288 matches and 676 goals is the tale of the 109th season of Irish football and the second season since its overhaul, dropping to 12 teams from 16. It also saw a record in football, the first player to play 1000 matches for the same team, that man was Noel Baille (Linfield).

Alcohol company Carling took over from JJB Sports, therefore the league was known as the Carling Premiership for the 2009-10 campaign.

Glentoran went into the campaign as defending champions, having won the title by a single point the previous season. Bangor were relegated from the JJB Premiership to the Ladbrokes.com Championship, with Portadown promoted as league champions and Dungannon Swifts retaining their place in the Premiership – despite finishing last – beating Donegal Celtic in the promotion relegation play-off.

The opening round of fixtures saw defending champions Glentoran travel away to Lisburn Distillery, who finished 4th the previous campaign. A 4-0 win for the Belfast side was enough to to go top of the table at the end of match day one, on goal difference. Ballymena United lost 1-0 at home to Cliftonville, Coleraine and Linfield shared four goals in a 2-2 draw and Crusaders beat Portadown 3-1. The other two matches of the opening round saw Dungannon Swifts travel to the Riverside Stadium, beating Institute 1-0, with the final match seeing Glenavon and Newry City draw 1-1.

The boxing day fixtures didn’t go to plan for the league, with only one match able to be played, with Cliftonville beating Crusaders 2-1 away from home. The remaining boxing day fixtures were rescheduled with the first match taking place on January 20, with Newry City conquering Dungannon Swifts 4-0. Six days later Coleraine got the better of Ballymena United, winning 3-1, before Glentoran and Linfield drew 2-2 on the same day. It was a month before their was a window of opportunity to play the postponed fixtures, Glenavon losing 1-0 to Portadown, with Lisburn Distillery beating Institute 3-2 away from home on March 13.

The final round of fixtures before the split was played on March 23, with Crusaders and Ballymena drawing 2-2 on March 25. Cliftonville lost 2-1 to Glentoran, this meant Cliftonville would finish the regular season in third place, with the victory over the reds giving Glentoran second place. A place in the top six was up for grabs in the match between Dungannon Swifts and Coleraine, with a 1-1 draw giving Dungannon Swifts the edge over the Bannsiders. The match between Lisburn Distillery and Newry City was a relegation scrap, with Lisburn closing the gap to Newry who occupied tenth sport with Lisburn in 11th. Bottom of the table Institute entertained Ballymena who were sitting in ninth spot, a 2-2 kept the sides in their respective positions.

The teams that qualified for the top six play-off were: Linfield (64 points), Glentoran (59 pts), Cliftonville (57 pts), Crusaders (55 pts), Portadown (51 pts) and Dungannon Swifts (51 pts – 2 less on goal difference). This meant that the top four sides were all from Belfast.

The bottom six, Coleraine (49 pts), Glenavon (42 pts), Ballymena Utd (36 pts), Newry City (31 pts), Lisburn Distillery (28 pts) and Institute (26 pts) all entered the relegation play-off. Institute were looking the most vunerable at this stage, sitting bottom of the table.

After 38 matches for every side, the season came to a close. In the relegation play-off group, Coleraine topped the mini-leage on 57 points, this total eclipsed that of 6th place Portadown, who were in the title play-off group. Glenavon finished the campaign second in the group, eighth overall on 43 points. Newry City moved up to third in the group, ninth overall on 42 points, beating Ballymena Utd who had to settle for tenth place, on 40 points. The relegation battle ended in Institute finishing in last place. However, due to Donegal Celtic being the only side from the Championship to have a promotion license, this meant that no team was automatically relegated from the Premiership, so Institute entered the play-off with the winner getting the spot in the Premiership the following season.

The first-leg was held at Donegal Celtic Park, which ended in a 0-0 draw. The second-leg was played at the Riverside Stadium with Donegal Celtic scoring a late winner in the 85th minute, thanks to McAlorum. This was actually the first football match which I attended, I was eight years old at the time. I remeber the Donegal Celtic fans setting off flares to my left hand side, making alot of noise for such a small number. Donegal Celtic had done enough over the two legs to earn a place in the 2010-11 Irish Premiership, while Institute would need to spend at least a season in the Championship.

The title play-off group ended with Portadown finished bottom, 6th overall with 55 points, along with a Europa League first qualifying round sport after finishing runners-up in the Irish Cup, with Linfield getting a European spot via the league. Finishing in fifth place was Dungannon Swifts on 60 points, with Crusaders missing out on Europe by five points, with a fourth place finish. In third place was Glentoran who finished on 65 points and earned at Europa League first qualifying round spot. The title fight ended up with a gap of five points, with the title returning to Windsor Park and to Linfield for the 49th time. This qualified the Windsor Park side for the Champions League second qualifying round. This left Cliftonville runners-up sitting on 69 points, with a Europa League second qualifying round spot.

The top goalscorer for the 2009-10 season was Coleraine forward Rory Patterson, who had a total of 30 goals. He is followed by Darren Boyce, also of Coleraine and George McMullan of Cliftonville, who both scored 17 goals. Liam Boyce scored 16 goals for Cliftonville, with Kevin Braniff, Richard Lecky (both Portadown), David Rainey (Crusaders) and Gleen Ferguson (Lisburn Distillery) scoring 14 goals each.

In European competition, the Irish Premiership were being represented by Glentoran in the Champions League, who were knocked out in the second qualifying round by Maccabi Haifa 10-0 on aggregate. Linfield were beat 7-0 on aggregate by Randers of Denamark in the first qualifying round. Lisburn Distillery lost 11-1 on aggregate to FC Zestafoni from Georgia in the same round, with Crusaders losing 5-3 on aggregate to FK Rabotnicki from Macedonia in the second qualiying round in the Europa League.

The 2009-10 season saw some big score lines, with the biggest home win coming at Portadown as they beat Lisburn Distillery 6-1. Their was some big away wins, Newry City 0-6 Linfield, Glentoran 0-6 Coleraine and Dungannon Swifts 2-8 Portadown, also the highest scoring match that season.