his opponent this time.
Both scored in the Kilkeel chief’s first league game in charge – a 3-1 victory over Tobermore United on home soil – and would remain at the forefront in a crusade that was to end in agonising fashion.
While the distinctly bitter taste of defeats in the Steel and Sons Cup semi-final and promotion play-off, as well as a strange dry spell at home midway through the season, have long since left the mouth, it still – well, on the pitch primarily – was a campaign to get out of the system.
In the term where the stadium reverted back to Clandeboye Park following almost a decade as the Bangor Fuels Arena, the Seasiders ended the league season in second-position behind Newington.
The north Belfast side, who courtesy of a former player in Dáire Rooney had the edge on their Co Down adversaries at the Steel last-four date at Seaview, piled on from that extra-time heartache by storming to the PIL title thanks to a particularly rampant post-split.
The second-leg loss at Breda Park versus Knockbreda, a continuation of play-off frustrations over the years for Bangor, was a new level of gutting.
But where there were the high points, and there were still plenty, Arthurs was unsurprisingly taking the mantle.
In the first leg against ‘Breda, the late late show brought as clamorous a chorus as any the ground has seen. The visitors were 0-2 up and cruising, but it was Ben and Zac Fletcher to haul the Yellows even ahead of the east Belfast return.
And you can take a guess at who was principal in earning that place too, as his double late on in the final matchday assured the Seasiders of the privilege over Armagh City. Going into the last 10 minutes, with the tie even at 1-1 and winner-takes-all for the right to play the Championship’s 11th-placed club, the focal point seized the initiative for a 3-1 win.
The Steel and Sons semi-final run featured his second Bangor hat-trick, against Crewe United, with finishes home and away versus The ‘Ton completing a pre-split double that proved crucial come the end.
Ending on 19 strikes in all competitions, it was yet another year on top of the scoring charts for a player still building up to his best.
And starting the new season on a three-quarter-century of goals, with eyes set on the hundred, perhaps his peak performance is just being realised.
The calm through the storm
When Arthurs struck his 100th goal – the second of four, with the elder Neale sibling Adam now pairing with him up top – against Dollingstown at Planters Park, it helped prop Bangor eight points clear at the top of the third-tier.
It was not an unfamiliar finish, either. A predatory pounce when home ‘keeper Gareth Buchanan invitingly parried the ball into the punisher’s path, he slotted practically into an open goal that restored the visitors’ lead after being pegged back even early in the second half.
Bangor won the game 1-4, with four points picked up in the last couple of ties directly attributable to the goals of ‘Big Ben’.
“Sometimes you’ve the pitch to deal with as well and it’s important to get points away from home too, because when you’re at home, it’s great when you’re playing on your own pitch but when you’re away, it might not suit your style of play as much, it’s a new challenge,” he explained after his double helped the boys to all three points at Banbridge Town a fortnight prior.
Stat attack:
- Taking on the responsibility as Bangor’s main penalty taker this season, Ben Arthurs is a perfect three from three when stood 12 yards out
He takes it in his stride, and with 14 goals this calendar year, he is reaping the maximum rewards.
At the time of writing, he sits perched at the division’s scoring summit on 15. 29-year-old Neale, who followed assist machine Reece in making the switch to Clandeboye, is right on his tail with 14 having netted the last of that quartet of finishes against the Dollybirds in the weekend passed.
Bagging his fourth Bangor hat-trick, and second in 2023 already in delivering a treble in the Irish Cup fifth round when Tandragee Rovers came to visit, it has proved quite an adventure for a player who is taking his game to new heights.
With a strike almost all of his own making creating an inroad for the Seasiders against the might of holders Crusaders in the Irish Cup sixth stage, a match that was screened on live television on a historic Friday night for the club, he again evidenced a penchant for showing the best version of himself when the lights, quite literally, are shining on him.
“Hopefully (I can) get 30 at least this season, maybe 35”
Ben Arthurs on his intention to continue his goalscoring exploits this season, having so far scored 26 goals in 26 games
And it was as true on Christmas Eve, where – with Bangor a goal down against Dunmurry Rec and on course to be seriously upset in the Steel and Sons Cup decider – Arthurs returned with a bang from a six-week injury absence as he brought the favourites level within five minutes of his substitute introduction.
The rest, as they say, is history. Ben and Adam hit the net at Seaview, and Feeney has an awaited first piece of silverware as boss.
Naturally, Arthurs is spurred on to keep the good times rolling and the goals flowing for a long time yet.
“Hopefully (I can) get 30 at least this season, maybe 35,” he mentioned following that 16th winning result in 18 league matches last time out.
Stat attack:
- Ben Arthurs has scored more goals against Dollingstown (eight) than any other club in a Bangor shirt, including five in two games this season.
In the wider context of a title charge, with nine games remaining, there is no doubt Ben will want the hot streak to continue and for a second double-winning campaign in four years to be readied for the archives.
To borrow some cricket terminology, it really is a case right now of 101 not out.
So here’s to the next 101.
Featured image from Sarah Harkness.
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