Erne Wanderers hopeful of keeping up positive start

Erne Wanderers have had a good start to the season and player/manager Phillip Patton is hopeful they can keep it up and challenge for silverware in Saturday Division One.

Patton’s side are still unbeaten so far this season in the league and, given their opposition on paper, it has been pleasing for Patton.

They defeated four-in-a-row champions Oldtown Celtic, who haven’t started well, in their opening game, along with a win over Kilmacrennan Celtic, while they also drew with last year’s runners-up, Kildrum Tigers, and fourth place Donegal Town.

“Going seven points out of nine and maybe being unlucky not to beat Kildrum as we went down to nine men, then we could have beat Donegal Town at the weekend,” Patton said.

“But other than that, it has been a really good start because we are still unbeaten, and it’s nice to have that. We’re putting out a good team every week.

“So many teams play such different football, and the competition in the league this year is also much stronger.

“It’s a massive step up and mentally too because you’re playing against big teams, even if they aren’t huge in Saturday football, but they are big clubs.”

It’ll be a big test for the Ernesiders this weekend as they face Letterkenny Rovers.

Both teams have finished top two and have been promoted in the past two seasons, but the Leckview Park men have won the league both times.

“We’ve been battling it out with Letterkenny Rovers every year since we both came into the league. We were both quite strong, and they’ve nabbed us when it has been important.

“We’d love to win the league, but you have to set reasonable targets of trying to build a club and a squad, but we feel we have a squad that can go on and challenge.

“We were tanked by Kildrum last season in the Voodoo Cup final and we were unlucky to draw with them this season so we feel we have pushed on a bit, and we would love to be hoping to get our hands on something this year, between the league or the Ulster Shield.

“If we can keep this positive start going, then we can definitely be there or thereabouts.

“The last couple of years, we knew if we didn’t win that one off or two games with Letterkenny, then there wasn’t much of a chance of them dropping points elsewhere.

“This year it is different, and it isn’t the be-all and end-all if we don’t win so there’s less pressure, but they have beaten us well the last three times.

“But we’d be confident enough of getting a result if we have our best squad out.”

Patton is player/manager this season, taking over from Diarmaid Slevin, who guided the team to back-to-back promotions on their return to the Donegal Junior League after seven years away.

Patton was one of a few players who played in the Sligo League when they didn’t have a team, while some went to Donegal Town.

“‘Slev’ was with us for two years, and maybe he felt he brought us as far as he could, so he moved on to Donegal Town.

“I decided to jump in so things wouldn’t fall apart. I get on with a load of the boys, and we got some other lads back and it has worked out well so far.

“We’ve never really been a soccer town, we always had a decent enough team and in my first year, they won a decent amount in Saturday football.

“I was 17 and we won the Sunday Division Two on the final day, there were three teams going for the league, but we folded after that as the Gaelic took over.

“We always had enough players playing elsewhere but we just couldn’t get a team going.

“We even had three boys going out to Arranmore! Marty McGarrigle’s family is from there, so him, Damian Weber, and John Roper went out there.

“But we had to wait a year to get those boys back, with players not being allowed to transfer straight away to a new club.

“Harry Howarth and Robbie Murphy have come back in, and Imed (Boutabsou) from Algeria has been playing with us for a while and is really experienced and has broken into the team this year.

“Those three and then what we’ve had the last couple of years give us enough to believe that we can win any game.

“We’ve got more boys consistently this year, and we have a much bigger squad. We have big numbers, about 20-25 boys training and it’s gone well so far, we’ve actually had to cut the squad on matchday sometimes and that’s something you didn’t think would be an issue.

“Our only issue now is that we don’t have an Under-18 team, so our next ambition is to keep the senior team going and then try and get that team to develop and bring players through.”