THERE weren’t many footballers in Barry McCambridge’s family tree until recently. Barry’s dad John hails from staunch hurling territory in Cushendall and his uncles Conor, Michael and Ciaran and cousin Ryan have all represented Antrim in the caman code.
So it was all hurling until John moved to Armagh but now the Lurgan branch of the family is flourishing at football. Barry’s sister Clodagh, an Allstar last year, is established as the rock of the Armagh defence and rated as one of the best full-backs in the ladies’ game.
And Barry wore the number three jersey on Sunday as Clann Eireann saw off a determined challenge from experienced Ballymacnab to reach their first Armagh Senior Championship final since 1968. They’ll take on Crossmaglen in the decider on November 14 in what will be the third final meeting of the clubs.
Cross won the previous two (in 1960 after a replay and two years’ later by five points) and McCambridge is well aware of the challenge that faces his club if they are to overcome the Rangers and end their long wait for the Gerry Fegan Cup.
“If you’re going to win an Armagh championship you need to beat Cross and there’s no better place to do it than in the final,” he said.
“We’ve seen over the years that they’re always the team to beat and we know how good they are. We’ll be looking forward to it – you don’t go into any game expecting to lose. You need to believe in yourself or there’s no point turning up. We’ll get back to training, work hard and give it a go.”
He locked horns with Rory Grugan on Sunday and he’ll be preparing himself for a battle with his Armagh team-mate Rian O’Neill in the final. O’Neill has scored heavily throughout this championship but McCambridge, who is physically big and deceptively quick, isn’t shy about getting forward himself and he registered a point and a superb goal in the first half of Sunday’s semi-final.
“In the last few years Ballymacnab have got to a couple of finals and they’ve been there, or thereabouts and they are a top, top team with brilliant players,” said McCambridge.
“We just knew that we had the bench and the fitness to drive on and, lucky enough, we got over the line in the end. It could have gone either way but we’re delighted to get the win.
“We drove at them in the first half but we know we have plenty of room for improvement because we let them back into it – they scored two goals themselves and it’s credit to them that, when we got well ahead, they were able to bring it back and even get ahead towards the end and it was the boys that came in off the bench that carried us over the line.”
After clinching promotion from Division 1B this year, Clann Eireann faced Ballymacnab having dethroned defending champions Maghery at the quarter-final stage. McCambridge explained that the foundations for that win had been laid last season.
“We got a lot of confidence from beating Maghery in the quarter-final but a lot of the belief we had in that game came from last year,” he said.
“They always say you learn more from your defeats (than your wins) and last year they beat us by a point after extra-time. We knew we threw that game away and we knew that if we got them again we wouldn’t be far off it.”
If this talented Clann Eireann side produces what they’re capable off, they shouldn’t be far off in the final either.
