Carrick Rangers

Carrick Rangers began life in the summer leagues of Carrickfergus, where a group of young men brought together two local sides, Barn Mills and Bubbles, to form a club of their own. At the founding meeting in 1939, someone spotted a photograph of the Glasgow Rangers on the wall, and the name stuck. The club spent its first years working through the amateur ranks, joining the Belfast Minor League in 1940 and the Northern Amateur League three years later, before senior status arrived only in 1983.

Home has always been Taylors Avenue, laid out in 1940 on what was then known as Barn Field and rebuilt under its current name in 1952. The ground holds the club to a modest capacity, in keeping with a team that has spent long stretches outside the top flight — including a sixteen-year absence from the Premiership that ended with promotion in 2011.

The one afternoon still spoken of at Taylors Avenue is the 1977 Irish Cup final, when Carrick Rangers beat Linfield to lift the biggest trophy in the club's history. Sixteen years later they added the County Antrim Shield, seeing off Glentoran 2-1 in a replay. Paul Heatley became the player most associated with the club's recent identity, first arriving in 2011 and returning again more than a decade later, picking up the Ulster Footballer of the Year award along the way. David Hilditch gave the club a different kind of service, chairing the board and founding its youth centre before his death at 60.

Across the Antrim coast, Larne have become the fixture that matters most. The East Antrim Derby carries no love lost between the two, sharpened further by the closer, more local needle of meetings with Ballyclare Comrades.