Jordan Campbell has experienced all the ups and downs since joining Annagh in 2013 but he never believed the club would be challenging for promotion to the Irish Premiership.
The defender moved the Mid Ulster cub from Seagoe in 2013 as a 17-year-old with all but one season – the 2016/17 campaign in which they finished rock bottom of the Championship – spent in the third tier.
Annagh are second in the Championship, just four points off leaders Newry, with Campbell telling Match on Tuesday: “I have gone through all the emotions at Annagh with promotions and relegations – but nobody would have predicted us to be here now.
Read more: George Best, Ryan Giggs, Jorginho and five other big-name stars never to play at a World Cup
“We won promotion to the Championship in 2016 and it was a bit of a disaster as we went straight back down and in the years after that we went down to the bare bones.
“The boss Ciaran McGurgan has assembled a really strong and competitive squad – the squad we have now compared to a few years ago is really night and day.
“To even be in the position that we are now is incredible – but we are where we are because of the belief.”
Campbell was one of five goal scorers for McGurgan’s side in Saturday’s comprehensive 5-2 win over Dundela.
Annagh’s 67 goals in the Championship this season is at least seven more than any other side and means their averaging goals per game has now crept up to over two each match.
“The goals are spread across the team and all of the outfield players believe they can score,” the 25-year-old added.
“We have a long-throw routine that we do through Craig Taylor and that is something that has worked a lot for us as a means to create chances.
“But when you have players like Stephen Murray and Adam Carroll up front then you are always going to score goals, and all of our midfielders have a big threat too.
“The signings we made this year are huge in terms of bringing experience to the squad and helping push us on to this level – they are leading by example.”
Annagh have lost just one of their last 10 matches in the Championship – crashing to a shock 5-1 defeat at Institute the previous week.
It was a surprise result which threatened to derail their momentum going into the home straight of fixtures, but the comprehensive response against Dundela allayed such concerns.
Campbell continued: “It was important for us to bounce back after the previous week’s result at Institute.
“We were all so disappointed with that result and we knew that for whatever reason we were not at it and playing a team in the form that Dundela were in was the last thing you would have wanted.
“We worked here and getting the early goals was really important in terms of settling us down and getting us the result that we wanted to bounce back.”
Annagh will host league leaders Newry City on Saturday in a crunch match which could go a long way in deciding the destination of this season’s title – with a home win seeing the gap at the top closed to just one point.
Read more: Sammy McIlroy: George Best left me in the lurch and turned up two days later with Miss Great Britain
Sign up to our free sports newsletter to get the latest headlines to your inbox.
