eL Supporters' Clubs

**Speranza** · 12/05/2006, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Strabane_Harp

Thankfully Steve Derry city fans in strabane are a very small minority, mostly people with family connection to derry. The vast majority of people's allegiance in the town belong with Harps. Great site on a saturday in the town to see so many young guys in harps shirts

We are aware of the jealousy the people of "third worst place to live in the U.K" have for Derry but to suggest this results in the masses going to Finn Park is rubbish. Harps are getting home crowds of 500 so whre are the legions of Strabanese harps?

**Dr.Nightdub** · 12/05/2006, 11:16 PM

OK, just to try and get it back on track, a bit of history re Pats supporters clubs / groups, which might go some way to answering David's question.

Independent Saints was started up about six years ago with two main aims - organising trips to away matches and providing a channel for the club to actually talk to the fans. This was during the Dolan era when the club had effectively stopped doing either. The trips were successful but the dialogue part never really took off, apart from the odd token gesture - Dolan wasn't really into it as such.

Although IS never took an official position on Dolan, it just so happened (ahem!

) that the entire committee was active to some degree or another in the Dolan Out campaign. There was a conscious and fairly flagrant refusal to have a democratically-decided IS position on the whole thing which I am absolutely NOT gonna go into here. Dodge and WWS will remember it though.

There was a bit of a Pats civil war over Dolan and I remember at one game down in Longford what we called the "Under 5s" singing "You can shove your Independent Saints up yer �rse" at us IS heads; later on that night the night porter in the Longford Arms made everyone go to bed before a shouting match in the residents bar between the opposing factions escalated into an internecine digging match.

After the success of that campaign, the Shed End Invincibles was resurrected / spawned as a loose offshoot of IS. No offence to either David's sensibilities, or anyone who's a republican, but the best analogy was coined by WWS who compared IS-SEI to Sinn Fein-IRA. IS did the nice respectable organising away trips and dialogue parts (and since Andy O'Callaghan came in there's been more of a spirit of glasnost about the Pats board), while the SEI got to do all the fun pyrotechnical stuff with flares, smokebombs and banners. There was a fair overlap in terms of the people involved.

The SEI has been kinda dormant for the last two years or so, mainly cos Pats were cr�p.

Pats For Richmond has seen a coming together of a lot of the people who are involved in IS plus a lot of the older Pats fans who used to be in the now-defunct St. Pats Supporters Club - a blend of youth and experience if ever there was one. One of the interesting aspects of that is that it's brought together people (well, two anyway) who literally came to blows over Dolan Out a few years back.

Parallel to that, and probably directly related to the upturn in our fortunes this season, the last few home games have seen a bit of a renaissance of the SEI, led by what used to be the "Under 5s". It was never a formal membership-based thing, more to do with a state of mind, but over the last few home games, the Shed has been fuller and a lot more vocal than for the last couple of years. It's almost as if the next generation of SEI is starting to assert itself which bodes well for the future.

**Lux Interior** · 13/05/2006, 1:42 AM

Originally Posted by David

How popular would supporters' clubs be with teams down there out of curiousity? They used to be massive up here but this has certainly decreased in recent years. I personally put this down to so many people having cars nowadays whereas in the past they would have relied on supporters club buses to get to away games but I suppose that is not as big a factor down there as given the distance and timing of games people do not travel to away games as much as we do up here. Still quite strong at Linfield although not as strong as it was. There are over 50 clubs listed in the Linfield diary but by my estimate (I have done quite a bit of work on SC's for the Linfield programme) I would say only about 40 of those are active as numerous ones of those listed would now be extinct.

Yeah, agree with that. At last count, I reckon there's no more than 20 active Glens SCs with a couple of unofficial ones like the Tommy McCallion GSC (10 ****heads on tour

).

**A face** · 13/05/2006, 2:23 AM

I have split the debate about Harps support to the Finn Harps section, but can you keep it reasonable if you are going to post there.

Back on topic now though !!

**exiled_gufc_fan** · 13/05/2006, 5:21 AM

Originally Posted by Patrick Dunne

GUISA is now defunct, having merged with the GUST.

Fair play to some clubs who have 8-10 SC's. Would I be correct in assuming, however, that some may comprise just 1-2 active members ? We had a Castlebar SC a few years back, which was run along similar lines.

Well maybe we can get a London supporters club started then - my brother and myself is two members already

A flag would be a start!

**Ash** · 13/05/2006, 9:58 AM

We have the startings of a London branch of Mad As Cootes.
2 active members over there now

**David** · 13/05/2006, 8:20 PM

Have none of you heard about the First Shankill Road Drogheda Supporters Club?

**Speranza** · 13/05/2006, 8:59 PM

First Shankill Derry City SC is up and going with a_linfield the founding and only member.

**David** · 13/05/2006, 9:18 PM

Originally Posted by Speranza

First Shankill Derry City SC is up and going with a_linfield the founding and only member.

The Drogheda one has many members, they made a lot of friends on their visit and not just people connected with football.

**Speranza** · 13/05/2006, 11:33 PM

Originally Posted by David

The Drogheda one has many members, they made a lot of friends on their visit and not just people connected with football.

Your mate Hutchinson David? Fair play like it's good to see all us Irish people getting on well.

On SCs. The Queens University SC in particular has been brilliant. It has made use of a base of Derry people in Belfawst and increased the amount of away support. I think thats what SCs are all about

**David** · 14/05/2006, 12:28 AM

Originally Posted by Speranza

Your mate Hutchinson David? Fair play like it's good to see all us Irish people getting on well.

On SCs. The Queens University SC in particular has been brilliant. It has made use of a base of Derry people in Belfawst and increased the amount of away support. I think thats what SCs are all about

No he couldn't make it that day due to work committments but I am sure that Drog fans would not have been as hypoctical about him as some of you are.

**Speranza** · 14/05/2006, 1:22 AM

Indeed, I hope they wouldn't be. Didn't agree with people giving you stick for that ,when I would say the majority of them at the very least know people who have served time.

**David** · 14/05/2006, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by Speranza

Indeed, I hope they wouldn't be. Didn't agree with people giving you stick for that ,when I would say the majority of them at the very least know people who have served time.

A lot of people have been affected by what has happened in this country regardless of what "side" they come from. I know the guy in a purely football context and he is a very dedicated football supporter. Now let's get back to the thread.

The Drogheda supporters that night were awesome. Indeed I have been very impressed with Eircom League supporters as a whole throughout the Setanta Cup. Shels and Longford were a bit low on numbers when visiting Windsor but still made a lot of noise and were exceptionally friendly. The Derry City supporters that came to Windsor were a league apart.

On the supporters clubs thing, one of the biggest aspects for me is the social end of things. My own supporters club has very close links with a number of other Linfield supporters clubs and we attend each others functions. There is an annual dart tournament for Linfield supporters clubs (actually there are two run by different clubs) and a Crusaders club also participate in this each year as the club who run the dart tournamernt are virtually next door to Crusaders' ground. The socialising with other club supporters is a relatively recent thing, certainly for me, but something that I particularly enjoy, especially when Eircom League clubs are involved and the supporters club that I am in now have very close links with both Drogheda and Bohemians. Fifteen years ago who thought that would be possible with a Linfield supporters' club from Belfast's Shankill Road? And people say Linfield are stuck in the dark ages. In fact I think at times it is fair to say that it is Linfield supporters who have actually progressed the furthest.

**Peadar** · 14/05/2006, 12:09 PM

The Rebel Army Exiles organise Dublin based fans of Cork City FC. Travel to away games, match tickets, merchandise, etc.

Next meeting is on Monday night for the Shels game.
Details here...

**Cosmo** · 14/05/2006, 4:48 PM

Originally Posted by Speranza

Indeed, I hope they wouldn't be.

Personally would have had no problem with it - as you said up your way, everyone would know someone that was involved back in the day one way or another!

All I care about is foootball and would've had no problem having a pint with a football supporter prematch

'Shankill super drogs'

Btw if anyone told me 20 drogs were going to go boozing on the shankill road a couple of months ago I would've thought they were mad