Plus and minus

The very nature of maintaining records for a Football Club whose history straddles three centuries means the archives are always open for addition and revision as new tales and statistics are uncovered.

In that respect, Cliftonville Heritage Development Officer Paul Treanor’s work is never done and recent weeks have produced some interesting amendments in the shape of a hitherto unknown fixture and a match that never actually took place.

The first of these dates back to Friday, February 13, 1885 when Kilrea visited Solitude for a friendly that proved to be the first and only ever meeting between the Clubs.

The Northern Constitution – which listed one of the Reds players simply as ‘another’ – recorded that “after a pleasant game, the home side won by four goals to nil” and added that, this being Derry outfit Kilrea’s maiden visit to Belfast, many in the crowd were keen to see their form and they were to be congratulated on their display.

It was, however, further noted that if they were to be a good team, their faults would need to be remedied before they could compete with the leading Belfast Clubs, continuing: “As this is their first season, it was not expected they could overcome such experienced opponents as Cliftonville who, despite some changes from their usual line-up, proved too experienced for their country visitors, with their stand-in custodian rarely troubled in a comfortable win.”

Cliftonville – Goal: Henderson; Backs: Fox and Gibb; Half-backs: Chapman and Molyneux; Forwards: McWha, Davison, Donnelly, Gibb, Guiney and another.

Kilrea: Montgomery, Connell, Tittherington, Hunter, Tomb, Given, McClean, Glenn, Thompson, Smyth, Rainey.

No sooner had that previously unheard of game been added to the record books than another match was swiftly removed.

On Tuesday of this week, our Twitter account’s daily ‘On this day…’ update referenced a 1969 encounter with Castletown on the Isle of Man, the result of which remained unknown for 53 years.

Probative follower Sam Guthrie was quickly on the case and discovered that, owing to a clash with Castletown’s involvement in the Hospital Cup Final, the fixture did not go ahead as planned – which certainly explains why the score was never noted.

Both teams would, however, enjoy winning weekends with the Reds overcoming replacement opponents Douglas High School Old Boys 4-0, while Castletown lifted the Hospital Cup courtesy of a 5-2 victory over Peel.

All of which means the Cliftonville record books are now fully refreshed and up to date. For now…