Ballymacash Rangers v
Wikipedia - Ballymacash Rangers F.C.
Ballymacash Rangers Football Club is an intermediate-level football club who play in the NIFL Premier Intermediate League. The club is based in the Lisburn area and play their home games at The Bluebell Stadium. The club also has a senior reserve side, senior swifts side, senior women's side and a youth academy.
History
Ballymacash Rangers won the top tier (Intermediate A) of the Mid-Ulster Football League in the 2003/04 season. Following this the club had a trophy barren spell up until the 2012/13 season when following a relegation from Intermediate A, the club found themselves in Intermediate B. A successful 2012/13 campaign saw them lift the Intermediate B title[] which was followed up by winning the Mid-Ulster Football League Alan Wilson Cup to make it a double winning season.[]
Ballymacash Rangers went the entire calendar year of 2014 without defeat in a league fixture, winning all of their league games bar two.[] The club never won the Mid-Ulster Football League Intermediate A in either season that 2014 covered, coming second in 2013/14[] and third in 2014/15. []
In 2019, the club announced their aspirations to gain promotion to the Northern Ireland Football League[] alongside plans to complete a million pound renovation of The Bluebell Stadium,[] the ground where Ballymacash play their home games.
In 2020, the club completed the first phase of their ground renovavations as they opened a state of the art full sized 3G pitch with floodlights.[] This was a community funded project.[] Future phases are proposed to include developing a new social club with onsite gym and expanding car parking facilities.[] In July 2021, the club finished work on its first ever pitchside stand, with the 100-seater structure sitting behind the goal at the Drumard Grange end.
Manager Lee Forsythe won Intermediate A at his first attempt, winning it in the 2021/22 season. His Ballymacash side played thirty league games, winning twenty-five, drawing four and losing just once. They finished the season with 126 goals scored and only 24 conceded. The 2021/22 season Mid-Ulster Football League also saw Ballymacash's 1st team, Reserves and Swifts teams all winning their respective leagues. This was the first time in Mid-Ulster Football League history that one club had won three league titles in the same season.
On Tuesday 23 August 2022, Ballymacash made history when they won their first ever Northern Ireland Football League fixture, winning 3–0 away to Portstewart F.C. in the Premier Intermediate League.
Another piece of history was made at The Bluebell Stadium on Tuesday 25 October 2022, as Ballymacash's home game against Lisburn Distillery F.C. was the Northern Ireland Football League's first ever live streamed YouTube game. The stream had over 8000 views, with the match itself finishing in a 2–2 draw.