Final distraction

Today marks 21 years since the Irish Cup Final that never was – but did you know that Cliftonville were still involved in a match?

It felt a million miles removed from the splendour of a decisive Windsor Park showdown with Portadown but, in a bid to temporarily shift minds away from the disappointment of being ejected from the competition following a player eligibility blunder, Marty Quinn’s side faced off against a team of supporters at Solitude.

Sketchy recollections of the occasion suggest that the fans (bedecked in the team’s Gold & Green away strip from the 1997/98 title-winning season) actually had the audacity to take the lead, only for Cliftonville to hit back and claim the trophy with a 5-1 victory – although we are open to being corrected on the scoreline!

That, however, did not mark the end of the Reds’ commitments for the campaign because, just four days after lifting the silverware (which didn’t exactly compare to the honours they’d been dreaming about for the previous couple of weeks), a solitary Peter Withnell goal earned a 1-0 win over Ards in the first leg of the Promotion/ Relegation Play-Off at Castlereagh Park.

Withnell duly added a hat-trick in addition to a strike from Gerry Flynn in the return meeting at Solitude on May 8 as Cliftonville secured their Premier League status with a 5-2 aggregate success.

Some fans used 1999 Irish Cup Final day to recreate Tony Bell’s winner from 20 years earlier