Cliftonville

Cliftonville Football & Athletic Club is a Northern Irish association football club playing in the NIFL Premiership – the top division of the Northern Ireland Football League. The club was founded in September 1879 by John McAlery in the suburb of Cliftonville in north Belfast; it is the oldest football club in Ireland and celebrated its 140th anniversary in 2019. Since 1890, the club has played home matches at Solitude. Cliftonville contests the North Belfast derby with nearest rivals Crusaders, and also has historical rivalries with Glentoran and Linfield. The club has won the Irish League Premiership five times outright including one shared title, the Irish Cup eight times and the Irish League Cup five times.

History

Founders of football in Ireland

The foundation of Cliftonville F.C. was announced on 20 September 1879 in notices in the Belfast News-Letter and Northern Whig, which asked "gentlemen desirous of becoming members" of the "Cliftonville Association Football Club (Scottish Association Rules)" to communicate with John McAlery, a young Belfast businessman and manager of the "Irish Tweed House", Royal Avenue, and later with premises in Rosemary Street, or R.M. Kennedy, and advertising an "opening practice today at 3.30".

Only one week after the advertisement was published, Cliftonville played its first recorded game at Cliftonville Cricket Ground against a selection of rugby players known as Quidnunces, the game took place on 29 September 1879. The newly formed club, however, was beaten 2–1. In its first match against the Scottish club Caledonian, it fared worse: a 1–9 defeat.

In 1880, it was again John McAlery who was the moving spirit in the formation of the Irish Football Association. He issued an invitation to interested parties in Belfast and district for a meeting to be called. The first meeting took place on 18 November 1880 at Queen's Hotel, Belfast, presided over by John Sinclair, from which the Irish Football Associatio

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