Cliftonville: Red Devils

Cliftonville FC has clawed its way back from near extinction to head the Smirnoff Premier League. Can the Reds tackle sectarian strife to take the Championship? By Ronan O Neill

“Wise men say,
only fools rush in,
but I can't help,
following Cliftonville.”

Wise men do not follow teams like Cliftonville. Only a huge fund-raising campaign saved the club from liquidation in 1986, and at the start of this season three players walked for free, courtesy of the Bosman ruling. When the press pronounced Cliftonville dead  certs for relegation, the seeds were sown for an unlikely success story. Cliftonville currently lead the Smirnoff Premier League by four points.

Cliftonville are the main Catholic-supported team in the North (although their board is mixed) and, apart from a brief period of success between 1979 and 1981, the club generally made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The sectarianism that permeates every facet of life in the North has not left football untouched. In many ways, the sectarian backdrop has hindered progress on the field. For security reasons, Cliftonville play their home matches against Linfield at Windsor Park, Linfield's home ground.

On far too many occasions, controversy has taken precedence over footballing matters. In 1984, Cliftonville played host to Celtic in front of a capacity crowd. The game took place at a time of high political tension, three days after Sean Downes had been shot.
What was to be a gala occasion turned into a nightmare.

A huge RUC presence at the game and the highly charged atmosphere of the week that was in it conspired to spark off a riot. Running battles between fans and police ensued, plastic bullets were fired at the crowd and dozens of people were injured. Celtic left the pitch 15 minutes before the end of the game, and they have not returned since. Cliftonville emerged from the game as the poor relations of the Irish League, with their reputation in tatters and a valuable source of income from high-profile pre-season matches consigned to the scrap heap.

This kind of unwelcome publicity has never gone away. Last year, Cliftonville became embroiled in the bitter aftertaste of the marching season. Blockades were organised to prevent Cliftonville fans visiting Glentoran's ground, the Oval, and the supporters' club bus was savagely stoned when they were away to Portadown. If Protestants couldn't march down Catholic streets, the so-called republican supporters of Cliftonville were not welcome in Protestant areas. This was the Irish League's equivalent of Harryville. “Most of Cliftonville's away games are in Protestant areas. The club simply got caught up in the political vehicle created by the tensions over the marching season, tensions which have nothing to do with football,” said Jim Boyce, the Protestant chairman of Cliftonville, who has supported the club since he was a boy.

On the terraces, naked sectarianism is palpable. Regular followers of Irish League football were not surprised by the reception that greeted the Republic of Ireland in their game at Windsor Park, which secured qualification for the World Cup in 1994. Every team has a small hard core of supporters who delight in sectarian chants. In Cliftonville's recent top-of-the-table clash against Portadown, the songs vacillated between football chants and outbursts of sectarianism. A small group of fans attempted to provoke the Portadown fans with references to the whereabouts of Billy Wright. When opposing teams chant “5–0” it is an insidious reminder of the murder of five Catholics in Sean Graham's bookie shop on the Ormeau Road by loyalist paramilitaries.

“Sectarianism is a cancer in our society, and we just have to keep working at it. We only want club colours at our games, and things have certainly been improving on the terraces,” says Boyce. During the blockades last year, the Cliftonville supporters received words of encouragement from opposition supporters' clubs. Ards fans recently served cups of tea to Clifton Reds Supporters' Club members at half-time, an unprecedented gesture and a sign of the favourable changes occurring on the terraces.

Despite this divisive environment, on the pitch Cliftonville are in the ascendancy. The appointment of Marty Quinn three years ago as the Cliftonville manager is universally recognised as the key component in the turnaround in the team's fortunes. A former player, he is a Red's man through and through. When he was on the pitch, the fans chanted, “Marty Quinn will knock your bollix in,” and Quinn has imbued his team with the same uncompromising style of play that was a feature of his own game.

“Marty gets the best out of the players and has injected the team with spirit and self-belief. He brought players like Jody Tolan and Michael Collins up from the youth team and moved midfielders Gerry Flynn and Stephen Small to left and right back,” said Liam Murray of the Clifton Reds Supporters' Club. Quinn has made the most of limited resources. He had no choice but to turn to the youth team: the money simply wasn't there to go out and buy players.

Quinn was a member of the famous Irish Cup–winning team of 1979 and the Gold Cup–winning team of 1981. When Cliftonville ended a barren period of 15 years by winning the Coca-Cola Cup last year, Quinn was the manager. Success and Marty Quinn go hand in hand. During that fruitless 15-year period, Cliftonville lost 13 out of 15 penalty shoot-outs. The new-found optimism among the Cliftonville fans may not be so strong if there were penalty shoot-outs in the league.

The club's league position belies its persistent financial difficulties. At the start of this season, as if the club didn't have enough to contend with in keeping the books balanced, the far-reaching claws of European law, under the guise of the Bosman ruling, dealt the team a bitter blow.  Three of their players (including record signing Paul Stokes, who cost the club £10,000) were out of contract and were thereby entitled to sign for League of Ireland clubs for free. Before a ball was kicked, £17,500 had to be placed in the provision for a bad-debts account.

The Bosman ruling, which is presenting so many problems for the top European sides, could spell financial ruin for a small club like Cliftonville. The incongruity of a player like Paul Stokes moving 100 miles down the road to Shamrock Rovers and signing on for free because he is moving to another jurisdiction encapsulates how such laws can lead to an absurdity. This is especially true when one considers that Derry City, a northern club, plays in the League of Ireland.

The huge financial chasm between Cliftonville and some of their main adversaries reinforces their remarkable performance this season. Linfield and Glentoran enjoy secure financial backing and goodwill from their supporters throughout the North. Linfield also receive an annual income from the rental of Windsor Park to the Irish Football Association. Clubs like Portadown, Glenavon and Crusaders have benefited from private backing, a source of income that has never been open to Cliftonville. For a big match,
Linfield might attract a gate of 10,000; Cliftonville would be doing well to get 2,000 through the turnstiles for a big game.
Linfield recently signed 30-goals-a-season man Glen Ferguson for £55,000. Cliftonville in contrast have had to make do with free transfers and resort to their youth team to build a championship-winning side. The payroll at the bigger clubs is four to five times the size of Cliftonville's tightly controlled wage structure. Even if the club managed to raise the money to buy a top-name player, they could not afford his salary.

The bigger clubs have never faced near extinction. In 1986, Cliftonville were £100,000 in debt and had to raise £35,000 in eight weeks to avoid going out of business. “The club's debts just spiraled out of control. Running a football club is an expensive business, as there are bills of over £30,000 just to cover electricity, rates and insurance.  In 1986, gate receipts were only £300 per game. Although everyone rallied round to save the club, and corporate dinners, a weekly lottery and advertising in the ground have been put in place, it is still a very hard job to keep the club going,” said Boyce.

Cliftonville, Ireland's oldest league club, last won the championship in 1910. For 20 years between the early 1950s and the 1970s, the club had sunk so far into the mire that it had to apply for re-election to the league. That should have been the nadir in the club's history, but the Celtic riot and near liquidation surpassed the humiliation of seeking re-election. Despite these setbacks, the club has stuck to the task of playing football. Their league position and the appointment of Jim Boyce as president of the Irish Football Association are a testimony to their rehabilitation.

Jim Boyce has supported Cliftonville since he was six, and he freely admits that if Cliftonville win the championship, it will be the realisation of a dream he would never have thought possible at the start of the season. After all, wise men say…