Day 5!!!!

Thursday August 20th

Northern Ireland

After team breakfast and a quick meeting to discuss the day's schedule we began our journey towards Belfast, Northern Ireland. We were scheduled to take the ferry from Stranraer, Scotland to a northern seaport in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Once we arrived to the ferry (about an hour drive) we were all pretty surprised to see how big the ferry actually was. I think most the boys (me included) thought the ferry would be about the same size as the Martha's Vineyard ferry…turns out that this ferry could probably hold two MV ferries; we drove our tour bus on, we offloaded the bus and went searching for seats. Once inside we realized that finding a good seat was not really important…this was a luxury ferry and had fantastic amenities; game room, cinema, food court, and shopping center. The trip lasted just over two hours but there was plenty to do to make the time pass quickly.

After we arrived and waited some time in the "queue" we headed straight to the field. We had hoped to make it into Belfast but delays with the ferry ate into our leisure time. Nevertheless, we arrived in the town of Carrickfergus and made our way towards the Carrick Rangers Football Club's stadium (First division Northern Irish professional club) for a friendly with their squad.

We again started the game in defensive 4-5-1 to feel out the Rangers style and pace of play. We quickly learned that they like to play physical and very direct. The first half saw the Bantams drawing many fouls as the Rangers were clearly making a statement that they would be tough to beat on their pitch. In the final third of the first half Dan Mayernick was played a fantastic ball forward that would look to put him in alone on goal, given one more touch, however the Rangers goalkeeper was far off his line and met Dan 35 yards outside of his goal with a questionable two-footed-spikes-up tackle that the referee criticized harshly. After a few nervous moments Dan declared himself fit to finish the match and the Bantams set up for the free-kick. Chris Doran took the kick and drove the ball a few inches off the ground towards the far end of the six yard box. The ball remained untouched, to nearly the end line, until Jason Kulik chased the cross down and was able to slide the ball, from almost no angle, past the sprawling goalkeeper and into the net. However, Rangers would not go quietly into the night, they scored on a quick counter-attack-head-ball goal to finish the half tied 1-1.

The physical play was not over in the second half as four Bantams limped off the field with game ending injuries leaving us with only two subs for the rest of the game. The Bantams settled the pace of the game down and were able to carry the majority of the play with some great passing out of the defense and through the midfield. With about 10 minutes left the Bantams strung together nearly 10 passes together, with nearly everyone touching the ball, Sam Wisner found himself alone in the 18 yard box with no one but the goal keeper to beat. He beat the keeper to his right, for what proved to be the winning goal, and the Bantams walked off the field with their first European win 1-1.