The curious case of QUB AFC and their season so far
Ryan Brolly
Varsity football serves an important purpose. University teams are best placed to develop young talents whilst they study within the institutions.
As a result, many university sides across the UK have rightfully earned their place in club competitions within the lower echelons of the wider footballing pyramid.
A very successful example of this is the University College Dublin, who compete in the League of Ireland bouncing between the top and second tier of Irish football in recent years.
They have developed fantastic players like Liam Kerrigan, who moved to Serie B side Como 1907 in 2022, Celtic defender Liam Scales and Irish international Enda Stevens.
On the flipside, there are Queen’s who cannot claim to have have such high calibre alumni occupying their ranks as those of UCD, but with good reason, as structurally they differ greatly to other university sides.
They provide a platform for students and non-students, to play football at multiple levels of the game, from development football to within the league structure against other teams vying to eventually reach the ever more competitive Premiership.
Queen’s had somewhat of a strong end to the 2010s and start to the 2020’s when they found glory in the Intermediate Cup in 2018 before gaining promotion to the NIFL Championship in 2019 after a strong showing in the Premier Intermediate Division.
In that time they also provided one of the greatest scalps in Irish Cup history beating Gibson Cup holders at the time Linfield 2-1 in a remarkable game in 2020.
As the saying goes, ‘all good things must come to an end’ and Queen’s fairy-tale came to a crushing end in a post-COVID world.
They suffered a swift relegation from the Championship again last season, with the step up in quality proving too great. This means QUB find themselves back in the land of intermediate football and are in danger of becoming a ‘yo-yo’ club, (essentially too good for one division, but not good enough to step up to another - think Norwich).
That could all be about to change as the season so far has been steady for the side playing out of The Dub. They find themselves in 3rd place after achieving seven wins in 12 games. Only Ballymacash Rangers and Steel and Son’s Cup winners Bangor sit above them.
QUB AFC are currently 3rd in the Premier Intermediate League
As a result they look in good shape to remain in contention for promotion after the league splits. They do have their faults however, as they are not a free scoring side, only finding the net 27 times. They have also conceded 23 goals, giving them a much weaker goal difference than the two teams above them as well as Dollingstown, who occupy 4th position, with just two points separating the sides.
They don’t have a talisman which could arguably be their downfall come crunch time, with no QUB player ranking within the top 10 scorers in the PIL.
Despite this fact, they are getting the results required to contend with arguably bigger sides above them and under the stewardship of head coach James Lavery, who was a prolific goal scorer for QUB AFC in his own right, netting 120 times in five years with the team, they have someone who knows what it takes to be involved in a successful University football team.
He is well placed to take them from strength to strength and eventually up the divisions of the Northern Irish Football League system, but it certainly seems it will be a tough challenge ahead with the increased competitiveness of the Premiership filtering down to the lower divisions.
Lavery’s main challenge for now, is to ensure Queen’s can stay on the coattails of the top two and win promotion to the Championship, where QUB will have a lot of wrongs to right as they aim to write a glorious new chapter in their recent successful history.
Ryan Brolly is a History and International Relations student at Queen’s University Belfast and a Sport Reporter for The Scoop.