Cliftonville FC

Cliftonville FC
Basic data
Surname	Cliftonville Football Club
Seat	Belfast
founding	1879
president	Gerard Lawlor
Website	cliftonvillefc.net
First soccer team
Head coach	Barry Gray
Venue	Solitude , Belfast
Places	2180
league	NIFL Premiership
2019/20	4th Place
home Away

Cliftonville FC (called The Reds ) is a Northern Irish football club based in Belfast and playing in the NIFL Premiership .

The founding date is September 20, 1879. Since 1890, Cliftonville FC has played its games at Solitude Stadium in north Belfast. Although most of the active Cliftonville supporters come from the greater Belfast area, there is lively contact with various fan clubs across Europe, but especially with the fans of the German club FC St. Pauli and fan groups of the Danish club FC Copenhagen .

history

1879 to 1969: early successes and decades of failure

Cliftonville FC was born on September 20, 1879, when an advertisement in the local newspaper Newsletter advertised applicants for the Cliftonville Association Football Club . The initiative for this step came from the Belfast businessman John McAlery, who had discovered his enthusiasm for football during his honeymoon in Edinburgh the year before .

Just a week after the ad appeared, Cliftonville fought its first demonstrable encounter against a selection of rugby players who called themselves quidnunces . The game took place on September 29, 1879 on the third practice field of the Cliftonville Cricket Club . The newly founded club, however, had to admit defeat 1: 2. Things didn't look any better for Cliftonville FC in their first encounter against Scottish football club Caledonians , which ended in a 9-1 disgrace. Only at the third attempt on November 1, 1879 was the club finally able to record the first victory in the club's history. The opponent was beaten 3-1 and was called Knock, a club that had recently been founded with the participation of John McAlery.

In 1880 it was John McAlery again who emerged as the driving force behind the founding of the Irish Football Association ( Irish FA ). The founding meeting of the association took place on November 18, 1880 in the Belfast Queen's Hotel. On this occasion, the hosting of a cup competition, the Irish Cup , was decided, the first round of which was held on January 10, 1881. The first final of the Irish Cup was played on April 9, 1881, in which Cliftonville FC had to admit defeat 0-1 to Moyola Park . It was not until 1883 that the club from North Belfast was finally granted the first time to claim the title of cup winner with a 5-0 win over Ulster. In 1888, a 2: 1 win over Distillery was followed by the second title in the young Reds' history.

Subsequently, it was decided to start regular league operations with the establishment of the Irish League on March 14, 1890, in which Cliftonville FC was one of a total of eight founding members. Cliftonville won his first championship title 16 years later in 1906, albeit ex aequo with Distillery. In the same year that the league was founded, after merging with the YMCA , the club finally moved to a permanent venue in the immediate vicinity of the cricket club not far from Cliftonville Road. Solitude Stadium , which was then owned by Cliftonville Recreation Company Ltd at the time , is the home of Cliftonville FC to this day.

In 1891, for the first time, two games were played in the Solitude Stadium under electric lighting. The kick-off took place at eight o'clock in the evening, and the lighting was stretched across the pitch. However, the attempt was broken off on the grounds that the audience had problems following the game and "the players were the only ones who had fun in the middle". Also in 1891 goal nets were finally introduced in the Solitude.

In 1897, Cliftonville was able to win the Cup again by beating the Sherwood Foresters 3-1 in the final, a success that succeeded a total of four times in the following decade. In 1910, Cliftonville FC won the league championship after 1906 with yet another league triumph. But it would be another 88 years before Cliftonville FC climbed to the top of the Irish League for the third time. Curiously, there was a similar gap in the Irish Cup , as in this competition Cliftonville had extremely lean years between 1909 and 1979, although they were in 1910 (0: 1 against Distillery ), 1927 (2: 3 against Ards ) and 1934 (0: 4 against Linfield ) still reached the final. Even in the league, the yield was more than meager: In the period between 1937 and 1968, the Reds were last 22 times in the table, between 1957 and 1968 even eleven times in a row. And often enough the re-entry into the Irish League , which at that time still had an almost closed circle of members without relegation, was on the knife edge.

1970 to 1979: Legendary Years - John Platt and the Cup

In the 1970s, the almost miraculous resurrection of the club finally began for Cliftonville under the coaches Brian Halliday and Jackie Hutton, which finally culminated in a long-legendary triumph on April 28, 1979 with the victory of the Irish Cup. The cup final nine years earlier was to have a significant impact on the club's recent history, even if the Reds were not meant to play an active role. Rather, it came on April 4, 1970 during the Cup final between Linfield and Ballymena United, which was held in the Solitude Stadium, to serious riots among the fans of the clubs involved. In the end, this was sufficient reason for the Northern Irish police to prohibit all Linfield FC encounters in Solitude "until further notice" for security reasons. Ultimately, the police order remained upright for almost 30 years and forced Cliftonville FC to play its "home games" against Linfield in their Windsor Park stadium until 1999 .

In the second half of the decade, Jackie Hutton built a team around key players like Tony Bell and Marty Quinn, but above all around John Platt, who was signed by Coleraine in 1975, which was able to compete in Northern Irish football after a long time. Hutton also benefited from his predecessor Brian Halliday, who had already laid the foundation for the club's unexpected upswing with his work. With a total of 99 goals in 188 games for Cliftonville, John Platt in particular was elevated to an icon by the fans during his career. Even today, the name Platt is considered by most fans as the epitome of the era of success of the 70s. With a spectacular double strike against Glenavon on November 29, 1975, his tenth appearance in the Cliftonville jersey, Platt first made a name for himself. And barely a year later he was already a fixture in the Irish League. So it was also reserved for Platt against Ards in October 1976 to deal with the opponent with four hits almost single-handedly. Cliftonville, the long-time whipping boy of the Irish League, had meanwhile become a serious opponent again, even if Jackie Hutton's team was still not granted a major title. But that too was soon to change.

The hard-fought 4-3 win in the first round of the Irish Cup against defending champion Linfield in January 1979 marked the beginning of what was probably the most legendary year in club history to date. Once again it was John Platt in top form, who made the difference with his two goals and helped the Reds to an unforgettable victory to this day. The fact that Cliftonville soon had nothing to do with relegation in the league helped coach Hutton to shift the sporting focus on progressing in the Irish Cup with a clear conscience and to spare his most important players for the cup games. With a 3: 2 against Coleraine Cliftonville consequently reached the semifinals, in which they only reached a draw on St. Patrick's Day 1979 in the Oval Stadium against Ards with a result of 2: 2, but forced a replay. Here, once again, John Platt proved to be the match winner, as his goal from a penalty was the only one in the game and the Reds finally reached the first final in the Irish Cup since 1934. In the general euphoria, Platt promptly promised the fans to score at least one goal in the final. He should keep his word.

In the final on April 28, 1979 in Windsor Park , the Reds, curiously playing in blue and yellow that day, faced Portadown FC . After Platt had just hit the post twice, he was finally there to head the equalizer to 1: 1. At the end of the regular playing time it was finally 2: 2 when Platt suddenly found himself alone in front of two defenders in stoppage time in the last play before the final whistle. However, instead of completing it alone, as is so often the case, he passed the ball to Tony Bell, who unexpectedly scored the much-acclaimed 3-2 winner. Cliftonville FC's first cup win since 1909, which only a few years earlier seemed completely unimaginable, finally crowned the most successful season in John Platt's playing career with 30 goals. This hit rate seems all the more impressive when you consider that Platt had to pause almost the entire first half of the season because of a broken leg. The triumph of the team in 1979 should remain the Reds' last cup success to date, even if they were able to reach the cup final three times in 1997, 1999 and 2009.

The often and long-awaited but ultimately unexpected success in the Irish Cup gave Cliftonville as an encore the first ever appearance in a European competition. So you met in the first round of the European Cup winners' Cup on the French representative FC Nantes . The first leg on September 19, 1979, exactly one day before the 100th anniversary of the club's foundation, was only just lost 1-0, but in the second leg on October 5, 1979 in Nantes, the French cup winner led the Reds from Belfast with one 7-0 victory over the class difference clearly in mind. The following month, Jackie Hutton resigned as a coach.

Hutton was succeeded by Jimmy Brown, who apparently tried to free himself from the burden of the success of his predecessor by relegating John Platt to Coleraine FC shortly after taking office . As early as November 1979, the league saw his first reunion with Platt in Coleraine. But the Reds had no trouble with the Bannsiders in the end and finally dealt with the opponent with 5: 1. The consolation goal for Coleraine was scored by none other than John Platt, who was celebrated all the more frenetically by the grateful Cliftonville fans. After only a few months with the Bannsiders, Platt finally returned the Red Army's affection by returning to Solitude early. Due to a few injury breaks, Platt was temporarily assigned to the central defensive by coach Brown, where he proved himself with flying colors despite his unique forward skills.

1980 to 1998: The long way to the third championship title

In December 1980, the Reds reached the final of the Gold Cup, where arch-rival Linfield was waiting. Although Platt came up with the number five, Brown unexpectedly threw his own tactics overboard shortly before kick-off and let Platt storm ahead again. For his part, Platt thanked Cliftonville with the second goal in an otherwise remarkable 3-1 triumph against the hated Blues. An unfortunate clash with former Cliftonville teammate Peter McCusker in a league match against Ballymena United , in which he suffered a serious facial injury, brought John Platt's career to an abrupt end in 1981. But contrary to medical advice, John Platt tied his football boots again for his last appearance in Solitude on the occasion of the anniversary game of his brother Jim Platt, who played for Middlesbrough FC and for Northern Ireland as a goalkeeper . Despite reinforcement with international stars like Martin O'Neill and Gerry Armstrong , the Reds quickly fell behind against the English first division side with 1: 2. So it was once again up to John Platt to head with his unofficial 100th goal for Cliftonville to make it 2-2 and thus a quite honorable result against Middlesbrough.

In the years that followed, the Reds sank back into the lows of Northern Irish football and were often closer to relegation than the top of the table until well into the 90s. Even if the already faded memory of the success in the Gold Cup of 1980 kept the longing for further successes alive, the fans had to deal with the painful reality of the early one time and again, despite the various honorable successes of their team in the cup competitions until the mid-1990s Surrender to failure. Cliftonville, under coach Frankie Parkes, was able to advance to the semi-finals of the Budweiser Cup against Ards in 1993, but only to let the proverbial butter off the bread in the last minute after a long 2-0 lead. After Parkes' resignation, his assistant Marty Quinn took over - initially only on an interim basis - as coach before he was officially confirmed as head coach of the Reds in October 1994. While John Platt was the undisputed hero of the 1979 cup success, which helped many fans through the lean years of the following decade, Platt's long-time teammate Marty Quinn was to make his mark on the club in the 1990s.

Quinn's main task from the start was to stabilize the club in the newly organized championship, which had recently been established as the "Irish Premier League", and to keep the class if possible. Nobody could dream of titles in the league or other competitions, even if the rather insignificant small field title in the "McEwan's Soccer Sixes" in 1995 offered many fans a welcome consolation for the long untitled years. The somewhat larger win in the 1996 "Floodlit Cup" final against Glentoran FC , with the Reds turning the game into a 3-1 win in their favor, already whetted the appetite for more. In the summer of the same year, after the club's long absence from the European stage, Quinn achieved the next high point by reaching an international competition. Since the preliminary round of the UEFA Intertoto Cup was still held in group mode at that time, Cliftonville had to deal with several illustrious names of international stature in Group 1. With group opponents such as Standard Liège , Hapoel Haifa , VfB Stuttgart and Aalborg BK , the Reds assumed the role of outsider as expected.

A straight 3-0 home defeat against the Belgian representative from Liège was followed by a respectable 1-1 draw against Hapoel Haifa in Israel, in which Shaun Strang made for the Reds' first ever goal in an international competition before the German Bundesliga club After a long time, Stuttgart was once again welcomed by a real European star in the Solitude. But even if the Stuttgart victory ultimately turned out to be befitting, the bare result of 4: 1 in height belies the fact that the Reds, with an almost self-sacrificing fighting spirit, the guest appearance of VfB Stuttgart in Belfast over long distances is anything but impossible a Sunday stroll. In the final game against the Danish representative in Aalborg, however, Cliftonville could not live up to the expectations raised against the Germans and was out of the competition with a 4-0 defeat. Even if the excursion into the heights of international football was foreseeable short, the Reds reaffirmed their increasing ambitions on a national level, so that cups and titles were finally within reach again. The increasing expectations were only dampened by the fact that the Reds in the league, as usual, eke out a rather unspectacular existence in the lower third of the table.

The beginning of the collection of titles in the Quinn era was the "County Antrim Shield" of 1997, where the Reds met Ballymena United in the final , at the time leaders of the First Division. After the game had to be stopped at the first attempt due to a bottle throwing in the second half when the score was 0-0, the final was repeated at the green table. But even on this occasion, just a few weeks after the first encounter, the Reds found it difficult to break the resistance of Ballymena in regular time. And as in the first goalless 90 minutes, none of the teams scored a goal in the following extra time - Cliftonville had to look for the decision at the penalty spot again, as in the quarter-finals against Glentoran. Here again neither of the two teams was naked, so that after the score of 4: 4 there had to be a real showdown for the Antrim Shield. After Tim McCann had also safely converted the fifth penalty for Cliftonville, now Peter Murray, ironically a former Cliftonville player, took over the heavy burden of the last penalty taker for Ballymena and faced the Reds goalkeeper Paul Reece. It happened as it had to: Reece, who had previously switched from the English professional club Grimsby Town to the Reds, instinctively dived to the right and successfully blocked Murray's half-shot. Cliftonville had regained a prestigious title after 17 long years.

The situation in the championship remained Marty Quinn's problem child. The Reds occupied two game days before the end of the 1996/97 season one point behind Ards FC in eighth and last place in the table and were under pressure to avoid the threatened relegation game. It was clear that for the Reds in a direct duel against Ards on April 12, 1997, only one win at Castlereagh Park counted if they didn't want to end the season bottom of the table. After the game was still goalless at the end of regular time, quite a few fans had left the stadium bitterly disappointed when Tim McCann managed to score the relieving 1-0 in the fourth minute of stoppage time. And so the Reds deservedly secured relegation with a sovereign 2-0 win over Glenavon two weeks later in the Solitude .

After this conciliatory end of the season, Cliftonville even had the opportunity to add another exclamation mark to the season in the Irish Cup final at Windsor Park, in addition to the success in the Antrim Shield. Like a few days earlier in the league, the opponent was again Glenavon . After Loughgall had already been knocked 3-1 out of the way in the semifinals at the same place , the thousands of Cliftonville fans pouring into the Windsor Park Stadium hoped that their club would be relieved to play for the first big one after they had reached their class To win title since 1979. But the Red Army's optimism was not rewarded, and in the end Glenavon held the trophy in their hands after a narrow 1-0 win. In the midst of the deep disappointment that followed after the missed opportunity, Marty Quinn announced that his team would only emerge stronger from this defeat. But even Quinn himself would not even have dared to dream at this point that his declaration of war would more than be confirmed in the following season.

Almost a year after the Reds had just avoided relegation relegation with a win against Ards, the team suddenly found themselves on April 18, 1998, four points behind their pursuers Linfield in the role of the front runner, before the penultimate matchday on April 18, 1998 League again. It was clear beforehand that a draw against Glentoran would be enough for the Reds to win the title, should Linfield lose points in the away game against Coleraine . The events of that day made for a football thriller in a class of its own, also due to the fact that for some inexplicable reason the game Linfieds did not kick off until an hour later. Although Harry McCourt's goal in the first half put the Reds in the lead as planned, Glentoran initially made a dash for Cliftonville's title ambitions with the equalization after half-time. It remained a draw and the hoped-for championship celebration had to be postponed for at least another hour. In these agonizing 60 minutes, the fans were condemned to helplessly follow the events in Coleraine via radio, while the team holed up lonely in the dressing room, only supplied with sporadic reports from the Coleraine Showgrounds . While the television camera of a local broadcaster was still exclusively capturing the players' emotional state, which fluctuated between hope and despair, the suddenly rising jubilation from the stands interrupted the haunting silence in the cabin. Linfield didn't come out with a goalless draw against Coleraine and finally made the dream come true: Cliftonville FC were Irish League champions for the first time in 88 years .

The championship title paved Cliftonville's first participation in the qualification for the Champions League , where they met the Slovakian champions 1. FC Košice . The fact that the opponent was a size too big for the Reds could already be seen from the clear 1: 5 defeat in the first leg in the Solitude. In the second leg in Eastern Slovakia, which has become a formality, none of the participants were surprised that the defeat with 0: 8 was a lot higher. Far more importance than the foreseeable failure in the European competition, however , was attached to the return of Linfield FC to the Solitude on November 21, 1998, which had to be considered historic by all standards. In the course of 1998 it was also agreed within the Irish Football Association that the arbitrary ban on playing the Blues in Solitude 27 years earlier could no longer be upheld in view of the advancing peace process in Northern Ireland as a result of the Good Friday Agreement . The encounter, which attracted great interest from both sides with 1,500 spectators, was set at 11 a.m. as a precaution and, thanks to a last-minute hit by the Reds, ended with a 1: 1 draw appropriate to the occasion.

1999 until today: Between relegation worries and European splendor

The defense of the championship title almost turned into a fiasco, as Cliftonville could not get a foot on the floor in the league and in the end was even lucky to have avoided direct relegation to the First Division with the penultimate place. The two relegation games against Ards FC that came along with the placement and were almost becoming a habit , the Reds finally won with a total score of 5: 2. The team did far more respectably in the Irish Cup, where the hard-fought victory in the replay of the semifinals against Linfield suddenly made the league's low blows forget. At the end of a completely screwed up season, the first cup victory since 1979 suddenly seemed within reach. But before the fans could dream of another big title just one year after the championship, fate in the form of the IFA Executive Committee tore them out with full force. The club was at the center of a scandal almost overnight after allegations had become loud that the player Simon Gribben, who was used by Marty Quinn against Linfield, had already played in the cup for his club at the time, Kilmore Rec, and was therefore no longer eligible to play for Cliftonville. After days of struggling to host the cup final, the association finally canceled the Reds' semi-final victory , but at the same time rejected Linfield's belatedly raised objection in order to subsequently crown Portadown FC, the opponent of the final, the cup winner without a fight.

In October 1999, Marty Quinn announced his resignation as coach and at the same time announced his move to Coleraine FC . His successor Laurence Stitt, who had previously worked as a coach at the amateur club Chimney Corner, was faced with the hard bread of the relegation battle from the start. In the end, Cliftonville occupied the relegation place before the relegated Lisburn Distillery once again, but was able to successfully prevail against Ards FC in May 2000, as in the previous year after involuntary detention . But Stitt's work already showed the first fruits in the following season. This time the Reds held up bravely in the midfield of the league and were even able to secure a place in the UEFA Intertoto Cup at the end of the 2000/2001 season with 5th place . After a narrow 1-0 defeat in the first leg against the Moldovan representative Tiligul Tiraspol , the Reds were faced with the real chance before the second leg in the Solitude to advance to the next round for the first time in a European competition. But although the team was able to save themselves 1-0 after regular time, the Moldovans finally broke all European dreams with three goals in overtime against the Reds, who had been decimated to nine players after two dismissals.

After barely three years, Laurence Stitt gave up his coaching post in the summer of 2002 to the Cliftonville legend Marty Tabb, who had also ended his active career for the Reds three years earlier after the relegation games against Ards. And even if Tabb's term of office was ultimately only supposed to last two years: His assumption of office initially had a positive effect in the first year. In the 2002/03 season he successfully kept the Reds out of the hot relegation battle and even won the league cup with his men in autumn 2003. After this completely surprising title win, the crash into the lowlands of the Premier League, which had meanwhile expanded to 16 clubs, followed. And as is so often the case, Cliftonville FC only managed to stay in the league in spring 2004 via relegation. Here the opponent was called Armagh City for a change , where, thanks to a comfortable 3-0 away win in the first leg, the acute relegation fears were counteracted early on, before the Reds successfully brought the matter to an end a week later with a loosely downplayed 1: 1. After the final whistle, Marty Tabb announced his resignation, while the Red Army also said goodbye to legendary player Mickey Donnelly, who wore the red jersey for the 611th and last time that day.

Instead of Tabb, Liam Beckett, former coach of Ballymoney United and Moyola Park, took over the helm at Solitude. As with his two predecessors, Beckett's tenure was brief. After only twelve months and a mixed season, in which Cliftonville was once again loyal to the lower half of the table, Beckett made way for his assistant Eddie Patterson. Although Patterson was initially only to succeed his former superior on an interim basis, he was officially confirmed in his office on October 11, 2005. And with Patterson, a former player and later junior coach of the Reds, a breath of fresh air actually found its way into the Solitude. Already in Patterson's first season, the club was back in touch with the top third of the table with a hard-fought fifth place in the table after a long dry spell. In the late summer of 2006, the Reds again made it to the final of the CIS League Cup, where they had to admit defeat to Glentoran . The Red Army was finally fully compensated for this painful defeat only a few months later thanks to a one-two blow from Mark Holland with the victory in the final of the Country Antrim Shield against Lisburn Distillery . In the same season, Cliftonville advanced to the semi-finals of the Irish Cup in spring 2007, where once again the penalty shootout against Linfield was the final destination. Nevertheless, Patterson's hard work was rewarded with a 3rd place in the league, which not only gave the team a place in the Setanta Cup , which was held together with the Irish Association , but also returned to the UEFA Intertoto Cup after 2001 .

With a draw in the first leg against the Latvian club FC Dinaburg , in which Kieran O'Connor had equalized in his first game for the Reds after early leadership of the guests, Cliftonville had to go to the Celtnieks on June 30, 2007 Compete in the stadium in Daugavpils . Knowing that you had to score at least one goal for the first promotion at European level, the Reds went to work from the beginning. As early as the sixth minute, Mark Holland scored to take the lead, which Cliftonville then easily brought over the time. This truly historic victory earned the Red Army a trip to Belgium, where AA Gent proved insurmountable. Although a couple of stalwarts still sensed a chance of a march through to the third round after the 2-0 defeat in Ghent , the Belgians left nothing to burn in the second leg at Solitude with a clear 4-0 win. The 2007/2008 season ended Cliftonville again after a disappointing finish in 3rd place, although the team was long considered the most promising candidate for the title. For the first time in the club's history, the Reds were able to secure a place in the qualifying round of the UEFA Cup . Here one failed because of the clear superiority of the Danish representative FC Copenhagen with a total score of 0:11. In the Setanta Cup , Cliftonville did only marginally better. After two defeats in the second leg against Drogheda United and Cork City and only a 4-2 away win against Dungannon Swifts , the Reds' first ever victory in the Setanta Cup, the club finally had to say goodbye to all promotion ambitions in autumn 2008 as third party.

In the 130th year of its existence, the club was much more successful on the national level. So the Cliftonville FC succeeded on November 4, 2008 at Windsor Park with a 2-1 win against arch rivals Linfield after 2006 surprisingly the renewed win of the County Antrim Shields. The Reds also managed to take revenge for a clear 4-0 defeat in the league, which they had to take just a week earlier against Linfield. However, the Antrim Shield final was overshadowed by an attack against Linfield player Conor Hagan, who was hit in the back by a flare fired from the Cliftonville curve shortly after the final whistle. However, the player was uninjured. In the Irish Cup , too , the Reds seemed to be heading for the title for a long time after they surprisingly reached the final after victories over the top favorites Glentoran (1-0, quarter-finals) and Linfield (0-0 and 3-2, semi-finals). In particular, the replay of the semi-finals against Linfield on April 21, 2009, which became necessary after a goalless draw in the first meeting, will be remembered for a long time to come. In a dramatic final phase, Cliftonville was able to turn the game around with a score of 1: 2 with two goals in stoppage time and thus throw the defending champion out of the cup at the very last second. After a bitter 0: 1 defeat in the final on May 9, 2009 against the North Belfast local rivals Crusaders , the dream of their first cup victory after exactly 30 years had to be finally buried in Cliftonville.

Despite the unexpected successes in the national cup competitions, the team of coach Eddie Patterson in the league fell short of expectations. And that although the Nord-Belfast club was surprisingly able to meet the selection criteria for participation in the newly founded IFA Premiership, which has now been reduced to twelve participants . The Reds, who had to compete for the entire first half of the first half of the season on a foreign pitch due to the renovation of their home Solitude stadium , which began in summer 2008 , got off to a classic false start, but were able to make up some ground in the further course of the season due to their home strength on their own pitch . In the end, Cliftonville even reached the championship round in the division of the league after the 33rd match day and finally ended the season in a conciliatory sixth place.

As the highlight of the anniversary year, which marks the 130th anniversary of the club, Celtic Glasgow could be won for a friendly game on October 13, 2009 in the Solitude.

successes

• Irish League : 5th
  • 1905/06 (together with Distillery ), 1909/10, 1997/98, 2012/13, 2013/14
• Irish Cup : 8
  • 1882/83, 1887/88, 1896/97, 1899/00, 1900/01, 1906/07, 1908/09, 1978/79
• League Cup: 5
  • 2003/04, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16
• Gold Cup: 3
  • 1923, 1933, 1980
• County Antrim Shield: Nov.
  • 1891/92, 1893/94, 1897/98, 1925/26, 1978/79, 1996/97, 2006/07, 2008/09, 2011/12, 2014/15, 2019/20
• Belfast Charities Cup: 10
  • 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1897, 1906, 1908, 1909, 1924
• Alhambra Cup: 1st
  • 1922
• Floodlit Cup: 1
  • 1996
• Soccer Sixes: 1
  • 1995
• Charity Shield: 2
  • 1998, 2014
• Steel & Sons Cup: 6
  • 1900, 1902, 1907, 1908, 1914, 1922

European Cup balance sheet

season	competition	round	opponent	total	To	Back
1979/80	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	1 round	FC Nantes	0: 8	0: 1 (H)	0: 7 (A)
1996	UEFA Intertoto Cup	Group stage	Standard Liege	0: 3	0: 3 (H)
			Hapoel Haifa	1: 1	1: 1 (A)
			VfB Stuttgart	1: 4	1: 4 (H)
			Aalborg BK	0: 4	0: 4 (A)
1998/99	UEFA Champions League	1st qualifying round	1. FC Košice	01:13	1: 5 (H)	0: 8 (A)
2001	UEFA Intertoto Cup	1 round	Tiligul Tiraspol	1: 4	0: 1 (A)	1: 3 a.d. (H)
2007	UEFA Intertoto Cup	1 round	Dinaburg Daugavpils	2: 1	1: 1 (H)	1: 0 (A)
		2nd round	KAA Gent	0: 6	0: 2 (A)	0: 4 (H)
2008/09	Uefa cup	1st qualifying round	FC Copenhagen	00:11	0: 4 (H)	0: 7 (A)
2010/11	UEFA Europa League	2nd qualifying round	Cibalia Vinkovci	1-0	1: 0 (H)	0: 0 (A)
		3rd qualifying round	CSKA Sofia	1: 5	0: 3 (A)	1: 2 (H)
2011/12	UEFA Europa League	1st qualifying round	The New Saints FC	1: 2	1: 1 (A)	0: 1 (H)
2012/13	UEFA Europa League	1st qualifying round	Kalmar FF	1: 4	1: 0 (H)	0: 4 (A)
2013/14	UEFA Champions League	2nd qualifying round	Celtic Glasgow	0: 5	0: 3 (H)	0: 2 (A)
2014/15	UEFA Champions League	2nd qualifying round	Debreceni VSC	0: 2	0: 0 (H)	0: 2 (A)
2016/17	UEFA Europa League	1st qualifying round	FC Differdange 03	3: 1	1: 1 (A)	2: 0 (H)
		2nd qualifying round	AEK Larnaka	2: 5	2: 3 (H)	0: 2 (A)
2018/19	UEFA Europa League	1st qualifying round	FC Nordsjælland	1: 3	0: 1 (H)	1: 2 (A)
2019/20	UEFA Europa League	Pre-qualification	Barry Town United	4-0	0: 0 (A)	4: 0 (H)
		1st qualifying round	FK Haugesund	1: 6	0: 1 (H)	1: 5 (A)

Legend: (H) - home game, (A) - away game, (N) - neutral place, (a) - away goal rule , (i. E.) - on penalties , (n. V.) - after extra time

Overall record : 38 games, 5 wins, 7 draws, 26 defeats, 21:88 goals (goal difference −67)

Web links

• Official website of Cliftonville FC

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Malcolm Brodie: 100 Years of Irish Football. Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1980.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Cliftonville FC: Celebrating 130 years. October 13, 2009, p. 16 (Jubilee program against Glasgow Celtic).
3. ^ Cliftonville 1998 Champions. In: UTV Live Report. April 18, 1998, accessed July 5, 2019 (English, video on YouTube , 6:08 minutes). 
4. ^ Cliftonville FC: Celebrating 130 years. P. 20.
5. ^ Cliftonville 2-1 Linfield. In: BBC Sport . November 4, 2008, accessed July 5, 2019 . 
6. ^ Firework incident sparks review. In: BBC Sport. November 5, 2008, accessed July 5, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Cup final in Northern Ireland: light rocket meets football professional. In: Bild.de . November 6, 2008, accessed July 5, 2019 .