Full name: Donegal Celtic Football and Sports Club
Nickname(s): "DC", The Wee Hoops, The Belfast Hoops
Founded: 1970
Venue: Donegal Celtic Park, Suffolk Road, Belfast
Capacity: 3,000
Chairman: Raymond Bonner
Team Manager: Paddy Kelly
League: Carnegie Irish Premier League
Colours: Green and White hoops,
white shorts, white socks (home).
White shirt, green shorts, green socks (away).
-----
Our club was founded in 1970 during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles by a group of friends hailing from the Lenadoon area in west Belfast. It was an aim of the founding members to provide a football team for the local community but also a forum wherein locals could organise events and entertainment during the darker days of Northern Ireland’s history and when the locality was starved of employment and inward investment. Andy McIlhatton, one of the founding members, purchased land from a farmer for around £200 with the aim of building a football venue that would help Celtic compete in junior football competitions. Donegal Celtic’s name was influenced by the locality. Streets in the Lenadoon estate, as well as Lenadoon itself, are all named after towns in Co Donegal, Creeslough and Falcarragh, for example. With a strong tradition of support for Glasgow Celtic and Belfast Celtic, who withdrew from Irish League football in 1949 due to civil unrest, Donegal Celtic didn’t take long to gather a strong fanbase and
experience success in the game. After years of dominating competition in the Dunmurry
League, then the Intermediate League, Celtic became an annual thorn in the sides of senior clubs in the Irish Cup. But, being a ‘Celtic’ team in Northern Ireland football is not a easy occupation and the club would no doubt have progressed into senior football much sooner had it not been for the obvious attempts to keep the club on the fringes. On more than 10 occasions voting members of the Irish Football League kept Celtic out and opted to bring in clubs such as Institute, Portstewart and Limavady United at our expense. It wasn’t until a joint legal challenge from Donegal
Celtic and Lurgan Celtic, backed by the Equality Commission, against the IFL’s dubious voting patterns that the league finally buckled and opened its doors.
The case was due to go before a county court on the 15th April 2002, but was adjourned until June. The hearing would never come as the Irish Football League admitted both clubs into the Irish League Second Division at its AGM in May for the start of the 2002-03 season. For the first time since Belfast Celtic withdrew shortly after the infamous 1948 Boxing Day riot at
Windsor Park, nationalist west Belfast was celebrating a presence in senior football.
Before the present day enjoyment of social and economic progress in Northern Ireland and Celtic’s
ascendancy into the Irish League, the club was at the centre of world focus when it drew Linfield, Northern Ireland’s most successful club with a huge Protestant support, in the Irish Cup.
The RUC (now PSNI) and match organisers underestimated the large supports that turned out that day and police, decked in riot gear and stood among Celtic’s supporters, clashed with them during the game. Three Celtic supporters were injured when shot with plastic baton rounds.
What promised to be an incredible sporting spectacle soon descended into mayhem. One member of the Linfield support invaded the pitch and assaulted Celtic player Brendan Tully, a descendant of great Charlie Tully. The scenes at Windsor Park did not force us out of football, however. We continued to grow in strength and came close to knocked Ards and Glentoran out of
the Irish Cup in other attempts. In 1995 the world focussed on the cub yet again but
this time the attention was positive. The Northern Ireland team, then managed by Bryan Hamilton, trained at Celtic Park just days before a European Championship qualifier against Austria. It was the first time the Northern Ireland squad, mainly supported by the Protestant community, trained in
nationalist west Belfast. In 1998 the football at Donegal Celtic Park became a political one yet again though when we were drawn to play the RUC team in the Steel & Sons Cup semi-final.
The cup is considered the most prestigious in Irish junior football, attracting large crowds for its
Christmas Day final and the club felt that this year would be its best chance to capture what had eluded them for decades. The club’s members initially voted to go ahead with the game. They were forced, however, to reverse their decision after intense pressure from
local Sinn Fein politicians. The club stated it had been "thrown into the eye of the storm", with football being the only true loser. Sinn Fein, at the time, claimed the RUC was in a "charm offensive" - yet the cup competition was an open draw!
The Steel and Sons Cup, which current Donegal Celtic manager Paddy Kelly had coveted, finally arrived during the club’s first season in the Irish leagues, on Christmas Day 2003. We defeated Killyleagh YC 3-0 at Seaview in the final. The next season the club managed to progress to the First Division after finishing in sixth place. The team was beginning to find its feet under the
stewardship of Paddy Kelly and skipper Joe Donnelly as they managed to secure a respectable eighth place and consolidate their status as a First Division club.
In season 2004-05 the club was ready for an assault on the league and despite maintaining second place for considerable periods. But a combination of incredible form by Armagh City and a late push by recently relegated senior club Glenavon forced DC into third place. Although losing the possibility of promotion may have left some disappointed coming that close was
seen as a massive achievement and set the tone for the following season.
With the news that relegated Premier League club Omagh Town had been forced to fold due to financial difficulties only three teams were left with a reasonable chance at winning promotion, those were relegated Crusaders, Bangor and Donegal Celtic. Bangor's challenge quickly deteriorated and DC's cup commitments allowed Crusaders to open up a gap in the league that they could never realistically close. Crusaders lost just once that season and won a First Division treble, with DC finishing second, and thus a chance for promotion to the Premier League in a
two-legged play-off against the second-bottom Premier League club, Institute.
DC's home leg had to be played at Cliftonville's Solitude stadium because Donegal Celtic Park did not meet the required standards for senior football (this was despite the absence of an explicit rule dealing with ground criteria for play-off matches). DC took a commanding lead with a 3-1 victory in the first leg, however Institute’s away goal ensured the contest was far from over and most of the hard work would have to be done in Drumahoe the following Wednesday. DC played the return game out while Institute ran out of steam searching for the first of the two goals needed to save themselves from relegation against a 10-man team. The game finished scoreless and the final whistle lead to an impromptu pitch invasion and a massive huddle as fans and
players celebrated together. We also managed to capture the Intermediate Cup at the
same time, defeating Coagh United 2-0 in the final, it was the only cup in junior football the club had not yet won.
In our first season in senior football we managed to avoid relegation, finishing thirteenth in the 16-team Premier League.
