Ballinamallard United

Ballinamallard United's sharpest needle is local: Enniskillen Rangers, the other side from Fermanagh, and any meeting between them carries the weight of a county derby older than most of the club's competitive history. In the Championship, where Ballinamallard have sat since 2018, the fixture against Dergview has taken on its own edge, close in the table and closer on the calendar.

The Mallards, as they're known around Ferney Park (a few still say the Ducks), turn out at home in royal blue, white on the road. The ground holds 2,000, with 250 of those seated — modest for a club that once had a season in Northern Ireland's top flight. That came in 2012/13, Ballinamallard's only campaign in the Premiership, closed out with a fifth-place finish on debut. Relegation followed in 2017/18, and the club has stayed in the Championship since.

The high point sat between those two spells. In May 2019, Ballinamallard reached an Irish Cup final for the first time in the club's history, and lost it 0-3 to Crusaders. The Irish Cup itself has never been won.

Getting there took the long route: out of Division Two in 2002/03, the Championship One title in 2011/12, and, earlier still, a piece of county history in 1989, when Ballinamallard became the first Fermanagh club admitted to the Irish League system.

That club had already been playing for decades by then. Ballinamallard United existed under the same name back in the 1920s, winning the Fermanagh & Western League Championship in that era, before a break in its history closed in 1975, when the club now known as the Mallards was formed again in the village it's named after.