Derry City F.C.

Founded in 1928, the club decided against using the controversial official title of the city – Londonderry – in its name, while also deciding against continuing the name of the city's previous main club, Derry Celtic, so as to be more inclusive to all identities and football fans in the city. Derry City was granted entry into the Irish League in 1929 as professionals and was given permission by the Londonderry Corporation to use the municipal Brandywell Stadium. It repeated the feat in 1937, but did not win another major trophy until 1949, when it beat Glentoran to win its first Irish Cup. It won the Irish Cup for a second time in 1954, beating Glentoran again, and for a third time in 1964 – that year also winning the Gold Cup – despite the club's conversion to part-time status after the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961. This led to the club's first entry into European competition, in the 1964–65 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, in which it was beaten by Steaua Bucharest 5–0 on aggregate. The club won the 1964–65 Irish League and subsequently became the first Irish League team to win a European tie over two legs, beating FK Lyn 8–6 on aggregate in the 1965–66 European Cup. Derry did not complete the next round, as the Irish Football Association (IFA) declared its ground was not up to standard, as it played in a mainly nationalist city and so had come to be supported largely by Catholics. The IFA, Belfast-based, was dominated by Protestants and it was widely suspected that it would rather have been represented by a traditionally unionist team. Relations between the club and IFA quickly deteriorated. There had been no significant history of sectarian difficulties at matches in the first 40 years of the club's history, but in 1969 the Civil Rights campaign disintegrated into communal violence, which were followed by 30 years of the Troubles. Despite the social and political unrest, Derry reached the Irish Cup final in 1971, in which it was beaten 3–0 by Distillery. As the republican locality surrounding the Brandywell saw some of the worst violence, numerous unionist-supported clubs were reluctant to play there. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) ruled the zone unsafe for fixtures. With no other feasible local ground available, Derry had to travel to the majority unionist town of Coleraine, over away, to play its "home" games at the Showgrounds. This situation lasted from September 1971 until October 1972 when, faced with dwindling crowds (most Derry fans were unwilling to travel to Coleraine due to the political situation and the longer journey) and dire finances, the club formally requested permission to return to the Brandywell. Despite a new assessment by the security forces concluding that the Brandywell was no longer any more dangerous than any other league ground and a lifting of the security ban, Derry's proposal fell by one vote at the hands of its fellow Irish League teams. The club continued as a junior team during the 13-year-long 'wilderness years', playing in the local Saturday morning league, and sought re-admission to the Irish League. Derry's first match in the new system was a 3–1 League of Ireland Cup win over Home Farm of Dublin at the Brandywell on 8 September 1985. The return of senior football to Derry attracted large crowds. The following year – 1987 – Derry won the First Division along with promotion to the Premier Division, remaining there for the subsequent 22 years. The club reached the 1988 FAI Cup final, but lost to Dundalk. The next season – 1988–89 – the club was financially forced to revert to semi-professional status but Jim McLaughlin's side managed to win a treble; the league, the League Cup and the FAI Cup. Qualifying for the 1989–90 European Cup, it met past winners, Benfica, in the first round. in the 2006 FAI Cup semi-final at the Sligo Showgrounds on 29 October The club has been beset by financial problems and was on the verge of bankruptcy due to an unpaid tax bill in 2000. An extensive fund-raising effort was undertaken by local celebrities and the city's people to save the club from extinction. Derry played high-profile friendlies against clubs such as Celtic, Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid to raise extra money. This helped keep the club in operation, but difficulties remained and Derry nearly lost its Premier Division place in 2003 when it finished ninth and had to contest a two-legged relegation-promotion play-off with local rivals, Finn Harps. Derry won 2–1 on aggregate after extra-time at the Brandywell and remained in the top flight, avoiding further damage. With finances secured, the club became the first in Ireland to be awarded a premier UEFA licence in 2004. Derry re-introduced professional football and its form improved, as it finished second in 2005. Derry's 2005 League Cup victory also saw the club qualify for the cross-border Setanta Cup for the first time in 2006. It entered the 2006–07 UEFA Cup's preliminary rounds, beating IFK Göteborg and Gretna to reach the first round where it faced Paris Saint-Germain; Derry finished second again in 2006, but went on to win the FAI Cup and League Cup double. It qualified for the 2007 Setanta Cup, as well as the preliminary rounds of the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League, and was accepted into the restructured Premier Division for 2007. The club had a disappointing league campaign in 2007, finishing seventh despite being pre-season favourites. It did manage to win its eighth League Cup, though, thanks to a 1–0 victory over Bohemians at the Brandywell. The club, by owing huge debts, was expelled from the League of Ireland by the FAI in November 2009 for breaching the Participation Agreement and dissolved, but a new Derry club using the "Derry City" name joined for 2010 – with the FAI allowing it into the First Division By January 2010 with a new board, the new chairman, Philip O'Doherty was reported to have acquired a new kit deal with Hummel. Additionally, O'Doherty was quoted in the Derry Journal referring to the application to play in the First Division: {{cquote|...I'm confident that we've provided a quality application and we're hopeful that we will secure the necessary UEFA Licence to compete in the First Division. By the end of October 2010 Derry had clinched the First Division title and with it, promotion back to the premier division after winning 1–0 away at Monaghan United in the last game of the season. Derry's top goalscorer that season, Mark Farren, who finished with a tally of 20 goals, scored the winner against Monaghan before retiring from football for medical reasons as he sought to fight a benign tumour located in his brain. Farren died of cancer in February 2016 and his number 18 shirt was retired by the club. == Colours and crests ==

Derry City wore Aston Villa Football Club's famous claret and blue jerseys with white shorts for its first season – 1929–30. The colours lasted until 1932, when white jerseys with black shorts were adopted. He played for Sheffield United from 1913 until 1932, captaining them to a 1925 FA Cup win. The club's most capped player with 25 appearances for Ireland, Derry have worn red and white stripes since, except from 1956 to 1962, when the club's players wore amber and black. Derry have had various kit suppliers, including Adidas, Avec, Erreà, Fila, Le Coq Sportif, Matchwinner, Spall O'Neills, Hummel, and, currently, O'Neills. Commercial sponsorship logos to appear on the shirt's front have included Northlands, Warwick Wallpapers, Fruit of the Loom, Tigi Bed Head and Tigi Catwalk. For 2007, the logos of local media, Q102.9 and the Derry News, appeared on the back of the shirt just below the neck, along with the logo of Meteor Electrical on the jersey's front. The club did not sport a crest on the club jersey throughout the Irish League years, nor for most of the first League of Ireland season. Instead, the coat of arms of the city appeared on club memorabilia such as scarves, hats and badges. The symbols on the arms are a skeleton, three-towered castle, red Saint George's Cross and sword. The sword and cross are devices of the City of London, and along with an Irish harp embedded within the cross, demonstrate the link between the two cities – the city's official name under UK law is Londonderry and the city itself was developed by The Honourable The Irish Society, a livery company of the City of London. The castle is thought to be an old local Norman keep built in 1305 by the de Burca clan. The skeleton is believed to be that of a knight of the same clan who was starved to death in the castle dungeons in 1332. This is accompanied by the Latin motto, "Vita, veritas, victoria", meaning "Life, truth, victory." In April 1986 the club ran a competition in local schools to design a crest for them. The winning entry was designed by John Devlin, a St. Columb's College student, and was introduced on 5 May 1986 as Derry hosted Nottingham Forest for a friendly, with Liam Nelis and Paul Gormley (on his fifth birthday) acting as mascots. The crest depicted a simplified version of the city's Foyle Bridge, which had opened 18 months previously, the traditional red and white stripes of the jersey bordered by thin black lines, the year in which the club was founded and a football in the centre representing the club as a footballing entity. The name of the club appeared in Impact font. With the novelty of the Foyle Bridge wearing off over time, the crest lasted until 15 July 1997, when the current one was unveiled at Lansdowne Road with the meeting of Derry City and Celtic during a pre-season friendly tournament. The modern crest also features a centred football, the year of founding and the club's name in a contemporary sans-serif font – Industria Solid. The famous red and white stripes are present along with a red mass of colour filling the left half of the crest, separated from the right by a white stripe. Known cultural landmarks or items associated with the city are absent from the minimalist design. The crests have always been positioned over the heart on the home jerseys. == Home ground ==

Derry City's home ground is the municipal Brandywell Stadium, situated just south-west of the Bogside in the Brandywell area of Derry. It is often abbreviated to "the Brandywell" and is also a local greyhound racing venue, with an ovoid track encircling the pitch. The dimensions of the pitch measure . The legal owner is the Derry City Council which lets the ground to the club. although it can accommodate 7,700 on a normal match-day, terraces included. The curved cantilever all-seated "New Stand" was constructed in 1991, while development on the still-insufficient facilities has been delayed numerous times and had yet to take place as of the end of the 2016 season. Plans of Derry City's to purchase a pitch fell through after its formation due to the tight time-scale between its foundation in 1928 and the season's beginning in 1929 and so the Londonderry Corporation (now the Derry City Council) was approached for the use of the Brandywell which had been used for football up until the end of the 19th century. It agreed and the club still operates under the constraints of The Honourable The Irish Society charter limitations which declare that the Brandywell must be available for the recreation of the community. In effect, the club does not have private ownership and, thus, cannot develop by its own accord, with that discretion or whether to sell being left to the Derry City Council. Derry City's first game at the Brandywell was a 2–1 loss to Glentoran on 22 August 1929. They played all their home matches of the 2017 season at Maginn Park in Buncrana due to renovation works at the Brandywell. In 2025, Derry City agreed to a new proposed 25 year lease to the stadium that would put the club on the path to outright ownership of Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium. This new lease will allow for Stormont grant funding via the Northern Ireland Football Fund to be approved and complete the second phase of development on the new stand, named after former player Mark Farren. The lease was approved unanimously by the city council with cross party support. == Supporters ==

, Paris on 28 September 2006 By Irish standards, Derry City have a relatively large and loyal fan-base. The club was considered among the strongest and best-supported teams in the Irish League, and upon the club's entry into the League of Ireland in 1985, crowds of nearly 10,000 attended to the Brandywell for the return of matches. More recently, Derry City became the best supported team at an FAI Cup Final ever, when over 20,000 Derry supporters attended the 2022 FAI Cup Final, in which Derry overcame Shelbourne. Derry's average home attendance of 3,127 was the highest of any team for the 2006 season. The highest attendance was the last-night-of-the-season meeting between Derry and Cork City at the Brandywell on Friday 17 November when 6,080 watched Derry win 1–0. Domestically, Derry's supporters travel to away games in "bus-loads". and "some 3,000" went to Paris to see Derry play Paris Saint-Germain in the Parc des Princes. During the home legs, ticketless fans desperate to see the games watched from a distance while standing on the high vantage point overlooking the Brandywell offered by the City Cemetery in Creggan and parked hired double-decker buses outside the stadium to help them see over the ground's perimeter. The club is known for its community spirit, and the supporters have played a pivotal role in the survival and successes of the club. When debts brought Derry close to extinction in the 2000–01 season, the local community responded en masse to help save the club. During the club's successful 2006 season, club captain, Peter Hutton said: Likewise, former Social Democratic and Labour Party leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, who was the club's president, Joining the Republic of Ireland's league augmented the perception and, on occasion, Protestant hooligans have thrown missiles at Derry's supporter buses as they journeyed to or returned from games across the border. Minor nationalist elements within the Derry City support-base see football as a means of reinforcing sectarian divides. and areas of bordering County Donegal contain support. The club has numerous supporter clubs, along with ultra fans, and support beyond Ireland – mainly emigrated city natives. Derry City Chat is a discussion website run by fans. Derry's fans share a rivalry with the supporters of Finn Harps and sing the Undertones' Teenage Kicks as a terrace anthem. ==European record==

Overview Matches • (Full details) UEFA coefficient and ranking Derry City's UEFA coefficient accumulates to a total value of 4.000 as of August 2023. Current club ranking • 290 Aris Limassol • 291 AEL Limassol • 292 Dila Gori • 293 Derry City FC • 294 FCV Farul Constanța • 295 FK Panevėžys • 296 FC Ordabasy • https://kassiesa.net/uefa/data/method5/trank2024.html ==Players==

;Current squad Out on loan ;Retired numbers 5 – in honour of Ryan McBride 18 – in honour of Mark Farren ==Non-playing staff==

• Irish Football League: 1 • 1964–65 • League of Ireland Premier Division: 2 • 1988–89, 1996–97 • FAI Cup: 6 • 1988–89, 1994–95, 2002, 2006, 2012, 2022 • League of Ireland Cup: 11 • 1988–89, 1990–91, 1991–92, 1993–94, 1999–2000, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2018 • '''President of Ireland's Cup: 2''' • 2023, 2026 • Irish Cup: 3 • 1948–49, 1953–54, 1963–64 • League of Ireland First Division: 2 • 1986–87, 2010 • League of Ireland First Division Shield: 1 • 1985–86 • City Cup: 2 • 1934–35, 1936–37 • Gold Cup: 1 • 1963–64 • Top Four Cup: 1 • 1965–66 • Irish News Cup: 1 • 1996–97 • A Championship: 1 • 2011 • North West Senior Cup: 18 • 1931–32, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1934–35, 1935–36, 1936–37, 1938–39, 1945–46, 1951–52, 1953–54, 1957–58 (shared), 1959–60, 1961–62, 1962–63, 1963–64, 1965–66, 1968–69, 1970–71 • Northern Ireland Intermediate League: 2 • 1979–80, 1983–84 • Enda McGuill Cup: 2 • 2007, 2021 == Records ==

Peter Hutton holds the club record for matches played in League of Ireland football with a total of more than 660 appearances for Derry City, a club record. Paul Curran has made the second highest number of appearances for the club in the League of Ireland with 518, followed by Sean Hargan with 408 since 1995. The club's all-time highest goal-scorer is Jimmy Kelly with 363 goals between 1930 and 1951. Since the entry of the club into League of Ireland football, Mark Farren is Derry's top scorer with 114 goals after 209 competitive appearances for the club between 2003 and 2012. Derry's first ever scorer was Peter Burke at home to Glentoran on 22 August 1929 as the club lost 2–1. Two days later, Sammy Curran had the honour of scoring Derry's first hat-trick, as the club came back from 5 to 1 down away to Portadown, only to lose 6–5 to a late goal. The Brandywell's record attendance in the League of Ireland system is 9,800 people who attended an FAI Cup second round tie between Derry and Finn Harps on 23 February 1986. == In popular culture ==

" by The Undertones features a Derry City figurine Derry City have made numerous appearances in popular culture. In the world of music, the club was given exposure by Derry punk band, The Undertones, which had the cover of its 1980 hit single, "My Perfect Cousin", feature a Subbuteo figure sporting the colours of Derry City. The song's video included the group's front-man, Feargal Sharkey, kicking and leaping to head a ball while wearing the red and white jersey. Similarly, on the cover of its second ever single, Get Over You, the words "Derry City F.C." can be seen. The club have also featured on popular television. Due to the fact that it is a club based in Northern Ireland playing in the league of the Republic of Ireland, it often receives the attention of broadcasters in both jurisdictions. In the BBC documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? shown the night before Derry's clash with Paris St. Germain in the 2006–07 UEFA Cup first round, it was highlighted that Archie McLeod, the grandfather of Doctor Who actor David Tennant, was a Derry City player. Derry had supplied a lucrative signing-on fee and had enticed him over from Scotland. Likewise, features about the club were run by Football Focus prior to and after the same UEFA Cup game. Irish television has also featured the club. Derry City played in the first League of Ireland match ever to be shown live on television when it visited Tolka Park to play Shelbourne during the 1996–97 season. The game was broadcast on RTÉ's Network 2 and finished 1–1 with Gary Beckett scoring for Derry. Another medium to play host to the club has been the radio. On 20 April 2005, Derry City featured in an audio documentary The Blues and the Candy Stripes on RTÉ Radio 1's Documentary on One. The documentary was produced in the aftermath of the historic friendly game between Derry and Linfield that took place on 22 February 2005 – the first between the two teams to occur since a game on 25 January 1969 during which Linfield's fans had to be evacuated from the Brandywell by police at half-time due to civil unrest and ugly scenes within the ground. The 2005 match was organised as a kind of security test in the run-up to the likely possibility that both teams, with socially polar fan-bases, qualified for and be drawn against one another in a Setanta Cup competition. == Notes ==