When Derry City suffered three away defeats against Waterford, Sligo, and Shamrock Rovers, the return to The Brandywell couldn’t have come quicker. After 18 months away from the Lone Moor Road, the ‘Candy Stripes’ needed a big response for the sake
When Derry City suffered three away defeats against Waterford, Sligo, and Shamrock Rovers, the return to The Brandywell couldn’t have come quicker. After 18 months away from the Lone Moor Road, the ‘Candy Stripes’ needed a big response for the sake of their season, and they delivered. Under huge pressure, Derry managed 10 goals in five days, a pitiless response Kenny Shiels desired after a disastrous affair in Tallaght 10 days ago. In front of a jam-packed stadium, the Foylesiders saw off Bray Wanderers on Friday and Aaron McEneff admitted he loves being back playing in front of the home support again. “I love playing here, the atmosphere is unbelievable. When you score a goal, the fans erupt, it’s been brilliant,” McEneff said. “I just want everybody to keep coming because as you can see it obviously does help.” The ‘Candy Stripes’ went down to 10 men after 55 minutes when Nicky Low was shown a red card, but 10 minutes later they had already put the game to bed following goals by Ronan Curtis and a McEneff converted penalty. “I think whenever you do go down to ten men you always feel like you have to give that bit extra. “Ben (Doherty) came on (after the sending off) and was like an energiser and he has gone and won the penalty. “That kick-started us, and Bray to be fair to them worked hard, but they looked dead on their feet at that stage,” he said. Six different players have managed to get on the score sheet for Derry City this campaign and McEneff admitted that is something that has eluded them in previous years. “Last year we relied on goals from certain people and the year before, Rory (Patterson) scored a lot of goals by himself. “It’s a good thing when you see people scoring from all areas, and it was good to see Hoppy (David Hopkirk) come on and score on his debut. So overall it’s good to see the boys chipping in with goals.”
