THE last time Enniskillen won a Towns’ Cup was in 2019 when they held Ballyclare scoreless to win 19-0 at Kingspan Stadium. That victory ended an 82 year wait for the trophy.
Current captain Stephen Fox was part of the 2019 cup-winning side, with Matthew Dane, James Ferguson and James Carleton the only other players from the team of 2024 to have winners’ medals from that famous day.
Skins’ captain, Fox, who plays in the front row remembers the ‘relief’ of winning the 2019 decider;
“We’d lost two finals before that, so it was a relief to get it done, finally.
“Our league wasn’t going well that year. It’s a bit different this year, we’ve been consistent in the league and hopefully we’ll bring that through on Easter Monday.”
Carleton missed all of last season through an knee injury and had ten months rehab after his operation. He has been a mainstay in Alastair Keys’ side this season, playing most games.
“It’s good to be back”, he said, adding, “it’s the best I can remember us playing as a team, especially in the league. We’ve never pushed as hard as we did this year for the league, so it only bodes well for the future” said the Teemore Engineering employee.
He believes the ‘buy-in’ from players this season has been reflected on the pitch in terms of results;
“We’ve a young team as well. Maybe older generations (previously), myself included, mightn’t have committed as much to gym sessions and then training twice a week on the pitch. We sort of fell off, the years before, after Christmas but it’s been very consistent this year and there’s a real good attitude about the club – boys are really enjoying it, and it’s translated onto the pitch thankfully,” he said.
Carleton knows what it’s like to win finals but equally he knows the hurt of losing them. He was involved in the 2016 ad 2017 sides that lost consecutive Town’s Cup Finals.
The Skins’ captain gets the significance of Monday’s Final in Kingspan against Ballymena and he believes the younger members of the squad will use the hurt of last year’s All Ireland Junior Cup and Ulster Junior Cup defeats as motivation to finish the job this time around;
“You have to make sure you don’t take these days for granted because you never know what will happen.
“Everyone has experience of playing in Ravenhill as well, so it won’t be as daunting maybe,” he explained.
“It would mean a lot to win because we’ve missed out on the league this year, so to get some silverware for all the hard work would mean a lot.”
And to become the first captain since Ryan Cathcart, their current S&C coach, to lift the trophy for the club would be doubly sweet, said Fox;
“He still goes on every week about how he’s the last captain to lift it, it would be nice to shut him up because he’s getting a bit sickening every week,” he laughed.
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