The 2005–06 Irish League Cup (known as the CIS Insurance Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the 20th edition of the Irish League Cup,

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 ...

's secondary

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

knock-out cup competition. It concluded on 10 December 2005 with the final.

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 ...

were the defending champions after their fifth League Cup win last season; a 2–1 victory over Linfield in the previous final. This season both clubs reached the final again but this time Linfield came out on top by defeating the Glens 3–0 to lift the cup for the eighth time, with Glenn Ferguson scoring a

Hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three Wick ...

. This was the seventh, and to date, last time that both clubs met in the final. The 16 clubs taking part were divided into four groups of four clubs. The clubs in each group played each other at home and away. The top two clubs from each group then advanced to the quarter-finals where they played a single knock-out tie against another quarter-finalist. The semi-finals were played in the same format with the two winners of the ties advancing to the single match final.

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

References