Michael O’Donnell, editor of A Game of Two Halves: The Terry Harkin Story, says Derry City's revival wasn’t just about the rebirth of a soccer club - it was about a lost city finding its voice again.
It was 1985. Ulster said no.
The Irish League, the League of Ireland and UEFA said yes.
In our part of the world it is impossible to keep politics out of anything and football is no exception. There were political reasons for Derry City’s expulsion from the Irish League in 1972 and that murky world needed to be navigated if the club was to again take its rightful place at the top table.
The story of how this happened is brilliantly covered in Kevin Harkin’s biography of his father Terry, ‘A Game Of Two Halves’. The inside story of how a casual chat over a cup of tea saw Terry float the idea of Derry entering the League of Ireland.
Terry, Tony O’Doherty, Eamon McLaughlin and Eddie Mahon, made it happen.
It is remarkable that within 18 months their dream became a reality. Even more so to realise that five years from that chat between Terry and Eddie, Derry City completed the first, and to date, only, clean sweep of League of Ireland trophies, 1989’s unique Treble.
But football is merely a subplot to the story.
This is about a city finding its voice. A city tormented by years of crippling unemployment, under investment, gerrymandered elections. Seeing our streets on the television was a daily event, the pictures festooned by the familiar voiceover words “shooting,” “bombing,” “killing,” “murder,” “condemnation.”
The narrative was changing.
I was eight years old when Derry left the Irish League. I was 22 when on September 8 1985, Home Farm wrote its name into our history as our first League of Ireland opponents. And, decent types that they are, they obliged us by losing 3-1.
What happened next I never saw coming. The way the city was consumed by football. We had our own heroes, our own players to sing about. Even our own songs.
This has never been better explained than by one of our own, the late Ryan McBride when he said “Young boys grow up dreaming to move across the water to Man United or Celtic, but my dream was to play for Derry City and to captain them.”
He did play for and captain Derry. And with such distinction they named a stadium after him.
This is what the club brought but not just to the sporting arena.
Hope. Ambition. The realisation that good things don’t just happen to other people in other places, peaked over the horizon.
People now had something positive to hang on to, a sense of purpose, togetherness, a shared aspiration. Even those who had no interest in football, found themselves in the middle of it. Nothing brings out the sandwich making expertise in Derry women than a good wake or an away match.
Following Derry in those days was to take a Master’s Degree in Irish geography, with fans able to proclaim with commendable confidence, how long it would take to get to EMFA, Newcastlewest, or Cobh if you left at 10.30 on Saturday morning, with allowances made for traffic entering Ardee, (it could bottleneck sometimes but they did have lovely floral arrangements to admire), and bathroom breaks.
It was during those moments that Derry’s greatest export, its people, became a living breathing advertisement for the city.
Thousand would descend on these towns and villages, drink their bars dry, fill their hotels and bring an unexpected financial boon. Footballs fans’ reputations at this time was poor, hosts were initially wary, however it took but a short time to see the truth, families travelled together to watch their team and have a good time.
There was never any trouble, it was, if you will, like games at Brandywell without the need for the local constabulary, policed by consent. No-one stepped out of line.
It’s a sobering thought that it is now 37 years since Derry joined the League of Ireland.
Our city, geographically, politically, culturally, and economically, can be viewed as an outpost by outsiders.
We disagree.
This is the place that produced two Nobel Laureates, chart topping singers and songwriters, award winning actors, and many, many internationally sports people.
The talent seeps through the barriers put in front of us.
We never stop.
We never give in and we never give up.
The success of Derry City is a huge manifestation of that attitude. Our football club was taken away from us and robbed generations of players of the opportunity to play the game ay senior level, and who knows, follow their predecessors Jobby Crossan, Fay Coyle, and Terry Harkin, and their successors James McClean, Shane Duffy and Paddy McCourt across the water and into the international game.
The motto of Barcelona “Mes que un club,” More Than A Club, travels well. It sits comfortably with Derry City.
As Felix Healy said after he scored the winner in the 1989 FAI Cup Final to secure the Treble.
“This particular day was more than about football. It was about a community. It was about a community that was wronged and forgotten about. It was this community saying ‘look at us now.’”
He’s right.
Look at us now.
Just look at us now.