The 2013–14 NIFL Premiership (known as the

Danske Bank Danske Bank A/S is a Danish multinational banking and financial services corporation. Headquartered in Copenhagen, it is the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in the northern European region with over 5 million retail customers. ...

Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the sixth season of

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

's national football league in this format since its inception in 2008, the 113th season of Irish league football overall, and the first season of the league operating as part of the newly-created

Northern Ireland Football League The Northern Ireland Football League (commonly abbreviated to NIFL), known historically, and still colloquially, as the Irish League, is the national football league of Northern Ireland. The Irish League was originally formed in 1890, with the l ...

. The season began on 10 August 2013 and concluded on 26 April 2014. During the sixth round of fixtures, which were played on 7 September 2013,

Portadown Portadown () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population of a ...

defeated

Ballinamallard United Ballinamallard United Football Club is a semi-professional Northern Irish football club playing in the NIFL Championship. The club, re-formed in 1975 after being dormant since the 1960s, hails from Ballinamallard, near Enniskillen, County Ferma ...

11–0 at

Shamrock Park Shamrock Park is a football (soccer), football stadium in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is the home ground of Portadown F.C. Shamrock Park was previously used for stock-car racing, but this has since been discontinued. The stad ...

. This equalled the post-war record for the biggest win in the top-flight, which was set 47 years earlier in the 1966–67 season when

Distillery Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heati ...

defeated Bangor by the same scoreline in November 1966. In their first season back in the top flight since 2005–06,

Ards Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a type of respiratory failure characterized by rapid onset of widespread inflammation in the lungs. Symptoms include shortness of breath (dyspnea), rapid breathing (tachypnea), and bluish skin color ...

finished bottom of the table. This was confirmed on 12 April 2014, after Warrenpoint Town defeated

Dungannon Swifts Dungannon Swifts Football Club is a Northern Irish, semi-professional football club playing in the NIFL Premiership. The club, founded in 1949, has risen from the Mid-Ulster league to the top tier in Northern Ireland since its election to the ...

4–0 to leave Ards 10 points adrift in 12th place with only three fixtures remaining. Their relegation was confirmed on the final day of the season, when

Institute An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

won the 2013–14 NIFL Championship 1 title.

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of the town of Margate, situated to the east of the main town, in the Thanet district of Kent, South East England, United Kingdom. It also contains the area known as Palm Bay. The original Palm Bay estate was ...

were the defending champions after winning their fourth league title last season – their first since the 1997–98 season. They went on to retain the title for the first time in the club's history - their fourth outright league title and fifth overall. They were entered into the second qualifying round of the

2014–15 UEFA Champions League The 2014–15 UEFA Champions League was the 60th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 23rd season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final was pl ...

, with the league runners-up Linfield, 3rd-placed Crusaders, and the 2013–14 Irish Cup winners, Glenavon, entered into the first qualifying round of the

2014–15 UEFA Europa League The 2014–15 UEFA Europa League was the 44th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the sixth season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. The 2015 UEFA Europa League Final was ...

Teams

After successfully gaining the required Championship Club Licence from the IFA, 2012–13 Championship 1 winners

were promoted to this season's Premiership. The club returned to the top flight for the first time since they were relegated in the 2005–06 season. After 11 years in the top flight, last season's bottom-placed Premiership club

Lisburn Distillery Lisburn Distillery Football Club is a Northern Irish intermediate football club who are based in Ballyskeagh, County Down. A founder member of the Irish League, they currently play in the NIFL Premier Intermediate League, the third tier of t ...

were relegated to intermediate football for the first time in their history, bringing to an end their record of being one of only four clubs to have retained membership of the senior Irish League since its inception in 1890. The runners-up of Championship 1, Warrenpoint Town, faced last season's 11th-placed club

Donegal Celtic Donegal Celtic Football Club is an intermediate football club based in Belfast, Northern Ireland who currently play in the Ballymena & Provincial Football League. The club, founded in 1970, plays its home matches at Donegal Celtic Park. Club co ...

in the promotion/relegation play-off to decide which club would take the final place in this season's Premiership. The tie ended 2–2 on aggregate, with Warrenpoint Town winning on the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaker, tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the ...

to secure promotion to the top flight of national football for the first time in their history – the club's third promotion in four years.

Stadia and locations

Ground-sharing

Ards nominated Bangor's home ground,

Clandeboye Park Clandeboye Park, known for commercial reasons as the Bangor Fuels Arena, is a football stadium in Bangor, Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a ...

, as the venue for their home games as they had been without a home ground since 2002. However, as a result of construction work being carried out to the ground, their first four home matches of the season were played at

Dixon Park Dixon Park is a football stadium located in Ballyclare, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is home to Ballyclare Comrades F.C. Features The stadium holds 2,398 with 538 seats. There is a small seated stand at one side, where the changing rooms ...

– the home of

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

side

Ballyclare Comrades Ballyclare Comrades Football Club is a semi-professional, Northern Irish football club playing in the NIFL Championship. The club hails from Ballyclare, County Antrim and plays its home matches at Dixon Park. Club colours are red and white. The ...

. The other newly promoted side, Warrenpoint Town, played some of their home fixtures at Dungannon Swifts' ground, Stangmore Park. This was due to improvements being carried out at their own ground, Milltown, in order to upgrade it to Premiership standard. However, the first ever Premiership game to be played at the ground, which was against Glenavon, was abandoned during half-time due to floodlight failure. The first completed fixture at the ground was a 2–0 win over Ards on 26 December 2013. That match also experienced floodlight problems, delaying kick-off for the second half by 20 minutes.

League table

Results

Matches 1–22

During matches 1–22 each team played every other team twice (home and away).

Matches 23–33

During matches 23–33 each team played every other team for the third time (either at home, or away).

Matches 34–38

During matches 34–38 each team played every other team in their half of the table once. As this was the fourth time that teams had played each other this season, home sides were chosen so that they had played each other twice at home and twice away.

Section A

Section B

Top scorers

† Darren Boyce scored 12 goals for Dungannon Swifts while on loan from parent club Coleraine, before transferring to Ballymena United in January 2014.

Promotion/relegation play-off

The play-off did not take place this season because Bangor, runners-up of the 2013–14 NIFL Championship 1, did not possess a licence to participate in top-flight football.

NIFL Premiership clubs in Europe 2013–14

UEFA coefficient and ranking

For the 2013–14 UEFA competitions, the associations were allocated places according to their 2012 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2007–08 to 2011–12. In the 2012 rankings used for this season's European competitions, Northern Ireland's

coefficient In mathematics, a coefficient is a multiplicative factor in some term of a polynomial, a series, or an expression; it is usually a number, but may be any expression (including variables such as , and ). When the coefficients are themselves var ...

points total was 2.583. After earning a score of 0.500 during the 2011–12 European campaign, the league was ranked by

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

as the 48th best league in Europe out of 53 - up one place from 49th the previous season. This season Northern Ireland earned 0.875 points, which was added to the points total for the 2014 rankings used in 2015–16 UEFA competitions. * 46

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

''2.749'' * 47

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

''2.666'' * 48 Northern Ireland 2.583 * 49

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

''2.333'' * 50

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

''2.208'' *
''Full list''

UEFA Champions League

After winning the league last season, Cliftonville were the sole representatives in the

2013–14 UEFA Champions League The 2013–14 UEFA Champions League was the 59th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 22nd season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final was ...

. They entered the draw in the

second qualifying round The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds eac ...

. The draw to discover their opponents took place on 24 June 2013, and Cliftonville were rewarded with a dream tie against Scottish giants,

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

. The first leg took place at

Solitude Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, meaning lack of socialisation. Effects can be either positive or negative, depending on the situation. Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think, or rest without distu ...

on 17 July 2013, and Celtic earned a comfortable 3–0 win. The second leg was played at

Celtic Park Celtic Park is the home stadium of Celtic Football Club, in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, Scotland. With a capacity of 60,832, it is the largest football stadium in Scotland, and the eighth-largest stadium in the United Kingdom. It is also ...

on 23 July 2013, with Celtic winning 2–0 for a comfortable 5–0 aggregate victory. Second Qualifying round First leg ---- Second leg ''Celtic won 5–0 on aggregate.''

UEFA Europa League

2012–13 League runners-up Crusaders, third-placed Linfield, and

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. Ina ...

winners Glentoran all earned a place in the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

. They entered the draw at the

first qualifying round First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

. The draw to discover their opponents took place on 24 June 2013. Glentoran were paired against KR of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

while Linfield faced ÍF Fuglafjørður from the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

. For the second consecutive season, Crusaders were drawn to play Rosenborg of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, the team they lost 4–0 on aggregate to at the same stage of last season's competition. Crusaders played the first leg at home on 4 July 2013 and went down 2–1 to Rosenborg, having led the match 1–0. In the second leg, Crusaders were well beaten 7–2 away from home, crashing out of the competition 9–3 on aggregate. Glentoran were away from home for the first leg and came away with a respectable 0–0 draw, however in the second leg at home they were disappointingly defeated 3–0 and exited the competition 3–0 on aggregate. Linfield played their first leg in the Faroe Islands on 3 July 2013, and came away with a 2–0 victory. This was the club's first European away win in 47 years, since a 4–1 victory away to

Vålerenga Vålerenga () is a neighbourhood in the city of Oslo, Norway, belonging to the borough of Gamle Oslo. Vålerenga is located between the neighbourhoods of Gamlebyen, Jordal, Ensjø, Etterstad and Lodalen. Vålerenga is in particular known for it ...

in the second round of the

1966–67 European Cup The 1966–67 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won by Celtic for the first time in the final against Internazionale, who eliminated defending champions Real Madrid in the quarter-finals, making them the first British team in ...

. In the second leg, Linfield won 3–0 to go through to the next round 5–0 on aggregate - the first time in the club's history that they had won both legs of a European tie. After the exit of both Crusaders and Glentoran from the competition, this left Linfield as the league's only representative in the second qualifying round. They faced

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

side

Xanthi Xanthi ( el, Ξάνθη, ''Xánthi'', ) is a city in the region of Western Thrace, northeastern Greece. It is the capital of the Xanthi (regional unit), Xanthi regional unit of the modern regions of Greece, region of East Macedonia and Thrace. A ...

in the next round. Despite being massive underdogs for the tie, a 1–0 victory in the away leg made it three consecutive victories for Linfield in Europe, without conceding a goal in the process - another first for the club. However, in the second leg at home they went down 2–1 after extra time, which eliminated them on the away goals rule. First Qualifying round First legs ---- ---- ---- Second legs ''Linfield won 5–0 on aggregate.'' ---- ''Rosenborg won 9–3 on aggregate.'' ---- ''KR won 3–0 on aggregate.'' ---- Second Qualifying round First leg ---- Second leg ''2–2 on aggregate. Skoda Xanthi won on away goals rule.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nifl Premiership, 2013-14 2013-14

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...