Tollymore Utd in centenary game

Tollymore Utd in centenary game

20 October 2021

TOLLYMORE United Football Club is hosting a unique football match as part of its ‘Stormont and Soccer Splits’ project this Friday.

The match will kick off at Bear Park, Donard Park, Newcastle at 3pm between old footballing adversaries Ireland and England with the England squad flying in at midday.

The teams will ‘replay’ a historic match that was played on October 22 1921, at Windsor Park and both sides will wear a specially produced 1921 replica kit.

The game was the first International that took place following the Irish Soccer Split when Southern sides, primarily from the Leinster Football Association, broke away from the Irish Football Association, to set up the Football Association of Ireland.

The original game ended in a 1-1 draw with legendary Liverpool goalkeeper Elisha Scott between the posts for an Ireland side that played a 2-3-5 formation in their usual royal blue home kit.

Since then, of course, the Irish Football Association international side is now known as Northern Ireland and plays in a traditional green kit.

Tollymore’s Stormont and Soccer Splits project is funded by the Northern Ireland Office’s ‘Shared History Fund’ administered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. 

The project is one of 39 projects funded through the Shared History Fund, which will support groups to 

mark the centenary, in a thoughtful, inclusive and engaging way.

“We are really pleased to have been involved in this project. It has been really well received and has been very informative,” said club chairman Adrian Howard.

“Our online talk on the Irish Soccer Split created a huge amount of interest and debate and to date over 170 have viewed the video which has really surprised us.”

He added: “Hopefully we will get some good weather for the game on Friday, and many thanks to Seamus Heath and Mark Hughes, from the NI Veterans Football club, for helping to organise things.”

The Tollymore club has been working on the project since October last year and were very pleased to hear that they were one of the lucky clubs to receive funding.

“This is the first time we have been involved in a heritage project and it has been brilliant,” said Seamus.

“It has certainly sparked loads of debate and highlighted what has been a very interesting period in our history. We are really looking forward to next weeks game, as are the English lads, and it should be great fun”

Friday’s football match is the third of four events that the club is delivering.

The first part of the project was a talk on the events leading up to “The Partition of Ireland” with leading historian Dr Cormac Moore and took place in July. It can be viewed at https://player.vimeo.com/video/570584248.

The second talk on was also delivered by Dr Moore and told the story of why Southern clubs broke away from the Irish Football Association in 1921 and can be viewed on https://vimeo.com/event/1164262/embed/2eae409073.

The final project talk on “The Day to Day Consequences of Partition” with Dr Cormac Moore is scheduled for Thursday, November 11 with the following link https://vimeo.com/event/1303213/8ff6645db6.