Perhaps more so than any other club in Northern Ireland at the time, Derry City were heavily impacted by The Troubles that befell that part of the world for the better part of 30 years. This era began on a much brighter note for the club, when in 1964 they lifted the Gold Cup, the now defunct cup competition that back then was a major ambition for Irish clubs to win. Over the span of two seasons, Derry went on an unbeaten run of 47 games until they finally went down to Steaua Burucresti in the 1965 European Cup Winners Cup. They made up for this, however, by becoming Irish League champions for the first time ever. Also that year, Derry’s Doug Wood also became Northern Ireland Player of the Year, and the club gave a good account of themselves despite going down to the Spanish national team 3-1, in a friendly held at the Vicente Calderon Stadium. Derry were invited by the Spanish team for the match, as the latter were due to play the Republic of Ireland and wanted to gain experience against a team with a similar play style.

 

The next season, Derry became the first Irish team to win a two legged European fixture when they defeated FK Lyn in the European Cup. They lost the first match in Oslo 5-3, but ended up winning 8-6 on aggregate. This second match played at Derry’s Brandywell took place in atrocious weather, but the ground was still packed and the fans went home drenched to the bone but happy. What they did not realise was that forces were at work to deny the club of any more glory. For the second round, the Irish Football Association prevented use of the Brandywell, giving the excuse that the pitch was not up to scratch, even though the previous round’s match took place there with no issues. Sectarianism was on the rise in Ireland with the dawn of The Troubles, and since they played in a mostly nationalist area and were supported mainly by Catholics, the club suspected that the IFA, being largely focussed on Protestant Northern Ireland, were looking for a way to do them over. The IFA’s president, Harry Cavan, did not seem to like the idea of a Catholic-supported club representing Ireland on the European stage. Derry refused to move the location of the fixture and requested advice on what they needed to do to make the ground playable but received no answer. The IFA wanted the match to take place in Belfast, or, in a case of double standards, the Showgrounds in mainly Protestant Coleriane would be acceptable also, even though the ground there was in a worse state than Brandywell’s.  Derry’s opponents, Belgian side Anderlecht, pleaded with the club to play the tie. Rather than play at a ground stipulated by the IFA, Derry travelled to Belgium first and were destroyed 9-0. Anderlecht officials travelled to Brandywell to analyse the pitch and declared that it would be fine to play on for the return leg, but the IFA still forbade a match to take place there, and the second leg never occurred. Relations between Derry City and the IFA subsequently collapsed.

 

The Troubles, a 30 year period of violence and low-level warfare between the mainly Catholic nationalists/republicans and the mostly Protestant unionists/British, kicked off in 1969. Up until then, any team could travel to the Brandywell with no consequence. However, as the situation in the country deteriorated, matches between teams with mostly either unionist or nationalist support became very dangerous affairs. City’s ground sat in a mostly republican section of Derry (or Londonderry depending on which side you were on), and the entire club became associated with the Catholic community. During this era, however, the area surrounding Brandywell Stadium, Bogside, saw some of the worst violence of The Troubles. At an Irish Cup match between Derry and Linfield, fans of the latter club had to be evacuated from the stadium at half time following huge all-in brawls in the stands. The return leg was scrapped altogether. The political situation continued to decline in various locations across the country, with the vicinity of Brandywell being among the worst hit by civil disorder including rioting, being smack bang in the middle of one of the most unstable zones. The Battle of the Bogside, one of the first skirmishes in The Troubles, took place there. Subsequently, many clubs were reluctant to play there and numerous Derry City home games were moved or postponed.

 

For two years, Derry had to play their home fixtures against Linfield at the latter club’s Windsor Park. The match that took place between the two clubs on January 25, 1969 was the last between them at the Brandywell until 2005. By the time of the 1970/71 season, the presence of British soldiers in the Bogside caused tensions to worsen even more and Derry’s first few games were postponed or contested in Coleraine, over 30 miles away. Despite all this turmoil, the club continued to play as well as they always had. Danny Hale was the leagues highest scorer, and the club reached the 1971 Irish Cup final, but then in September 1972, with large chunks of the city now a no-go area,  a 7 year old boy was run over a British Army Land Rover, causing explosive rioting. Stones, bricks, bottles and Molotov cocktails were thrown from the Brandywell, and when a shot was fired, police returned fire upon the stadium. Derry played a home game there the very next day, which went ahead despite their opponents objections. As the match kicked off, rioting continued outside the ground, and those inside could hear the violence including the discharging of rubber bullets, and their throats and eyes burned from the familiar effects of CS gas in the air. A group of rioters forced their way into the ground and gained access to the team bus of Ballymena United, Derry’s opponents. They pushed the bus onto the street and set it on fire. After this incident, the security forces in charge made the decision that Derry could no longer play their home games in the Bogside, and would have to play them in Coleraine instead.

 

Nobody turned up to “home” games there. One match in the Ulster Cup brought in just £33 in gate receipts. Eventually, the Royal Ulster Constabulary told Derry City that their games could return to the Brandywell  as it was now no more dangerous than any other ground in the country, but even then, the majority of Irish League clubs refused to play there. The situation was simply not conducive to maintaining a football club, and in 1972 Derry announced that they would be withdrawing from the league immediately. This was just after “Bloody Sunday” aka The Bogside Massacre occurred, when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in a protest march and 14 people were killed – one of the most significant events of The Troubles. Derry were replaced right in the middle of the season by Larne FC. After 43 years in the league, just like that, they were gone. However, Derry City lived on as a junior team in the local Saturday morning league just to survive, while applying numerous times for re-entry to the league and to play their home games at the Brandywell.

 

Despite a significantly improved security situation over the years, they were continually refused by the IFA. This period was known as “The Wilderness Years.” Finally, in 1985, the club received special permission from the IFA, UEFA and FIFA to compete in the Republic of Ireland’s League of Ireland, despite being based in Northern Ireland which, of course, is a different country. For the last 30 years, the club have also received permission to police their own games, as the presence of either the Royal Ulster Constabulary or the Northern Ireland Police Service is thought to be potentially inflammatory. Derry City pulled off a League and Cup double in 1989 and the following season they played Benfica in the European Cup, where they became the first ever team to have represented two different national leagues in the same competition.

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Acheivements:
Gold Cup – winners x1
Irish League – Champions x1
Irish Cup – Winners x1 Runners up x1

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Star player: Fay Coyle dob 1 April 1933, pob Derry, Northern Ireland

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A centre forward, Coyle had two stints with Derry City, one from 1951-1953 and the second from 1963 to 1966. His best season was in 1954/55 when he was the Irish Leagues top scorer and collected a winners medal in the City Cup. Coyle scored all 6 goals in a benefit game for Matt Dohertyagainst Shamrock Rovers, after which he was described by Rovers icon Paddy Coad as “the greatest prospect in Irish football”. He turned down a number of offers from Nottingham Forest but they eventually got their man when he signed for them in 1958. He only played three games for them, none of which were actually at the City Ground, before he returned to Ireland with homesickness. Playing in the Irish League again, Coyle added a North-West Senior Cup medal to his collection by defeating his old club Derry City as he played for Coleraine. He returned to Derry and became their captain during the most successful period in their history, including a 1964 Irish Cup victory over Glentoran, a Gold Cup and their first ever adventure into Europe. In terms of Coyle’s international career, he scored the winning goal in a defeat of England in Coleraine and played in a 2-1 win over Scotland. He was a member of Northern Ireland’s 1958 World Cup team and played against Argentina which turned out to be his final international match. His son, Liam Coyle, was one of Derry City’s leading players during their resurgence in the League of Ireland. Fay Coyle died in 2007.