Minus sign

Regular readers of our Matchday Magazine will know all the facts and figures behind each new week at Cliftonville Football Club, while our Twitter followers are regaled with daily delves into the archives and yesterday’s victory over Carrick Rangers provided a milestone – although not one necessarily worth celebrating.

Joe Gormley’s concluding strike in the Reds’ 3-0 win not only put the seal on a well deserved three points, it also brought the Club’s historical goal difference up to a nice round -3000. That’s minus three thousand. For clarity, Cliftonville would need to score another 3000 goals without conceding any to get our overall goal difference back level at zero.

Gormley’s 77th minute conversion was the 7933rd goal the Reds have netted in competitive action since 1879, compared to 10933 leaked at the other end.

We’re yet to decide whether we are grateful for being updated on this notable statistic by Heritage Development Officer Paul Treanor who, by way of explanation, observed: “Yes, we’ve had a few bad seaso- er, decades.”

He did, however, offer a slither of positivity by adding that the Club’s goal difference in home games is ‘only’ -321, so we can perhaps put those other 2679 strikes down to travel sickness of sorts.

On a somewhat more upbeat theme, this weekend’s success saw Cliftonville extend their unbeaten sequence against Carrick at Solitude to some 17 games, stretching back to a League Cup encounter on April 13, 1993.