In the latest round of the Playr-Fit Championship last weekend, one of the stand-out results was Institute’s impressive 4-0 victory over Bangor in a third-versus-fourth battle at the Brandywell.
The hosts looked in mightily good nick and were thoroughly deserving winners on the day. Shaun Leppard’s opener, prodding home from a dangerous right-sided free-kick, was added to after the half-time pause by substitute Kirk McLaughlin’s hat-trick that completed a resounding victory.
As a travelling supporter, it was not an easy watch but, credit where it’s due, Stute look well on the right track under the tutelage of Kevin Deery.
The former Derry City hero dished out the instructions from the touchline and his players reciprocated, deploying a ball-playing yet physical style that can take the game to anyone.
On Saturday, that result saw Institute – a Premiership outfit as recently as 2020 – keep within a couple of points of the promotion play-off berth, still with a match in hand on Portadown directly above them.
At the time of writing, Stute have won five of their last six matches in the second-tier and, given they finished second from bottom last year, that particular plight has been firmly left in the rear-view mirror; they are only 16 points worse off from their entire tally in 2022/23 and have the means to go on given young guns like Kirk McLaughlin, Liam Mullan, Orrin McLaughlin, Oisin Devlin, Bobby Deane and Tiarnan McKinney are only going to get better.
From a personal perspective, seeing the Seasiders fall to their heaviest defeat of the season wasn’t what I had hoped for, needless to say, and the commute back from the Maiden City was rather downbeat.
Tinged with an element of sadness on seeing Institute’s former home.
On the Glenshane Road, two landmarks stand out. To one side, Altnagelvin Hospital and, to the other, the now-derelict Riverside.
The latter, a quaint Irish League ground in its day, has lay for nature to reclaim ever since it was the victim of overnight flooding in August 2017; the nearby Faughan river burst its banks and, for six years, the stadium has stood as a relic of older times with Japanese knotweed infesting the pitch.
That flooding left a devastating impact in its wake and required Stute to relocate from Drumahoe, in the south of Derry/Londonderry, to the Brandywell out west, where Derry City play their fixtures.
As you pass it, the exoskeleton of the Riverside remains intact.
You can make out a modern grandstand, multicoloured seats, a tight playing surface that would’ve kept football followers in the thick of the action, clearly marked home and away turnstiles and even the dugouts. A well-painted picture of the ideal venue for Irish League matchdays.
It’s the kind of essence Institute will undoubtedly hope to retain when they do set foot in their new residence.
And that could be sooner rather than later.
This February, they were named as preferred tenants for a proposed new stadium in Clooney Park West in the Waterside area of the city; it would be a facility that would not only serve the local community, but allow the sky-blue-coloured establishment to furnish a permanent residence with plenty of new memories.
“It has been a long five years since we were forced to leave our ground in Drumahoe due to severe flooding, and then we had the Covid pandemic which really put everything on hold,” Stute chairman Bill Anderson explained when the club received the good news earlier this year. “We can now look forward with anticipation and excitement to developing a first-class facility for the whole community, and a new home for the club, in Clooney Park West.”
There’s no question Institute would be well worthy of acquainting themselves with a place to truly call theirs once again.
And they have the formula to make a house their home.
Featured image from John Paul McGinley/JPJ Photography, via Derry Now.
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