First and foremost: Penalty pain

Celebrating landmark achievements and curious quirks in the history of Ireland’s Oldest Football Club, cliftonvillefc.net today continues a new mini series reflecting on some of the trailblazing enterprises where Cliftonville have led the way.

Every week throughout the summer break, ‘First and Foremost’ will shine a spotlight on startling statistics, tall tales and magical milestones that saw the Reds play a pioneering role in the story – with a particularly perilous topic taking centre stage today.

Given Cliftonville’s knockout Cup exploits during the season just finished, penalty kicks are not necessarily flavour of the day among our supporters, but did you know that the first ever spot kick in international football was taken at Solitude? In an arguable precursor to the Club’s often catastrophic relationship with penalties, it was of course missed.

On the eve of the World Cup getting under way, when fans around the globe will doubtless be subject to the agony and ecstasy that penalties routinely deliver, we’re turning the clock back some 134 years to a fixture between Ireland and England in 1892.

A crowd of 8,000 was in attendance for the Home Championship match, which the away side won 2-0 courtesy of goals from the unfortunately-named Harry Daft, but the outcome might have been different had Linfield forward Sam Torrans not been denied by visiting goalkeeper Bill Rowley (who also repelled the rebound from another Blueman, William Dalton) when Ireland were awarded a spot kick.

Were you aware, meanwhile, that a former Cliftonville player had actually performed a central role in the very invention of the penalty kick in the first place?

Two years earlier, Reds forward Jack Reid had collaborated with Armagh man William McCrum to have penalties introduced to the Laws of the Game. A wealthy Irish linen manufacturer, McCrum was also a goalkeeper for Milford FC… and, completing a remarkable link, was the first ever visiting keeper to concede a goal at Solitude when his team lost 8-2 to Cliftonville on October 23, 1889!