Derry City F.C.
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Derry City F.C. is an Northern Irish football club playing in the Football League of Ireland. It is the only club in the league from Northern Ireland as opposed to the Republic of Ireland. The club, founded in 1928, hails from Derry, Northern Ireland and plays their home matches at Brandywell Stadium. Club colours are Red and White, and the club goes by the nickname The Candystripes. The current manager is Stephen Kenny.
History
Derry City formerly played in the Irish Football League (which covers only Northern Ireland). In 1948 and 1954, Derry won the IFA Cup and in 1965, they won the Irish League title. However, they were forced to leave the Northern league following the 1972-73 season. City's ground, the Brandywell was located in a strongly nationalist area of Derry and during the early 1970s its surrounding areas saw some of the worst violence of the Troubles. Because of this, the Irish Football Association decided to it was unsafe for teams with a unionist support to travel there and controversially ruled that the Brandywell was unfit for senior football. As a result, Derry City played in Coleraine for several seasons before deciding to leave the Irish League altogether in 1973.
Derry City joined the Republic's league, the League of Ireland in the newly created First Division in 1985, won promotion to the Premier Division in 1987, and have stayed in the top flight ever since. It has never been relegated, either in Northern Ireland or the Republic. Derry's accession to the League of Ireland was greeted with great enthusiasm in the city and the club attracted huge crowds by local standards for several years. Buoyed by this support, the club won an historic treble in 1989, - the league cup, the league title and the FAI Cup. Since then, Derry City have also won one league title (1997) and two FAI Cups (1995 and 2002). In 1994 and 1997 they were beaten finalists in the FAI Cup. In the 1995 and 2005 seasons they finished a close second in the league.
Derry City's FAI League Cup victory in 2005 saw the club compete in the 2006 Setanta Cup. For the first time since their withdrawal from the Irish League in the early 1970s, Derry City hosted competitive matches against Linfield and Glentoran.
Northern Ireland internationals to have played for the club include Liam Coyle and Felix Healy.
European Football
On 13 July 2006, Derry overcame IFK Gothenburg in their first leg match of the Uefa Cup qualifying round in Sweden. A 79th-minute header from Sean Hargan was enough to give Derry a shock win against illustrious opposition [IFK Gothenburg 0-1 Derry City]news.bbc.co.uk Retrieved 16 July 2006 . Although Swedish sides were on a league break due to the FIFA World Cup, manager Stephen Kenny was delighted with the win stating:Location and League
Derry City is one of a handful of clubs in the United Kingdom to be located in one country, but play in the league of another. The others at professional level are:- One English club playing in the Scottish Football League: Berwick Rangers
- Three Welsh clubs playing in The Football League: Cardiff City, Swansea and Wrexham
Honours
- League titles: 3
- *Irish Football League: 1964-65
- *Football League of Ireland: 1988-89, 1996-97
- FAI Cup: 3
- * 1989, 1995, 2002
- League Cup (FAI): 6
- *1988-89, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1993-94, 1999-2000, 2005
- IFA Cups: 3
- *1948-49, 1953-54, 1963-64
Current squad
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External links
| Football League of Ireland 2006 | |
|---|---|
| Premier Division Bohemians | Bray Wanderers | Cork City | Derry City | Drogheda United | Dublin City | Longford Town | Shelbourne | Sligo Rovers | St Patrick's Athletic | UCD | Waterford United | |
| First Division Athlone Town | Cobh Ramblers | Dundalk | Finn Harps | Galway United | Kildare County | Kilkenny City | Limerick | Monaghan United | Shamrock Rovers | |
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