Darius Roohi aiming to upset Glentoran - and his own diehard Glens supporting grandfather - in Irish Cup quarter-final date with Ballyclare Comrades

The 25-year-old set up this dream cup date by scoring the winner in last month’s 3-2 upset of Premiership outfit Dungannon Swifts and Tom, who Roohi says is a “diehard Glentoran fan”, will make another trip to The Oval to watch his grandson in action, just like he did when Darius played for Warrenpoint Town and Ards.

Roohi believes about 10 family members will be amongst the Ballyclare supporters, but he won’t be surprised for a second if he looks into the crowd and sees Tom sat with the Glens faithful.

"I think that he will be pushing to be in the Glentoran end but my mum might make him get a ticket for the Ballyclare end!” he laughed. “He might be standing in the Ballyclare end with his Glentoran badges and scarf on him.

"He has been talking about it ever since the draw. He's extremely excited for it, my family are all excited for it and my granda has been following my football career for a long time. I have an idea in my head about where his loyalties lie but I don't know for sure!

“He is a diehard Glentoran fan and he used to come to watch when I was in the Premiership with Warrenpoint and he was definitely supporting Glentoran even when I was playing...I was getting abuse from my own granda in the stands!

"It's special and it's all about creating those memories for my family and myself. It's massive for the club and my family.

"I live in East Belfast and I've been out and about this week and people have been asking me about this weekend and I’m getting phone calls wishing us luck.”

Ballyclare have reached the last-eight for a second consecutive season, losing in extra-time to eventual finalists Ballymena United last term, and Roohi is under no illusions about the task at hand.

The East Belfast club have won this competition 23 times, most recently in the summer of 2020, while Warren Feeney’s side have only lost one of their last nine home matches, scoring 29 goals in the process.

Despite all of that, ex-Knockbreda forward Roohi insists the Championship outfit will have belief that they can cause another cup upset.

"We're the underdogs playing against the 23-time champions of the Irish Cup so we know what we're up against,” he added. “We're not there to just take part...you can't go in with the mentality of just experiencing the occasion, you have to go in with the mindset of winning the game.

"The way the league form is going with Glentoran it feels like there's a big onus on the Irish Cup. For this game in particular there's a lot of talk about the importance of it for Glentoran and if they can progress into the semis and beyond.

"We're going there with the same mentality...we're a bit lower down in the Championship table so we want to progress the best we can.

"We know what we're up against and we have to go as if this is the last time we'll be in the quarter-finals for a while because you just never know. I'm extremely excited for it."