Glenavon FC

Glenavon go into this season trying to get back to the Premiership at the first attempt, after 21 unbroken years in Northern Ireland's top flight ended in relegation in 2025/26.

The club was founded in Lurgan in November 1889 and went more than sixty years without a league title before 1951/52, when they became the first side from outside Belfast to win the Irish League. Five years later, with Wilbur Cush and Jimmy Jones leading the forward line, they added the double and stepped into that season's European Cup — again a first for a provincial club. A third championship followed in 1959/60 and stayed the last one; in 1993/94 the title slipped away on the final day instead.

The Irish Cup has been kinder: seven wins in all. The last two came in 2013/14 and 2015/16, not long after relegation to the second division in 2003/04 had put the club outside the top flight altogether. Paddy McCourt wore the shirt in 2016/17, Sammy Clingan the year after.

Games against Portadown, up the road, are known locally as the Mid-Ulster Derby.

Home matches are played at Mourneview Park, in the blue shirts that gave the Lurgan Blues their name; the ground holds 4,160.