What you are about to read is a story, a story of how 18 boys all from different backgrounds and religions formed a unbreakable bond, a bond between boys that will last forever.

From the first day until the last every one of us had 17 brothers, 17 brothers that we would go the extra mile for. We went to the biggest youth tournament in the world and came out feeling like winners.

We were all boys with life ahead of us, we all felt invincible, we were playing in the biggest youth football tournament in the world and best of all we were together, as one big family. We had so much confidence in our own ability, and each others ability, that we would have fancied ourselves against AC Milan in the San Siro.

We walked out against Everton on the Monday believing that we would beat them, and with a bit of luck we could have. We went down 2-0, but we went down fighting. An OG and a lucky volley were all that separated us.

We had to beat Maccabi Haifa on the Tuesday. We were 2-0 down at Half time, and somehow our coaches Kyle Speirs and Paul Ritchie (to whom we are eternally grateful) sent us out for the second half believing that we could beat the Israel team. Mind you we didn’t take much convincing.

We came out for the second half and encouraged the stand, packed with wonderfully supportive fans, onto their feet to get behind their wee County team. And as I looked around the pitch, I could see it; I could see 10 men standing with me who wouldn’t let me down. And as we looked at the big, strong and confident Maccabi Haifa team just before the restart, they were wilting like flowers. The fans were 100% behind us, we had that magic spirit and we believed that even the full Israel Army wouldn’t have stopped us in that 2nd half. You could see fear in their eyes, suddenly the men had become boys and the boys had become men. With luck we could have beat them, as it turned out we scored once to make it 2-1. But as the final whistle sounded, we were greeted by a hero’s reception. We hadn’t gone down without a fight. We had exited the milk cup, but by god we done it kicking and screaming.

On the Wednesday we just couldn’t lose. We were never going to lose that game, it was ours and no team was going to stop us. And we did win it, 3-2 sounds like a tight game, far from it, we dominated and they fluked 2 goals. We are forever indebted to Mr T (aka Joshua) for getting his big dopey head onto that corner in the last minute to send us flying into Thursday’s semi final against Co. Londonderry.

What a game Thursday was, full of passion. 1-1 after full time and straight to penalties. Deary me the poor Gaffer needed a seat after 7 penalties, thankfully Londonderry’s 8th penalty taker sent his penalty high into the Coleraine sky, ala David Beckham. We went mad; I ran and jumped over the fence into the screaming crowd, soon the rest followed. We went mad, bring on the cherry orchard!!

Back at the hotel the party continued with the full squad assembly outside Speirsy and Paul’s room to encourage them out for a song, they didn’t disappoint.

So to the final. We didn’t play well. Infact we were awful. But at the end the wonderful supporters would not accept any dropped heads; they wanted to see the wonderful happy team spirit one last time. So heads were raised, the game was forgotten and we went into the changing and joined by Mr Speirsy we out-sang the Cherry Orchard boys. Wonderful. Again evidence that they can win the match, but they can never break our spirit.

But seriously I don’t think any of us will ever have a better team spirit than that ever. We would like to think we were special; we would like to think we did leave a wee legend, we would like people to look back in years to come and remember our squad, the class of 2005, and have a wee smile and think by god they were special. At least in our minds we were special, we didn’t win the football, but we won the hearts of everybody around us. We are untouchable, we had characters.

If there is ever a County Down squad with a team spirit half as good as ours they will be doing well. Sir Alex Ferguson once said a manager only gets a full team playing to their best once or twice in his career, well I think a County only ever gets one really special squad, a squad full of so many characters that we could win the hearts of everybody and anybody, and I think it was us. Infact I know it was us. So thanks to everybody in the backroom staff, the Gaffer, Speirsy, Gerard, Courtney, Jeremy and all the committee.

Long Live the Legend, Long live the class of 2005

Jamie Bryson,
Junior Squad