“You earn your trophies at practice – you just pick them up at competitions.” The largest number among the honours on the left is 56, for the number of times Linfield has won the league.
“Monkstown true blues Linfield supporters club,” (Fb) “Follow your dreams – if you can dream it, you can become it.”
Cloyne Crescent, Monkstown, Newtownabbey.
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“Let others come after us – we welcome the chase.” The exterior wall of the Carrickfergus Rangers Supporters Club presents a gallery of the club’s managers from 1899 to 2018. In order they are William Wilton, Bill Struth, Scot Symon, David White, William Waddell, Jock Wallace, John Greig, Graeme Souness, Walter Smith, Dick Advocaat, Alex McLeish, Paul Le Guen, Ally McCoist, Stuart McCall, Mark Warburton, Pedro Caixinha, Graeme Murty, Steve Gerrard (and since then, there have been Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Michael Beale, and (currently) Philippe Clement).
Also from the Club: Club: commemorative murals to the 36th Division in A Name That Equals Any In History | to the UDR in Some Gave All | to the Highland Fusiliers.
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“Carrickfergus congratulates Rangers FC on their 55th title” on “Champions Row” (that is, Irish Quarter West) Carrickfergus.
As Chairman Dave King appointed Steven Gerrard as the new manager of Rangers in 2018, he predicted that a single league win for Rangers would cause Celtic to “fold like a pack of cards” (Sky Sport). Under Gerrard, Rangers clinched their 55th Scottish championship in spring of 2021. Celtic, however, won in 2022 and 2023 (WP).
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T03361 we welcome the chase back where we belong kings of scotland we are the people
“With voice, pen or hand we will defend our land.” David (Davy) Patterson (12-10-1955 – 03-01-2019) was a member of the 1st East Belfast Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) and Albertbridge Glentoran Supporters Club (Funeral Times). This memorial board is the side-wall to the Somme Society mural (see Their Name Liveth Forevermore) and the Red Hand Commando memorial garden in Hunt Street, east Belfast.
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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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T02250 New Belfast Community Arts Initiative Housing Executive Down District Community Safety Partnership
Jon “Ugg” Clifford died in 2011, having founded Tristar Boys FC (web) in 1974. Bull Park in Creggan has been renamed in his honour and this portrait on boards has been mounted next to the park.
(BelTel | Derry Journal)
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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New Lodge soccer club St Patrick’s (Fb) have a mural on the New Lodge Road, painted in 2017 by Ed Reynolds (steadyhanded.com | tw).
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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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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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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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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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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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Paddy Duffy Collection 