IRISH LEAGUE PREVIEW: Glenavon move made extra special for Stephen Teggart with family connections

The 25-year-old switched to Mourneview Park this summer after spending four years with Mid-Ulster derby rivals Portadown, who he helped win the 2019/20 Championship title before three seasons in the top flight.

With Portadown dropping into the second tier, Teggart says it felt like the right time for both parties to move on and there was only one place he was heading once new manager Gary Hamilton got in contact.

"It was pretty clear at the end that I was going to leave Portadown and had a couple of options but once Gary came to me there was only one place I was going to go,” he said. “I was happy to go to Glenavon and my family have always supported Glenavon.

"I'd go to watch them when I was younger.

"It's a brilliant club so I knew that's where I would end up.

"It (family connection) makes it a bit more special.

"My dad would bring me when I was young to watch and my granda would have been over watching too.

"We'd head over and watch after playing youth football.

"So I followed them through the family.

"My family are all happy and will all be over watching and supporting.”

Teggart has now made over 100 top-flight appearances, firstly through his time at Newry City before transferring to Portadown.

He’s looking forward to the new challenge in a Premiership that continues to go from strength to strength.

"That first season when I was at Newry it was still a brilliant league but now with teams going full-time and more backing in the league the standard is going up and is only going to keep getting stronger,” he added. “There is talk of Coleraine going full-time too so that's only going to keep making the league stronger.

"It's bringing bigger crowds in and bringing people like Niall McGinn home to Northern Ireland from across the water so it's definitely getting stronger."

The increased investment and introduction of full-time football makes the prospects of breaking into the top-six even more difficult for the likes of Glenavon who, after finishing in the top half in every campaign between 2013/14 to 2018/19, have had to settle for seventh spot in each of the last four seasons.

They’ve a tough start this time around with Saturday’s visit of Glentoran followed by trips to Cliftonville and Linfield...but Teggart also views it as an opportunity.

"It probably does (make it harder getting into the top six),” he said in recognition of the increased quality. “It's hard when teams are full-time and we have boys working.

"While they are training every day, we maybe have two or three nights a week.

"Football is football.

"You have to fight on and compete.

"Anybody can beat anybody on their day and that's what you have to believe when you're playing them.

"When you look at the fixtures you think it's a tough run.

"But you have to play everybody at some stage, so why not now?

"If you can get off to a good start when we both have no form and it's a fresh start for everybody, you could maybe kick on."