By Jonathan Brown
Samuel Gordon says he’s looking forward to the challenge of first team management as he prepares for the start of Valley Rangers’ 2025/26 campaign.
Gordon was in charge of Valley’s reserve team last season, guiding them to a third-place finish in the MUFL Reserve Championship and a Wilmor Johnston Cup win against Rathfriland Reserves. The former Valley captain was appointed first team manager at the end of last season, replacing David McKee, and he’s expecting a tough test in the Mid-Ulster Intermediate A division, which is set to get underway on Saturday 2 August.
“It’s going to be competitive in Intermediate A, it’s a very difficult league. No team is guaranteed anything, there’s so many good teams and I think it’s up there as one of the hardest leagues about, and the players have all told me the exact same thing. There’s no given game that you could go and say ‘we’re going here today and this is going to be easy’, no, you have to turn up every single week,” Gordon explained.
“But I’m looking forward to it big time, I want the best for the club and it’s on me to bring the best for them,” he added.
Gordon came through Valley Rangers’ youth system and played for the club’s first team before being forced to retire five years ago as a result of an ankle injury. He then took up a role as Valley’s third team manager in 2022, before progressing to the reserve team two years later. Gordon has known the majority of the players in his squad for a long time, which he believes gives him an instant advantage.
“If somebody else came in from outside the club, they wouldn’t know the players as well as I do. I’ve played with some of them, managed some of them, or known them because I went to school with them. There’s no one I don’t know in the team. I know what the players are good at, what their weaknesses are and what their personalities are like.”
Valley have made three signings this summer, bringing in James Begley from 1st Bangor FC, Jonny Burns—who returns to the club from Rathfriland—and Ciaran Stratton from Castlewellan Town. Unfortunately, Stratton tore his hamstring shortly after joining Valley a few weeks ago. But Gordon is excited by the arrival of Burns and Begley, the latter picking up 1st Bangor’s Players’ Player and Supporters’ Player of the Year awards last season.
“Jonny has all the ability in the world and of all the players we have at the club, I’d put him in the top three in terms of being technically gifted,” Gordon said. “James is a great signing for us. I think even some of the senior players can learn a lot from him, as well as the younger players. He has experience and he’s a great fella in the dressing room too.”
In addition to those signings, Thomas Law has committed to another season with Valley. Law was the third top scorer in the Intermediate A league last season with 16 goals, attracting the attention of many other clubs, but the 24-year-old has decided to remain at Bignian Park. “Thomas pretty much had a clean sweep of all the awards for the first team last year. It’s a great thing—getting him to stay and commit for another season was like a new signing, because he’s such a good player.”
Evaluating Valley’s preseason, Gordon says there’s a lot of positives to take, adding that every player in the squad and everyone at the club is excited about the start of a new campaign. “Everyone seems fully motivated, and everyone is pushing for places because they know we have a competitive squad. We’ve played a few friendlies; we’ve lost one and drew the rest, but some of the football we’ve played has been fantastic, despite having a lot of boys away on holidays for those games. So there’s a lot of positives to take before the season starts and everybody at the club is buzzing to get going.”
Gordon has already integrated several players from his reserve team into first team training: Daniel Chestnutt, Curtis Hunter, Cameron Campbell, Jack Herron, Ben Weir, and Tom McCauley. Those players have also been given opportunities in Valley’s recent friendly games, and Gordon made it clear that he’s not afraid to give young players a chance in the first team. “There’s a lot of young, hungry players at Valley who are dying to get a first team opportunity. I’ve no fear of throwing them in at the deep end, because I know they can do it.”
The man in the Bignian Park hotseat added that no player at the club is assured of a starting position. “If you don’t perform and you don’t put in the effort, you won’t play, it’s as simple as that. That’s the best way to go about it—getting that mentality into the players and making sure they’re fighting for their place. Then everybody steps up a level and you become a whole lot better as a team.”
Looking ahead to the 2025/26 campaign, Gordon believes it would be foolish to set any concrete objectives in a division as tough as Mid-Ulster Intermediate A, but he believes the Mourne side can improve upon their 11th place finish last season. “You can’t just say ‘we’re going to go and do this’ or ‘we’re going to go and do that’. In some leagues you maybe should, but not in Intermediate A, or you’ll make a fool of yourself. It just takes two bad months and all of a sudden your league position can go from top to bottom. Last season we were pretty high up in the table at a stage, then we went through a tough few months with injuries, boys dipping in form, losing games to last-minute winners, so that all adds up. But we’re definitely going to be a better side than last year in my opinion, and hopefully we can achieve something. If we go out and be the best team we possibly can be, I have no doubt in my mind that we finish higher than we did last year.”
There might even be a chance of picking up silverware, if the Valley players can perform to their full potential. “I would love Valley to be pushing to win trophies—if not this year, next year—because that’s what football is all about. Whether that’s a dream or a reality, I don’t know at the minute. I’ve told the players, if we can believe we’re good enough and we all put the effort in, there’s no reason why we can’t win something.”
To read the digital edition, download the Mourne Observer app – for apple click here – for android click here
