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Craig David

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IoM men's football 'going for gold' in Orkney

Photo Credit: Paul Hatton Photography

Player/manager insists team doesn't want to settle for less

The Isle of Man men's national football side don't want to settle for anything less than top spot at the 2025 Island Games later this month.

That's the ambition set out by the squad's caretaker player/manager Chris Bass jnr. with the team jetting off to Orkney in less than two weeks time.

Having been games champions in Gotland in 2017, the Manx side had a disappointing campaign by its standards at the last event in Guernsey two years ago, finishing ninth.

After picking a much-changed lineup this time around, Bass says he was keen to bring in players with experience of winning at the event alongside the younger talent that will be involved:

One of the most decorated players in Manx football of recent times, Bass took up his role in January this year following the resignation of previous head coach, Blane Slattery.

Since then, Bass steered the team to victory in their first game under his leadership, beating Merseyside-based Halewood Apollo 4-3 in April.

That's been followed more recently by a 1-1 draw away at Trearddur Bay on Saturday, 21 June.

The Island side will take part in its final friendly before the games later this week when they face FC Isle of Man at The Bowl in Douglas tomorrow (4 July), kicking-off at 7pm.

You can see the IoM Men's Football squad for the 2025 Island Games - scheduled to be held from 12-18 July - in full below:

2025 Island Games IoM Men's football squad

Chris Bass jnr. (Player/Manager)                 Joao Marques
Mark Blair                                                Tomas Brown
Sammy Gelling                                         Joe Bergquist
James Callister                                         Jason Charmer
Sean Doyle                                              Lee Gale
Karl Clark                                                Daniel Simpson
Stewart Smith                                         Morgan Naylor
Frank Jones                                            Harry Best 
Matthew Woods                                      Conor Clark
Daniel Pickering                                      Jay Gandy

 

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