Dean Smith didn’t pull any punches at the weekend when reflecting on the pre-season perception of his newly-promoted Loughgall outfit.
“If you’d have read every report the week before the season started, every single person had us tipped to go down – and straight down,” he said.
“Probably with five games to go, they had us relegated.”
The Villagers boss was speaking after the 2-1 victory over Glenavon at Mourneview Park that lifted his side into seventh-place in the standings ahead of the split.
While Carrick Rangers can leapfrog them with a win over Linfield at Loughview Leisure Arena on Easter Tuesday, what the triumph away to their Co Armagh neighbours means is that they will certifiably be a Sports Direct Premiership football club next season and anyone who had tipped them to go down with a whimper has been left a little red-faced.
Loughgall, indeed, were just a couple of points off a top-six place and will likely be battling for the last slot in the European play-off come the end of May.
They are the only team to have beaten leaders and champions Larne in the league all season and, with 39 points collected overall, have already exceeded the whole-term tallies of Newry City (30) and Portadown (36) – the last two sides to achieve promotion as winners of the Championship.
They’ve certainly proved that size is incomparable to stature. With only 282 inhabitants, per the 2011 Census, they ended their 16-year absence from Northern Ireland top-flight football as the smallest settlement to have a club in a leading division across the whole of Europe.
But Loughgall are far greater than the sum of their parts. They’ve also done it in their own inimitable way.
Retaining the core of their Championship-winning squad from 2023, including the revelatory 15-goal and recent Northern Ireland Under-21 call-up Benji Magee and flavour of the month Nathaniel Ferris, who hit his sixth goal in four matches and 14th of the league season from the penalty spot against the Lurgan Blues and doubles versus Cliftonville (a 3-2 defeat) and Glentoran (a famous 3-0 win away from home) beforehand, has proved a masterstroke on Smith’s part and underpins just why they’ve been as sincerely successful as they have been.
Continuity has been key. Ask Andrew Hoey, Berraat Turker, Ben Murdock, Luke Cartwright, Pablo Andrade, Jamie Rea, Ally Teggart, Robbie Norton or any other member of last term’s panel just how vital that’s been. One suspects that you’d get a fairly unanimous response.
The Villagers, who were founded in 1967, are a well-drilled unit with a successful culture that’s been driven from the top.
Smith, who is seven and a half years into his tenure at Lakeview Park, has received Manager of the Year shouts all too naturally. It’s an enterprising brand of football, and Loughgall have stuck to their guns and stayed honest to their values – that’s something you have to respect.
They will, of course, keep that fight for seventh spot alive and be determined to turn a great season into their greatest ever in the play-offs. But what a season it’s been, in any case.
Featured image from Andrew McCarroll/Pacemaker Press.
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