Larne

April 2023 settled the biggest question hanging over Larne: a 2-0 home win over Crusaders wrapped up the NIFL Premiership with a game still to play. They held the title the following season, finishing above Linfield, and won it again in 2025/26, closing out the campaign with an 8-0 win over Dungannon Swifts.

None of it looked likely a decade earlier. Home matches have been played at Inver Park since 1918, on land bought from the British Legion and passed to the town council, still known to some by the ground's old name, The Legion. It holds 2,732, and the red shirts gave the club its nickname, the Inver Reds.

The club was formed in October 1889 on the initiative of a local reverend, W. N. Turner. A rival from across the same town, Larne Olympic, briefly overshadowed it in the 1940s, though the two were never formally merged.

Larne beat Linfield on penalties in March 2023 to win their first League Cup, and have taken the County Antrim Shield four seasons running. In 2024/25 they became the first Irish League club to reach the group stage of the UEFA Conference League in its current format, having already gone out of Champions League qualifying twice, to HJK Helsinki and then RFS. Locally, the derby that matters is against Carrick Rangers, a fellow County Antrim side, in what's known as the East Antrim derby; the bigger occasions come against Glentoran, Linfield and Cliftonville, where the Gibson Cup itself is often what's at stake.

One trophy keeps escaping them. Larne have reached six Irish Cup finals — 1928, 1935, 1987, 1989, 2005 and 2021 — and lost every one.