by Aaron Kely
This weekend sees the return of an array of familiar faces to Bishopsgate as Longford Town take on Wexford in match week 9 of the League of Ireland first division. Longford and Wexford will always be interconnected by the winter transfer window of 2022 as a number of key players from last season’s Town side made the switch to Ferrycarrig Park. Matthew Dunne, Ben Lynch, Aaron Robinson, Jordan Adeyemo and Town’s former longest serving player Karl Chambers amongst others all joined Youths in the off season. Also adding to the connections between the two clubs is new Wexford boss James Keddy, who Town fans will also be familiar with as the assistant to Gary Cronin last season. Sentiments aside, this is a very important game for both sides as both have experienced extremely patchy form at the beginning of this season.
The visitors for tonight’s game sit in 6th place, 2 points off Athlone Town who currently occupy that final play-off place in this early stage of the season. They’re also winless in their last 3, with the most recent result being a 4-0 home defeat at the hands of league leaders Galway United. As for Town, things appeared to be looking up following the Joshua Giurgi inspired 2-0 victory over Kerry FC in the last home game. However, it unfortunately felt like one step forward and two back for Town fans as they saw their side be defeated 3-2 by the struggling Treaty United at the markets field in what felt like a good opportunity to start building momentum in the early stages of this season.
But the beauty of football is, there’s always the next game which presents an opportunity to put things right and that’s what both sides will be eager to do this Saturday evening in front of an expectant Bishopsgate.