BOMBS, BRANDYWELL ...AND BENFICA
DERRY CITY only played a peripheral role in the process that brought peace to Northern Ireland.
But for those people who had been dodging bullets and bombs in the Bogside on a regular basis, the story of how their local football club rose from being pariahs to play in the European Cup, filled them with fresh hope that their lives would not be defined by political violence.
With unrest beginning to escalate again in the province, a
BBC documentary about Derry’s demise and spectacular rebirth at the height of ‘the Troubles’ could not be more poignantly timed.
Derry, scene of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in which 14 people were killed by British soldiers, has long been a predominantly Catholic city and a hotbed of Irish republicanism.
Just a few months before Bloody Sunday, the bus that had taken Ballymena United to the Brandywell Stadium for an
Irish League fixture was set on fire by a local mob – and became the catalyst for the club to go out of business, after initially being forced to play home games 30 miles away in Coleraine.
There is a theory that with nothing else to do on Saturday afternoons, many locals joined the weekly riots on William Street.
Until 1984, when a quartet of former players decided football had to return to the Brandywell. Terry Harkin (left) and Tony O’Doherty were Northern Ireland internationals who had played alongside George Best. Eddie Mahon and Eamonn McLaughlin made up the so-called ‘Gang of Four.’
Their motives were not political.
But when it became clear that Derry would not be accepted back into the Northern Irish fold, they looked across the border to the Republic for salvation.
After winning support from FIFA president Sepp Blatter and being given assurances from the Irish FA in Belfast that they had no objections, Derry City became
How this fab four restored football and faith to a terrorised community to earn their place in history and an incredible date in the European Cup
the first club in the world to move to a different country.
Their introduction into the League of Ireland captured the imagination of thousands, including many women and children. Suddenly a city that had become famous for petrol bombs became home to Brazilian midfielder Nelson Da Silva and the Yugoslavian forward Aleksandar Krstic.
Striker Owen Da Gama had grown up in South Africa under apartheid. On the banks of the River Foyle he was so popular that he had his own fan club. But it was local lad Felix Healy who became the face of Derry after he returned to his hometown club from Coleraine and scored the goal that beat Cork in the replayed 1989 FAI Cup Final.
Healy’s strike secured a unique domestic treble. The following season they were paired with Portuguese giants Benfica in the European Cup. But just a few hours before Sven Goran Eriksson’s team were due to arrive, the club was warned an explosive device had been planted outside the stadium.
This prompted a call to Martin McGuinness, a Derry-born IRA commander who would become deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. McGuinness later claimed he disarmed the explosive and threw it down a grid in the cemetery that overlooks the stadium.
Benfica prevailed 2-1 in the game – and won the second leg 4-0 – but this was an evening when there were no losers.