Letterbarrow Celtic chase promotion with the odds stacked against them

There are two games left in the season, and the odds are stacked against them.   

Fifth in the table on 30 points, two points behind Drumoghill, four behind Whitestrand, and only third place will do. Even if Letterbarrow Celtic win both their games, they need a bit of luck elsewhere to sneak into the play-off spot for promotion back to Division 1.   

But, as manager Gerard McBrearty sees it, what his side has done to get to this point is already something to celebrate.  

“Promotion is probably out of our hands now due to the fact that we have two games left, but we need the teams above us to lose their matches,” says the Letterbarrow boss.   

“But we can still take great positives in the fact that we haven’t lost a game since the first week of December. We’re undefeated now in 2025, which is unbelievable.”  

And therein lies the story. Twelve months ago, Letterbarrow were a team at their lowest ebb, relegated from Division 1 without winning a single game.   

Now, as they prepare for the final two rounds of the league, they’re the form team in the division, unbeaten this calendar year and fresh from back-to-back wins over the top two teams.  

“The commitment from the lads since Christmas time has been second to none,” McBrearty says.   

“We didn’t think that we’d still be within a chance of getting promoted coming into the last two weeks, but if you look at our results, we beat the top two teams in the league the last two weeks, and we deserved those results too.”  

To put that in context, Kerrykeel and Convoy Arsenal have been a class apart all season. That Letterbarrow has not only gone toe-to-toe with them but taken them down on consecutive weekends tells its own story. Even their opponents have acknowledged as much.  

“To be fair to those teams, Kerrykeel and Convoy Arsenal, they said we deserved to win those games,” says McBrearty. “And coming from those teams, we can only take that as a compliment because they’re the best two teams in the league.”  

Momentum counts for plenty at this stage of the season. Letterbarrow’s only problem is that they’re running out of road. If this was a marathon, they’d be the ones making a late charge, hoping to time their finish to perfection. But the reality is that two games might not be enough to reel in the pack ahead of them.  

“The way it is at the minute, it’s unfortunate that we’re running out of games, but the lads have given serious commitment all year,” McBrearty says.   

“Normally we have lads getting tied up with the GAA around this time of year, but it hasn’t been too bad this season, and hopefully we can have full commitment for the last two games.”  

Whatever happens, Letterbarrow have already turned a corner. The team that dropped out of Division 1 last season bears little resemblance to the one that has battled back to contention now.  

“We were relegated last season after not winning a game the entire year,” McBrearty told Donegal Live. “Now, the standard last year in that league had Letterkenny Rovers and Bonagee United. They both got promoted, and we can now see where they are in the Premier Division as the two top teams.  

“But this year we came down to the lower division, we regrouped, and now we have a completely new team bar two or three lads, like me and James McGroary who have been here for years. The rest are all relatively young players, and Chris Burke and I cannot get over the effort the lads have given this season.”  

Next year will be Letterbarrow’s 50th anniversary. It’s no small thing for a rural club to have kept the show on the road for half a century. Whatever happens in the next fortnight, they know that the long haul matters more than the short term.  

“I think it’s great in that next season we will be celebrating 50 years of the club in 2026, and I know the hardship of running a rural club,” McBrearty says.   

“But in all those years, we have never not fielded a team in those 50 years. So, hopefully, next season, if promotion doesn’t fall our way this year, we’ll put a big push on to try and win the league next year.”  

For now, though, the immediate concern is making sure they take care of business in their final two games. McBrearty won’t be around for one of them, but he has a decent excuse.  

“We have two games left in the league now. I’ll be missing one due to my commitments with the Donegal Masters, who will be travelling over to Glasgow to open a pitch, and then we’ll be going to Parkhead as guests, and we’ll be paraded at half-time at the Celtic game.  

“That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but thankfully we have the experience of Chris to look after the team for the Drumkeen game.”  

Two games left and two teams ahead of them needing to drop points. If Letterbarrow does manage to pull off a miracle, they won’t have done it the easy way.