Forrester expresses pride at being handed Derry captaincy

Neil Forrester could not hide his delight at captaining his county yesterday, despite Derry falling to a narrow defeat against Down in the McKenna Cup.

Although the day ended in a one-point defeat, it was still a significant day for the Steelstown man, who became the first representative from the Ballyarnett club to receive the honour of being named captain for his county. Derry are in action again on Wednesday night against Queen’s in the final group game, and although it remains to be seen whether Forrester gets the armband again, yesterday will remain a day that the 26-year-old will not forget regardless. “It’s just a huge honour,” he said. “The messages I got this week were unbelievable from every man, from Facebook, Twitter, everything. I have been blown away by the amount of messages I got, and to even captain your county once, I couldn’t put it in words. “It means so much to me, especially as the first man from Steelstown to captain the county. I found out last Wednesday night and I had a big smile on my face the whole night. It came out the next day and the messages started coming through. It was unbelievable. I am sort of disappointed that I didn’t get the win. A lot of people travelled up from Steelstown, so I’m gutted for them that we didn’t get the win at the end of the day.” Despite an improved second half display against Down, Derry fell just short against Down, but Forrester insists that it was not through a lack of effort. “We talked about it and the very first thing we said was that its’s our Derry team and we decide the characteristics of that team,” he continued. “We never gave up, which we showed last week; we had a slow start last week and a slow start today, but we plugged away and we gave everything towards the end. Okay, we made mistakes but as you say, it’s the McKenna Cup and we have young boys still learning. I think there are a lot of positives going forward for us.” This McKenna Cup campaign, regardless of how it concludes, has given manager Damian Barton plenty of food for thought ahead of the National League opener against Clare on February 5 in Celtic Park but despite two defeats in the last two games, Forrester believes the manager can take countless positives from the games. “It was the same in the Armagh match. It’s coming down to boys making their debuts and getting a bit jittery. This is a team very different from last year. We know we’re slow at starting so maybe it’s just taking us a bit of time to gel. “I’m actually quite pleased because I think we were six points down but we came back to within a point which shows serious character and heart to even get back to a point by half time, even though we were giving away a lot of silly possession and stuff like that. “The core traits seem to be quite good there. We never really give up. We could have just easier have said ‘Screw this’ but we kept plugging away and plugging away and we probably should have got the equaliser only for a few turnovers at the end.”