Derry and the Irish League

On September 12, 1971, Ballymena United came to the Brandywell football ground in Derry for a league game against the home side. Ballymena's bus was luckless1y parked in the heart of the Bogside and when they returned it had been burned to a shell. It being just a month after the introduction of internment, many vehicles in Derry met with a similar fate.

Shortly after this, Linfield and G1entoran refused to come to the Brandywell for their scheduled matches, and then all the teams in the Irish League informed Derry that they would have to find another ground because Brandywell was no longer safe for league football.

So for twelve months Derry played all their home matches in Coleraine, 30 miles away. The cost of transsporting the team there, plus the large drop in revenue beecause the fans did not flock after them, and the fact that they had to pay Coleraine for the use of the pitch, led Derry's board of directors to announce that they could not continue to meet these expenses. The club would have to drop out of the League if the teams would not agree to come to the Brandywell, the board said.

In 1972 the League put the matter to a vote. They voted 6-5 against coming to the Brandywell. Derry City and the Irish League parted company.

The burning of the Ballyymena bus is the only recorded incidence of violence at a football match in Derry, but there is a catalogue of violent incidents at other grounds in Northern Ireland which have gone largely unpunished. Less than two years ago, a man with a gun chased a Bangor player around the pitch during a practice session. A policeman on security duty at the gates of Crusader's ground in Seaview Road in Belfast was shot dead while a match was in progress.

However, Linfield is the club with the worst reputaation in this respect. The security people at Solitude, Cliftonville's grounds will not allow the Linfield side to play there. Even at home, hunndreds of RUC men are needed for security duty during a Linfield match. When Belfast Celtic played them in the early sixties, a group of suppporters came on to the pitch and attacked Jimmy Jones, a Celtic player. Eventually the Linfield keeper had to throw himself on top of Jones to prevent further injury to him. Belfast Celtic then withdrew from the League.

But because a bus was burned some distance away in the Bogside the Brandywell is unsafe to play football in.

Derry has sought to dissprove this on a number of occasions. In August 1981, Derry invited Coleraine to the Brandywell for a friendly, and there was no trouble.

A few weeks later Cliftonnville came, and again everyything passed off peacefully. Derry felt that they had proved the Brandywell to be 'safe, and in both matches showed that they were commpetent for league football.

But, just to dispel any doubts which might have remained, Derry invited Glennavon for a friendly and their manager, Billy Sinclair, said of course they would come. Derry were getting out the red carpet when Glenavon's management board said that the players could go if they wanted, but no side bearing the name of Glenavon would play in the Brandywell.

Glenavon's secretary, Tom Kerr, says: "We would love to see Derry back in the league - I'm sure every club would. But we have to connsider the safety of our playyers." But Terry Nicholson,

Glenavon's present manager says that the burning of the bus is the only violence he has ever heard of in the Brandywell. "In all my time travelling there as a player I never saw any violence."

Derry sought a security clearance from the RUC for the Brandywell. All the RUC would say was "This is a matter for the Irish Football Association and not for the police." And as far as the IF A is concerned the matter was settled in 1972 with the vote.

Derry's record since joinning the League in 1929 was a proud one. They won the Irish Cup twice and pulled off a magnificent triple in 1964 when they won the Irish Cup a third time, the Gold Cup and the NorthhWest Senior Cup. And the following year they won the Irish League, having been runners-up on three previous occasions.

In 1965, Derry became the first Northern team ever to progress to the second round of a European commpetition, beating FK Lyn of Oslo 8-<i on aggregate. They were dra wn against mighty Anderlecht in the second round, and were trounced 9-0 in the away game. The return leg was therefore a formality, but for Derry there was massive financial gain in playing Anderlecht in the Brandywell - or at least there was the prospect of it. That return tie was never played.

FK Lyn expressed disssatisfaction with the Brandyywell after the match. The IF A then declared the Brandyyunfit for European football, and said the match would have to be played elsewhere. Derry pointed out that only months beforehand Steau of Bucharest had found no fault with it, and anyway Anderrlecht had said. that they were quite willing to come. So, feeling that the authoriities wanted the big match for Belfast, Derry said "no Brandy well, no match" and there was none.

When asked who innspected the pitch and who declared the grounds unfit, IFA secretary Billy Drennan would only say:

"That was a decision of the European Union of Football Associations". But an IF A committee did inspect the pitch and the IF A did say that the Brandywell was unnsuitable. Anderlecht gave Derry £1,500 as a gesture of sympathy for their losses.

Frank Curran of the Derry Journal points out that foottballing authorities have allowwed international matches to go ahead on pitches which were much worse, such as the recent Republic of Ireland game in Malta, and he dissmisses Billy Drennan's claim that the Brandywell was not even properly measured out as "nonsense". "Anyway," he says, "whoever heard of a football association declaring one of its own grounds unnsuitable to play in?"

Derry City's board of directors reasoned that if the league teams would not come to the Brandy well, they might come to some other part of the City that would be connsidered safe. They thought of buying a site in the Waterside. But limbo Crossan, Derry City's present manager argues that the fans would not have followed the team across the bridge: "The fans would never look at Derry City if they moved to the Waterside."

There is another possibiility. A new bridge is being built across the Foyle downnstream, which when commpleted in 1984, will allow traffic from Belfast to byypass the city centre altogeether. The board bought a site in the Templemore suburb in 1979, right beside the City's new sports complex. They drew up plans for a new stadium, were dissolved and reformed into a nonnprofit-making organisation in the hope of getting a £50,000 grant from the Northern Ireeland Office.

But because of Thatcher's cutbacks, the NIO informed Derry that small grants were not available. limbo Crossan bitterly points out that they were able. to find £1 million rec'entlyfor Windsor Park. Derry are now faced with the dilemma of raising all the money themselves with no guarantee that the league clubs will come to play them.

The IFA say they will come "as soon as they get a ground and all fixed up", but Frank Curran believes that the new site is too near the border for comfort.

Jimbo Crossan says: "If you were to balance out all the injustices that have been done in the Irish League, Derry City would easily come out top of the list as the most sinned against." He adds that at the time Derry left the League the UDA took over one of the Belfast clubs to make money. '

At one stage Derry even considered buying a pitch across the border and applyying for membership of the League of Ireland. At the end of January, Finn Harps' chairrman Fran Fields asked his fellow delegates at a meeting of the League of Ireland management committee to consider the possibility of admitting Derry into the southern league. But FIF A rules would not allow this.

So now, as for more than a decade, Derry City Foottball Club, with a team, a ground, a manager, a chairrman, a board of directors ¸everything any side in the North has - finds itself in a sporting limbo with no one to play against them. •