Ballyclare Comrades Football Club is a semi-professional, Northern Irish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

club playing in the NIFL Championship. The club hails from

Ballyclare Ballyclare () is a small town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 9,953 according to the 2011 census, and is located within the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council area. It sits on the river Six Mile Water. The town ...

, County Antrim and plays its home matches 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 ...

. Club colours are red and white. The club's rivals are

Carrick Rangers Carrick Rangers Football Club is a semi-professional Northern Irish football club playing in NIFL Premiership. The club, founded in 1939, hails from Carrickfergus, County Antrim and plays its home matches at Taylors Avenue which is known as th ...

and

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Mid a ...

and games between the three clubs are referred to as "The East Antrim Derbies".

History

The club was founded in 1919 by veterans of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, most of them from "C" Company of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles – a battalion made up entirely of East Antrim men, who fought at the Somme and in many other famous First World War battles. From 1990 until 2003, the club enjoyed

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

status, but reverted to intermediate status when the Irish Premier League was established and the number of senior clubs was reduced. The club's reserve team play in the NIFL Development League for under 20s. The club also has a partnership with local youth club Ballyclare Colts, whose sides (from under 11 to under 15) provide players to progress to Comrades' own youth sides at under-17 and under-18 level. The under-18 side play in the IFA Youth League. The club was relegated to

IFA Championship 2 The Northern Ireland Football League Championship (known as the Lough 41 Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the second level of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national football league in Northern Ireland. Clubs in the Championshi ...

in the 2010–11 season and finished in 6th place in the 2011–12 season, but the following season brought promotion back to Championship 1 after finishing as runners-up behind Championship 2 winners Knockbreda. One of the club's most famous products was

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

and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

defender

Paddy McNair Patrick James Coleman McNair (born 27 April 1995) is a Northern Irish professional footballer who plays as a defender or a midfielder for Championship club Middlesbrough and the Northern Ireland national team. McNair signed for Manchester Unit ...

who attends games when possible. Gareth McAuley, now of Rangers, and Michael Smith (Hearts) both played for the Comrades before switching to professional football. The club finished an impressive third in the 2016–17 season, losing out in a promotion playoff to Institute. The club continues with the ambition of getting back into the NIFL Premiership.

Current squad

Honours

Senior honours

* Ulster Cup: 1 **1997–98

Intermediate honours

Irish League B Division The NIFL Premier Intermediate League is the third division of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national association football league in Northern Ireland, and the highest intermediate division in Northern Ireland, occupying level three in ...

: 6 **1960–61, 1962–63, 1973–74, 1977–78, 1979–80, 1988–89 * IFA Intermediate League Second Division: 1 **2006–07 *

Irish Intermediate Cup The Irish Intermediate Cup is a Northern Irish football competition for teams of intermediate status, including NIFL Premiership reserve sides. It is a straight knock-out tournament and is currently sponsored by McCombs Coach Travel. The curre ...

: 9 **1925–26, 1949–50, 1950–51, 1953–54, 1959–60, 1960–61, 1962–63, 1963–64, 1989–90 * B Division Knock-out Cup: 2 **1983–84, 1988–89 *

George Wilson Cup The George Wilson Memorial Cup is a competition open to the reserve football teams of member clubs of the NIFL Premiership. Initially it was open to all members of the B Division, both "attached and unattached" (i.e. reserve sides and independen ...

: 4 **1955–56, 1960–61, 1962–63, 1993–94† *

Steel & Sons Cup The Steel & Sons Cup (also referred to as the Steel Cup) is an intermediate football competition in Northern Ireland run by the North East Ulster Football Association (also known as the County Antrim & District Football Association). The compe ...

: 6 **1943–44, 1960–61, 1974–75, 1981–82, 1984–85, 1986–87 * McElroy Cup: 1 **1941–42 * Clarence Cup: 3 **1980–81†, 1982–83†, 1983–84† † Won by reserve team

References

External links

Ballyclare Comrades F.C. Website

nifootball.co.uk (fixtures, results and tables of all leagues)
{{Authority control Association football clubs established in 1919 Association football clubs in Northern Ireland NIFL Championship clubs Association football clubs in County Antrim 1919 establishments in Ireland