Ballybofey United's rise continues to gather pace

When talking about the rejuvenation of Ballybofey United, team manager PH Bonar recalls a conversation he had when he was last in charge of the team eight years ago.  

At the time, the club was struggling to stay afloat, with a small group of players keeping the team going in Division 2.  

Bonar knew if the club ever wanted to be competitive, he had to start from the ground up.  

“I was involved eight years as manager when we missed out on the play-off to Division 1 on the last day of the season, but at that time we had no reserve team, we had no facilities, and we weren’t in a great place. We just about managed to keep the club running,” he told Donegal Live.  

“I remember getting some advice off a conversation I had with Ciaran O’Donnell in Drumoghill who told me to go back and look after a good underage team, start there, and bring them through, and that’s the majority of the boys we now have playing for us.  

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“So, I took his advice and it worked out for us, but it’s the only way we can survive because other than that we don’t have a massive amount to offer, but we’re in a better place now.”  

That investment in underage resulted in Bonar returning to the manager’s hot seat last season where he introduced a body of youth to the squad that resulted in his side going the entire season undefeated in the league as they captured the Division 2 title.  

They have since been holding their own in Division 1, thanks in no small part to the large cohort of U-20 players, with the team currently sitting in fourth position on 10 points, six off the leaders Castlefin.  

“I have started several games this year with eight players under 20 years old,” Bonar said. “We’ve also been missing Niall McCloskey who is our captain and is also a fantastic footballer, and our goalkeeper Christopher Patton has missed two or three games for us too, and those lads are very hard to replace.  

“But we have young lads who want to play and they’re really competitive. Our overall aim is hoping they’ll still be with us in four years' time in their mid-20s and then they’re really able to compete against the top teams.”  

With regards to their matches played so far this season, Bonar admits that he is extremely satisfied with his team’s effort, adding that even in the three games they have lost, they were unfortunate not to come away with any points to their name.  

“We’re very happy where we’re at because at the start of the season, we set a target of staying in the league, and over the past few years we learned that 20 points will keep you there, so that was our target, to stay in the division and build from last year,” he said.  

“We’re at 10 points now which we’re really happy with although we would’ve been disappointed with some of our results and how we didn’t get the points in some of them games, but we’re learning from it all the time.  

“The first game of the season we played Lifford and we were on top for the majority of the game but we had a few malfunctions in the defence which caused them to get a goal and resulted in us throwing away a point or two because we definitely deserved a draw at least.  

“But we regrouped and bounced back after that and won three out of the next four matches and that put us in a decent place. Again, we lost to Castlefin on the day of the storm, but really, there should’ve been no game played that day with the conditions that were in it, but we were still 2-1 up with 20 minutes to go against a team who were in the Premier Division last year.  

“Our only other defeat was against Glenea two weeks ago where we lost 3-2, but we weren’t too disappointed because we were 3-0 down at half-time and we also missed a penalty to equalise that day.  

“So, while we’re happy where we’re at, the games where we dropped points, there was really nothing between the teams.”  

Now Ballybofey’s attention turns to this weekend when Bonar’s side square off against local rivals Cappry Rovers, with the two sides meeting in the league for the first time since January 2013.  

“We spoke about Cappry on Monday evening at training and all we said is that we want to take the whole derby thing out of it,” Bonar claimed.   

“The lads know the opposition players very well and are playing other sports with them but our focus for now is just trying to get three points and not get too excited about the occasion.  

“But having said that, it’s brilliant to be back playing Cappry because they’re a very experienced team while we’ve been struggling in Division 2 for years, so to be back on level playing terms is great because there was a gap there for so long.  

“We had good players leaving us to go and play with Cappry at a higher level in the past, so now we’re competitive with them which is where you want to be.”