The 2011 Setanta Sports Cup was the sixth staging of the

Setanta Sports Cup The Setanta Sports Cup was a club football (soccer), football competition featuring teams from both football associations on the island of Ireland. Inaugurated in 2005, it was a cross-border competition between clubs in the League of Ireland from ...

, an association football competition featuring clubs from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

and the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...

. It commenced on 14 February 2011 with the final played on 14 May 2011. The draw for the 2011 competition was made at

Belfast City Hall Belfast City Hall (; Ulster-Scots: ) is the civic building of Belfast City Council located in Donegall Square, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It faces North and effectively divides the commercial and business areas of the city centre. It is a Grad ...

on 13 December 2010.

Changes to structure

For the 2011 competition, the Setanta Cup was expanded to 12 teams, of which the four highest ranked teams received a bye into the quarter-finals. Also unlike previous years the tournament was played as a straight knock-out competition over two legs apart from the final.

Television Coverage

Setanta Sports broadcast live coverage of five games, starting with the quarter-finals.

First round

Four

League of Ireland The League of Ireland is a national association football Sports league, league consisting of professional clubs in the Republic of Ireland and Derry, Derry City in Northern Ireland. It is governed by the Football Association of Ireland. It was ...

and Four

IFA Premiership The NIFL Premiership, known as the Sports Direct Premiership for sponsorship purposes, and Irish Premiership colloquially, is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Northern Ireland Football L ...

teams played each other in the first round over two games with the winners qualifying for the quarter-finals. The first legs were played on 14 February/21 February/1 March 2011 and the second legs were played on 28 February/1 March/7 March 2011.

Sporting Fingal Sporting Fingal Football Club was an Irish association football club based in Fingal. Between 2008 and 2010, the club played three seasons in the League of Ireland. During their first two seasons they played in the First Division before winnin ...

had originally been scheduled to compete in the tournament against

Lisburn Distillery Lisburn Distillery Football Club is a Northern Irish intermediate football club who are based in Ballyskeagh, Lisburn. A founder member of the Irish League, they currently play in the NIFL Premier Intermediate League, the third tier of the Nor ...

but withdrew on 9 February due to financial difficulties which saw them fold the following day and were replaced by UCD.

Matches

First leg

---- ---- ----

Second leg

''Dundalk won 6 − 4 on aggregate'' ---- ''Distillery won 2 − 0 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Cliftonville won 3 − 2 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Portadown won 4−1 on aggregate''

Quarter−Finals

The winners of the four first-round games joined the four seeded teams (

Shamrock Rovers Shamrock Rovers Football Club is an Irish professional Association football, football club based in Tallaght, South Dublin. The club's senior team competes in the League of Ireland Premier Division and it is List of football clubs by competit ...

Sligo Rovers Sligo Rovers Football Club is an Irish professional association football, football club playing in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland. The club is based in Sligo in the west of Ireland. The club was founded in 1928 and have been in ...

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

and

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club based in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882 and has since won more than 130 major honours. They are one of three Northern Iris ...

) who received a Bye into the quarter-finals. The first legs were played on 7 March/14 March/28 March 2011 and the second legs were played on 21 March/22 March/4 April 2011.

Matches

First leg

---- ---- ----

Second leg

''Dundalk won 2−1 on aggregate'' ---- ''Cliftonville won 10−6 on aggregate'' ---- ''Shamrock Rovers won 7−2 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Sligo Rovers won 5−0 on aggregate''

Semi−Finals

The four winners of the quarter-final games played each other over two games for a place in the 2011 Setanta Sports Cup final. The first legs were played on 4 April/11 April 2011 and the second legs were played on 18 April/19 April 2011. The draw for the semi-finals was made on 23 March 2011.

Matches

First leg

----

Second leg

''Dundalk won 5−2 on aggregate'' ---- ''Shamrock Rovers won 4−1 on aggregate''

Final

The two winners of the semi-final games played each other over one game to decide who would be crowned Setanta Sports Cup winners for 2011. The final took place on Saturday 14 May 2011 in Tallaght Stadium.

beat

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ) is the county town of County Louth, Ireland. The town is situated on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the north-east coast of Ireland, and is halfway between Dublin and Belfast, close to and south of the bor ...

to win the competition for the first time.Dundalk 0–2 Shamrock Rovers
- RTÉ.ie

Match

Goalscorers

;5 goals *

Mark Quigley Mark Quigley (born 27 October 1985) is an Irish former professional footballer who played for Millwall, Shamrock Rovers (over 2 spells), St Patrick's Athletic (over 2 spells), Bohemians (over 2 spells), Dundalk, Sligo Rovers and Derry City. C ...

(Dundalk) * George McMullan (Cliftonville) ;4 goals * Kieran O'Connor (Cliftonville) * Daniel Kearns (Dundalk) ;3 goals *

Karl Sheppard Karl Sheppard (born on 14 February 1991) is an Irish former footballer who played for Galway United, Shamrock Rovers (over two spells), Reading, Accrington Stanley, Cork City and Shelbourne. Club career Academy Sheppard initially played f ...

(Shamrock Rovers) ;2 goals * Declan Caddell (Crusaders) * Billy Dennehy (Shamrock Rovers) * Stephen Garrett (Cliftonville) * Ross Gaynor (Dundalk) * Mark Holland (Cliftonville) *

Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh (21 October 1904 – 30 November 1967) was an Irish poet and novelist. His best-known works include the novel ''Tarry Flynn'', and the poems "On Raglan Road" and "The Great Hunger". He is known for his accounts of Irish life th ...

(Shamrock Rovers) *

Ciarán Kilduff Ciarán Kilduff (born 29 September 1988) is an Irish football manager and former professional Association football, footballer, who is the manager of League of Ireland First Division club Dundalk F.C., Dundalk. He has played for seven clubs in ...

(Shamrock Rovers) * Gary Liggett (Lisburn Distillery) ;1 goal * Curtis Allen (Linfield) * Jordan Baker (Portadown) * Kevin Braniff (Portadown) * Johnny Breen (Dundalk) * Gary Browne (Lisburn Distillery) *

Matty Burrows Matthew Burrows (born 15 October 1985) is a former professional football player from Northern Ireland who played as a midfielder. Burrows scored a jumping backheel volley goal against Portadown to seal victory for Glentoran in injury-time of a ...

(Glentoran) * Jason Byrne (Dundalk) * Raffaele Cretaro (Sligo Rovers) * Scott Davidson (Lisburn Distillery) * John Dillon (Sligo Rovers) *

Eoin Doyle Eoin Doyle (born 12 March 1988) is an Irish former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Forward (association football), forward. During his career he played for Shelbourne F.C., Shelbourne, Shamrock Rovers F.C., Shamroc ...

(Sligo Rovers) *

Rory Donnelly Ruaridhri James Patrick Donnelly (born 18 February 1992) is a Northern Irish professional footballer who plays as a striker for Cliftonville in the NIFL Premiership. Club career Cliftonville Donnelly was born in Belfast. He made his Cliftonvil ...

(Cliftonville) * William Faulkner (Crusaders) * Ronan Finn (Shamrock Rovers) *

Robert Garrett Robert S. Garrett (May 24, 1875 – April 25, 1961) was an American athlete, as well as investment banker and philanthropist in Baltimore, Maryland and financier of several important archeological excavations. Garrett was the first modern ...

(Linfield) * Michael Gault (Linfield) *

Michael Halliday Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M. A. K. Halliday; 13 April 1925 – 15 April 2018) was a British linguist who developed the internationally influential systemic functional linguistics (SFL) model of language. His grammatical descri ...

(Crusaders) * Daryl Horgan (Sligo Rovers) * Dean Kelly (Shamrock Rovers) * Jonathan Magee (Crusaders) * David McMillan (St Patrick's Athletic) * Dermot McVeigh (Cliftonville) * Tim Mouncey (Portadown) * Dave Mulcahy (St Patrick's Athletic) *

Joseph Ndo Joseph Cyrille N'Do (born 28 April 1976) is a Cameroonian former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder or forward. He made 21 appearances for the Cameroon national team, scoring twice. Club career Cameroon An attackin ...

(Sligo Rovers) * Keith O'Hara (Portadown) * Gary O'Neill (Shamrock Rovers) * Stephen Rice (Shamrock Rovers) * John Russell (Sligo Rovers) * Karl Somers (Bohemians) * Vincent Sweeney (Crusaders) * Peter Thompson (Linfield)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2011 Setanta Sports Cup 1 2010–11 in Northern Ireland association football

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...