Rathfern Rangers Football Club is a Northern Irish, intermediate football club playing in Division 1A of the Northern Amateur Football League. The club is based in Newtownabbey, County Antrim and was formed in 1974 and began playing matches in the

Dunmurry League Dunmurry (; ) is an urban townland in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Dunmurry is in the Collin electoral ward for the local government district of Belfast City Council. History Until the end of the 18th century, Dunmurry was largely an agric ...

. They play their home fixtures at the Diamond, Rathcoole since moving there in 1998. First team manager for the club is John Logan. As well as fielding a first team, Rathfern also have a second team which currently plays in NAFL Division 3A.

Club history

In 1974, Rathfern Rangers was established and admitted to the

. They remained there for 11 years before joining the

Northern Ireland Churches League Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

in 1985. Their grounds in the Rathfern estate had deteriorated over the past years so the club moved in 1988 to new grounds at the new Three-Mile Water playing fields and begun a highly successful 10 years of football. By 1998 the club had secured an unprecedented run of five Division 1 champions titles in a row as well as numerous cup victories. They were also honoured by the Irish Football Association when they and Donegal Celtic were jointly presented with the

IFA Fair Play Award IFA or Ifa may refer to: Organisations Economics * Independent financial adviser, a type of financial services professional in the UK * Index Fund Advisors * Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, representing actuaries in the UK * Institute of ...

in 1996. The 1998–99 season saw the team set another first in the Churches league. Having moved to their own purpose-built ground at The Diamond, the team made it to the final of the

County Antrim Junior Shield A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

, narrowly losing out to Lisburn Rangers. After several unsuccessful attempts to join the NAFL, they were finally admitted in 2001. The club made an instant impact winning Division 2C and the Cochrane and Corry Cup in their debut season. They won Division 2B the following season and in 2003–04 narrowly missed promotion to the Intermediate section by one point. It took another three attempts to gain promotion to Division 1B. They also completed the 2006–07 season by winning the County Antrim Junior Shield. The team have continued their success in the Intermediate section having won promotion to Division 1A as runners-up in 2007–08 and ending their 2008–09 campaign in third place.

Club honours

Junior honours

- 1 (once as Runners-up) : 1998–99, 2006–07 *

Cochrane and Corry Cup Cochrane may refer to: Places Australia * Cochrane railway station, Sydney, a railway station on the closed Ropes Creek railway line Canada * Cochrane, Alberta * Cochrane Lake, Alberta * Cochrane District, Ontario ** Cochrane, Ontario, a town w ...

- 1 (once as Runners-up) : 2001–02, 2002–03 * Irish Churches League Division 1 - 6 : 1991–92, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1999–00

External links

Rathfern Rangers Official Club website

nifootball.co.uk
- (For fixtures, results and tables of all Northern Ireland amateur football leagues) {{Football in Northern Ireland Association football clubs in Northern Ireland Association football clubs established in 1974 Northern Amateur Football League clubs 1974 establishments in Northern Ireland Newtownabbey