Originally Posted by
gspain
A few points here
1) Derry City left the Irish League in November 1972 not 1974.
Sorry Gary - you're right. I mixed a couple of dates up in the above (D'oh !)Apologies for this.
We began the 1972/3 season with Coleraine as our declared home ground, but looking for a guarantee we could successfully nominate the Brandywell for the following season at the latest (73/4). However, with 'home' crowds in Coleraine dwindling to barely over a hundred, and the security forces declaring the Brandywell "as safe as any other ground in Northern Ireland", the club decided to take a stance early in 72/3, started to refuse to play games if they weren't at home, and asked for the IL Management Committe to make a decision. They said no, so the day before our next home game (Oct 72 - I think against Ports) , we called the other club's bluff and pulled out of the league.
2) Derry City were not a nationalist or "catholic" club in anyway. Indeed I believe they are the only football club to ever have segregated their own supporters. They had significant support in the protestant community in their Irish League days and always were a team of the city. Now the support is mainly RC however sunday football and playing in the LoI. Programmes in the IL days give the venue and the Brandywell Londonderry while I find the adverts in those amusing with roughly half using Derry and half Londonderry or even L'derry etc for the small ones.
Yes and no. The clear de-lineation we see nowadays between the 2 different communities in terms of identity, geography, interests etc was much less set in-stone prior to the Troubles. Though riddled with inequality, Northern Ireland was a relatively functional society before the Troubles. Both communities lived side-by-side much more than nowadays, and tended to just get on with life. Outside of church attendance and events like Orange Order parades, there was no cosncious or subconscious 'need' amongst ordinary people to make public displays of which side of the community they were on. Unsurprisingly therefore, DCFC did have significant support from within the protestant community (although this is often overplayed, as our primary support was still very much Catholic), and aside from the likes of Linfield and Belfast Celtic, you're right that there were no strong religious affiliations associated with most football clubs in the Irish League. But that was simply a reflection of pre-Troubles Northern Ireland.
Once the Troubles began attitudes, identities and demographics all 'hardened' very quickly in the North. Derry City became firmly viewed as a Catholic club -as indeed did Cliftonville. Everything in the state - from the most minor everyday activity/event to major decisions affecting society - fell victim to sectarian motives to at least some degree, and much more so than they had previously. People consciously or subconsciously made declarations of which community they were from - with sport being a major channel for doing this. Derry City became to all extents and piurposes a Cathoilic club, due to the demographics of our city and the location of our ground. To say that we were not "in any way" a Catholic or Nationlist club ignores this fact.
With regards the name of our city - it again fell victim to the need to be firmly on one other side of the divide once the Troubles began. Up until the late 60's there had been little real contention over the name of the city. Catholics and Protestants regularly switched between both titles (indeed, my grandad almost always wrote Londonderry, even though his dad had been a Nationalist Alderman on the City Council !). That all changed very, very quickly at the start of the troubles.
3) The Irish League is not and was not a protestant league. I think there is a huge bias here. The sectarian tag could be labelled on one Irish League club for 38 years otherwise it really is remarkable how integrated football was given how divided the rest of society was in Northern Ireland. Of course there was and still is sectarianism on the terraces.
I firmly disagree. Explain to me the imbalance of treatment Belfast Celtic received from the IFA in comparison to Linfield, particularly in the 1940's? Linfield were rarely taken to task/punished for the behaviour of their fans, even though both clubs occassionally had problems. Belfast Celtic, on the contrary, were held to account on a number of occasions. Linfield got away scot-free with the absolutely shocking behaviour of their fans in the 1948 Boxing Day derby - 3 Celtic players seriously injured, 1 kicked unconscious and left with a broken leg, all by Linfield fans storming the pitch ? Likewise, explain to me the discrepancy in the IFA's approach towards both Linfield and Donegal Celtic in the mid 80's ? Explain to me why it was deemed safe for years for Cliftonville fans to have to go to Windsor Park for both their home and away games with Linfield, yet it was considered unsafe for Linfield fans to go to Solitude? Why was it always Catholic clubs who were banned from using their own grounds fo certain games, rather than the Protestant ones ? Explain to me why Linfield have never been punished by the IFA or other IL clubs for serious crowd trouble/riots that have happened INSIDE their ground at numerous times over the 20th century, yet Derry City recieved a complete ban for ONE incident not involving their supporters that happened OUTSIDE their ground ? Explain to me why a 1972 security force assessment that the Brandywell presented "no more of a security risk than any other ground in Northern Ireland" to visiting fans still wasn't good enough for the majority of Irish League clubs ? Explain to me why Harry Cavan and the IFA refused for over a decade to let Derry City return to the Brandywell, even though the security situation throughout the province had improved significantly from the early 70's ? Why is it that questions requiring a decision/judgement by the IFA between the behaviour of seemingly 'Catholic' and 'protestant' clubs have invariably in the past gone against the Catholic side ? And - here's the crunch - explain to me why it is only very, very recently that the IFA has taken steps to counter decades of shameful and overtly sectarian behaviour and chanting by Northern Ireland fans - coincidentally at the same time as it looked like their funding, their support, and their ability to attract players would come under risk if they didn't ? I can only conclude, your honour, that some or all of the above discrepancies in judgement were influenced to at least some degree by forces other than common sense. Choose to decide otherwise if you will.
4) Cliftonville could never have been considered a nationalist or even a Catholic club while Derry were in the IL. The club is and has been non sectarian but up until the early 70's was very much the gentleman's amateur team with little support (probably mainly protestant) until demographics meant that the population living around Solitude were mainly nationalist and not unionist and nationalists started following the team i nthe 70's.
See above. Pre and post Troubles Northern Ireland were such dramatically different societies that this is irrelevant.
5) The IL clubs that voted against using the Brandywell (and Coleraine abstention if I recall correctly) were certainly disappointing and there was certainly a sense of betrayal felt by many.
6) Donegal Celtic were treated deplorably when they tried to enter senior football on this island. However I don't think the LoI were sectarian in their motives. My own club proposed them at a league AGM and indeed were the first (and I think the only) club from the RoI to play them in West Belfast. Shelbourne, Shamrock rovers et al have no problem playing regularly in West Belfast but only across the motorway at Windsor. They met quite hostile opposition from LoI clubs and didn't have a Fran Fields to push it through.
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