Ross Glendinning is relishing making Irish Cup final bow

The Ballymena United keeper’s dad, Mark, won the competition with three different clubs - Bangor, Glenavon and Glentoran - during a sparkling Irish League career.

Friday night’s clash with the Glens with be Glendinning junior’s first Irish Cup final.

He missed out on the final whilst at Linfield in 2016, with Gareth Deane getting the nod in the defeat to Glenavon.

The 27-year-old will be hoping to follow in his dad’s footsteps now come Friday evening.

“This will be my first Irish Cup final so I’m really looking forward to it,” he said.

“I got left out of the (2016) final against Glenavon when I was at Linfield.

“It’ll be another hard game against a good team.

“It’s a shame there’ll only be 500 fans there, but it’s just the way it is now.

“It was strange but having experienced it now (playing behind closed doors) we’ll be more used to it for the final.

“Getting a team talk outside is something I’ve never experienced before, but we’ll be better accustomed to it come Friday night.”

Coleraine missed three of their four spot kicks against the Sky Blues and Glendinning revealed he used a bit of insider knowledge to do his best to try and put off his opponents.

“I’d had a couple of chats with the lads. Andy (McGrory) played with Eoin Bradley and Aaron Burns was also at Coleraine for a while, so I had a chat with them,” he revealed.

“I went the right way for all four of their penalties and I probably would have saved the first two if they were on target, but as long as we went through, it doesn’t matter.

“Doherty didn’t look confident walking up to take their last penalty and I thought to myself he might miss, but he had played 120 minutes and his legs had probably gone.

“Thankfully, we have a few good penalty takers in our team and we’re through.”

Glendinning is hoping to finish the season on a high now and admitted the enforced break has not been a bad thing for them.

“To be honest, we were all probably cheering when the break in the season came, because the campaign for a number of reasons was awful,” he said.

“Our goal became the Irish Cup and one game at a time and that’s all we have been focused on in recent weeks.

“We weren’t great against Coleraine but it was all about getting to the final and we’ve achieved that.

“We had one game to concentrate on - an Irish Cup semi-final - and thankfully we have another game to look forward to now on Friday night.”

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