soccer

The Future Of Football

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When this mural of Northern Ireland players from Killyleagh was originally painted in 2006 it featured only three players:

– Hugh Davey, from Shrigley, five caps for “Ireland” (that is, for the IFA team) from “1925-1928” (NI Football)

– Terry Cochrane, 26 caps for Nothern Ireland from “1975-1984”; he played in the ’82 World Cup qualifiers but was injured for the tournament itself (NI Football)

– David Healy, 95 caps from “2000” to 2013; he scored the winning goal against England on 7th September, 2005 – the first victory over England since the 2-0 victory in 1927 that Hugh Davey played in – a feat memorialised in two Belfast murals: Our Wee Country | We’re Not Brazil, We’re Northern Ireland (NI Football)

A space and a question-mark were left at the bottom of the rainbow for future stars, in particular for then-seventeen-year-old up-and-comer Trevor Carson (Glasgow Times) who indeed went on to win his first (senior) cap in 2018 and currently has eight in total. He was added to the mural in 2021 (tw).

Braeside Gardens/Frederick Street, Killyleagh. Carson’s mother lives in the estate (Sunderland Echo).

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02250 New Belfast Community Arts Initiative Housing Executive Down District Community Safety Partnership

The Sporting Wing

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“The sporting wing [of the IRA]” is a play on the idea that Sınn Féın was the “political wing” of the IRA and so Celtic FC is the group’s “sporting wing”. Instead of Celtic’s usual four-leaf clover, three hooded gunmen fire a funeral volley.

The GAA has also been given the title (BelTel 2020); Sammy Wilson, as DUP press officer defending UDA attacks on GAA halls in Belfast and Banbridge, in September 1993, described the GAA as “the IRA at play” (WP). (For a history of the two organisations, see Irish Peace Process.)

Falls Road, west Belfast

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The Duke Of Windsor

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Tommy Dickson ended his career (in 1965) with a partial season at Glentoran. Before that, however, he spent 16 seasons in the first team at Linfield, scoring 451 goals and leading the club to titles in the League Cup, Irish Cup, Gold Cup, Ulster Cup, City Cup, North-South Cup, and County Antrim Shield (shown at the top of the mural). (WP)

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Three Leaf Shamrock

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Here are two soccer-related images from Gardenmore Road, in Twinbrook. Above, James McClean in his Ireland strip – “Like James McClean we won’t bow down/To a British Army or and English crown.//I wear no poppy upon my breast/Just a three leaf shamrock upon my chest.” (though McClean is shown wearing the 2016-2018 jersey which featured a ball rather than an FAI shamrock).

The other three leaf shamrock familiar from soccer is that of Scottish team Glasgow Celtic, which is widely supported among the CNR community.

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Let’s All Do The Huddle

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Players from Scottish football team Celtic and local team Cliftonville “do the huddle” together. The mural was painted in 2013 to celebrate the visit by Celtic to Solitude (Cliftonville’s home pitch) for a Champions League tie between the two teams.

A mural outside Solitude was also painted for the occasion – see The Red Army.

Essex Grove, south Belfast.

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Don Patricio

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As a player, the Dublin-born Patrick O’Connell started with Belfast Celtic before moving on to various English and Scottish clubs, including a period at Manchester United at the time of WWI. He then went on to manage a string of Spanish clubs. As manager (“Don Patricio”) of Barcelona during the Spanish civil war, he accompanied the club on their tour of Mexico and the United States. The money from the tour saved the club from bankruptcy but 12 of the 16 players went into exile in Mexico and France. (WP) Barcelona returns to the US this month (2015-07) for games against the LA Galaxy, Manchester United, and Chelsea. (FCBarcelona)

The newspaper in the mural above crams all of this news onto one page: “Civil war erupts in Spain – Barcelona bombed”, “Football suspended – President [of FC Barcelona] Josep Sunyol assassinated” [by Franco’s troops] (WP); “Irishman O’Connell takes players on tour – FC Barcelona saved from extinction”; “Funds lodged in Switzerland”. In the bottom left-hand corner of the newspaper is Robert Capa’s famous photograph of ‘The Falling Soldier’, purporting to show a Republican soldier at the very moment he is struck by a bullet and dies. The image is now thought to have been staged (WP).

The image on which the mural is based can be seen in this Irish Times article on O’Connell.

The player on the right is Lionel Messi. The Argentinian forward is shown in front of the Spanish League cup, which Barcelona won in the year the mural was painted (2014-2015) with a goal from “La Pulga” (“the flea”) – Messi is 5’7″ but four-time world player of the year.

The stands of three football stadiums are shown in the background: Belfast Celtic’s Celtic Park (“Paradise”), Manchester United’s Old Trafford, and Barcelona’s Camp Nou. The Old Trafford stands bear the emblems of the teams Patrick O’Connell played for and managed: Liffey Wanderers (whose shirt is also featured, on the left), Sheffield Wednesday, Hull City (The Tigers), Manchester United, Dumbarton, Real Racing Club de Santander, Real Oviedo, and Real Betis Balompié (also shirt on the right).

Whiterock Road, Belfast

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Stronger Together

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mural featuring (from left to right in the image below) Ardoyne Youth Club, Ard Eoın Kickhams, and the John Paul II Youth Club as alternatives to bullying, racism, homophobia, addiction, and other social ills. This panel shows Irish dancing, soccer, and Gaelic games; there are also images of young people practicing martial arts, DJing, and boxing on a side wall.

Havana Way, Ardoyne

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