Cliftonville FC

In 1877, a Belfast businessman named John McAlery watched a football match while on his honeymoon in Scotland and decided the game belonged in Ireland. Two years later, on 20 September 1879, he founded Cliftonville, the oldest football club on the island, and put together a fixture against a rugby side called Quidnuncs — the first recorded match the club played, lost 2-1 on 29 September. McAlery did not stop there: he became the Irish Football Association's first secretary in 1880 and helped set up the Irish League a decade later.

Solitude has been home ever since 1890, tucked in north Belfast, now holding 2,530 and carrying a 3G surface since 2010 and the McAlery Stand, opened in 2008 and named for the founder, at one end.

The club has taken the Irish Cup nine times, the most recent in 2024 after a wait of 45 years, and the league title five times, twice sharing it with Linfield. George McMullan captained the sides that won the league in 2013 and 2014 and scored 103 goals across 545 appearances, a figure that put him in the club's Hall of Fame. Joe Gormley has scored more than 300 for the Reds, more than anyone else in the shirt. Jim Magilton, capped 52 times for Northern Ireland and once of Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town, is now in charge at Solitude.

North Belfast derby day means Crusaders, a fixture that carries weight well beyond three points, with Linfield and Glentoran filling out the list of old rivals. Cliftonville have taken the League Cup seven times, most recently in 2025.

What still eludes the Reds is a European run to match the domestic record — Mark Holland's goal against Dinaburg in 2007 remains one of the club's better-remembered nights on that stage, rather than one of many.