The mystery men

They say that every picture tells a story and Cliftonville’s Heritage Development Officer, Paul Treanor, certainly has his work cut out to unearth the tale behind a previously unseen team photo.

Supplied by a supporter at a recent match, Paul was quicky able to narrow the image down to having been captured between 1900 and 1915, and deduced that it was unlikely to be of the Reds’ first-team – but determining which of our subsidiary line-ups it is has proven rather more challenging.

For while the modern day Club boasts Olympic and Strollers sides outside of the senior squad – as well, of course, as our Corinthians in the Ladies’ set-up – more than a century ago, we also had Cliftonville teams by the name of Banders, Pirates, Naiads, Rovers, Enfield and Casuals.

The picture came with just four players’ names listed on the back – Guthrie, Montgomery, Peacock and Walker – with only the first of these having been represented in the first-team during the 1911/12 season, while we remain none the wiser on the identity of the individual casually smoking a cigarette during the photoshoot!

Accepting that this interesting picture currently occupies inconclusive status in the archive of Club history, Paul nevertheless looks forward to piecing further artefacts of the jigsaw together in his bid to fully establish the facts behind the mystery of this unidentified Cliftonville team.