In many ways, west Belfast is a microcosm of the Northern Irish capital. The centre of the city’s Catholic population represents a relative hotbed of unemployment, low income, crime and suicide.
The area suffers from the highest rates of social deprivation across the nation with a 2016 Assembly report highlighting that 11 of west Belfast’s 19 wards are ranked in the 10 per cent most underprivileged districts in Northern Ireland. However, this is an area entrenched in history, immersed in culture and vibrant in character. An area which encapsulates a hardened, battling spirit with a dash of good humour in the face of adversity.
West Belfast is also currently without a leading football team. None of the eight capital-based clubs in Northern Ireland’s top two tiers are from the area with just one within the Northern Ireland Football League’s 36 clubs who play intermediate level or above: Sport & Leisure Swifts. Based at the city’s Glen Road Heights, the Swifts only achieved intermediate status in 2003 and have stayed in the third division since 2009. They have had to battle to retain their status on a modest budget while in 2014 their clubhouse was destroyed in an arson attack.
Formed in 1978, the club’s name is derived from a local businessman who backed their venture insisting his Ulster Sport & Leisure Club appeared on their shirts (the club later added ‘Swifts’ after merging with the now defunct Belfast Swifts). The original business has long since disappeared but ‘Sport & Leisure’ has remained. Until now.
A Belfast institution
Last month the club announced they were changing their name “following considerable deliberation” to Belfast Celtic FC. Inevitably, this has stirred considerable interest and many heads have been turned.
Founded in 1891, Belfast Celtic struck up a formidable rivalry with the traditionally Protestant club Linfield – based in the south of the city – with the religious and political connotations drawing parallels with the ‘Old Firm’ rivalry in Glasgow.
Belfast Celtic won a total of 56 senior honours including 14 league titles and eight Irish Cups. They went undefeated in all competitions during the 1947/48 season, winning 31 matches in a row in the process. However, within a year of that unbeaten campaign, the board of directors dissolved the club after continuing political upheaval and violence.
Closure
The club, which had temporarily withdrawn from the league before, reached a tipping point in the 1948/49 campaign. A last minute equaliser from Linfield in the annual Boxing Day clash between the sides sparked a pitch invasion which left Belfast Celtic striker Jimmy Jones unconscious having sustained a broken leg.
A statement from Celtic blamed the lack of intervention from the police and confirmed its withdrawal from football at the end of the campaign. Perhaps this was a reflection and realisation of the seemingly untenable political situation in the province. This time, their fans realised the withdrawal was for good.
“It would be like the English Premier League losing Liverpool or Manchester United on a few months’ notice,” explains Benjamin Roberts, a Northern Irish football historian and author of Gunshots & Goalposts.
“The club were a major institution in west Belfast, thousands would follow them on the trains to watch them play.
“There are many accounts of fans who said the area was never quite the same after they left, like a cloud had fallen over them, that something was missing.”
They played at Celtic Park (just like their Glasgow kindred spirits) on the Donegall Road in west Belfast – a site now occupied by the Park Centre shopping complex.
Return
Murmurs of a return, in various guises, have continued for decades. Last year, plans were drawn up to resurrect ‘The Grand Old Team’ solely to play in exhibition friendlies. Yet west Belfast has remained a football vacuum in their seven-decades absence. Only one club, Donegal Celtic, has competed in the Irish Premiership since but they have suffered three relegations in five seasons.
However, things appear to be changing. St James’ Swifts – a club formed in 2010 with the intention of helping to rebuild a crumbling community – have rocketed through the divisions and, with healthy financial and fan backing, hold medium-term aspirations of shaking up the nation’s football elite.
Perhaps sensing a sea change, Sport & Leisure’s press officer Gerry Kelly explains that the Belfast Celtic FC title “would improve the footballing prospects for young people in west Belfast”.
“Other parts of Belfast are represented by well-established clubs such as Linfield, Glentoran, Crusaders and Cliftonville,” adds Kelly. “We will develop the club to maintain high standards, strive to reach the top tier and create a strong fan base in Belfast to meet the demands of the community for a team that encompasses the spirit of Belfast Celtic.”
The name alteration is undoubtedly an ambitious and bold move by Sport & Leisure, but concerns exist that the risks may outweigh the potential rewards. There have been suggestions that both Donegal Celtic and St James’ Swifts turned down the opportunities of reinventing the club in this image.
Controversy
“The name carries psychological and emotional baggage,” adds Roberts. “Perhaps it’s best to leave these things in the past, to build new institutions, let them gather their own sense of history.
“There’s no meaningful way it’s the same club other than the name.”
The Belfast Celtic Society have subsequently announced their “concern”, despite Sport & Leisure’s insistence they would “work closely” with them to ensure a continuation of the ethos of the original club. The Society explicitly stated that there are no links with the original team and the company behind the new proposal is not the original Belfast Celtic Football and Athletic Club Ltd.
Sport & Leisure responded with “disappointment” and insisted their talks with the Society had been “very positive”. The west Belfast side added that they had not entered “this process with opportunism and exploitation in mind” and that feedback has been “tremendously positive”.
The Glen Road club kick off their league campaign on 18 August against Armagh City with the name of their institution still unclear. Pending an Irish Football Association decision – which is likely to produce a positive outcome – a team named Belfast Celtic FC could take to the field for the first time in 70 seasons.
Green shoots of recovery are beginning to emerge in west Belfast’s football scene and may afford hope to a community who for too long have suffered more than most.
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