‘I WAS THERE...’: Fans look back on great days in Irish League history

In our ‘I Was There’ feature we ask for the fans’ memories as they look back on some of the greatest days in Irish League history...
Fans celebrate at Shamrock Park following the final whistle in 1990. Pic courtesy of Portadown FC.Fans celebrate at Shamrock Park following the final whistle in 1990. Pic courtesy of Portadown FC.
Fans celebrate at Shamrock Park following the final whistle in 1990. Pic courtesy of Portadown FC.

Portadown v Linfield

(April 28, 1990)

Nat Richardson

Nat Richardson may not have seen much of the game but was one of the first at Shamrock Park to get to grips with the famous Gibson Cup prize.

Having spent much of his week reviving a club programme to mark the special occasion, Richardson worked the turnstiles on matchday and was in the boardroom sorting out the takings long after kick-off - so offered a helping hand to the Irish League official charged with the transportation of the trophy.

“My first game was in 1949 as an 11-year-old and remember walking around the Shamrock Park pitch as a boy with my friends holding up a board attached to a brush shaft showing the half-time draw numbers to the crowd, when 4,000 would be considered a bad attendance.

“So one of my first thoughts when we did finally seal that first league title was how many wonderful people and dedicated fans from the past never got to share in that moment.

“I had been working as part of the team with Portadown Times journalist Brian Courtney on our first programme in years leading up to the game so never really had time to get nervous and the crowds started to build outside the turnstiles from early on ahead of kick-off.

“To get the trophy from the boot of the Irish League official’s car into the club under cover I walked him out the changing room doors and he pulled up to the entrance.

“There was a football figure on the top of the lid and it came off in the boardroom so my brother, Benny, tore up a beer mat and we used that to help fix it back on!

“I watched from the second half on the stand steps and the feeling at the final whistle was unbelievable.

“When it came to the trophy parade I helped decorate with bunting then hammer on extra timber to the side of the lorry we got off Shillington’s yard.

“But people all just mucked in to get things done and, as a football town, we had waited so long and suffered so many disappointments leading up to the Linfield win.

“I think back and recall sharing the moment with my family and friends and everyone was in it together.

“It just gave everyone such a massive lift.”

Ally Hobson

Ally Hobson had thousands of ‘family’ sharing in his 15th birthday celebration as the teenage Ports fan cheered the club to a first-ever league title on that April afternoon.

“It has to go down as the best birthday ever,” said Hobson. “I lived just outside Portadown, close to the Richhill village, so my Mum would drop me off at Shamrock Park.

“I had always been a rugby man but started getting into football when I went to Clounagh Junior High School.

“That era was an amazing time to be a Ports fan and back then in school it seemed as if everyone was talking about Irish League football and the team.

“I remember thinking at the time over the first half we were not playing that well but everything changed when Gregg Davidson came on.

“I didn’t have a good view of the first goal within the Shed as the crowd went nuts.

“After the second I ended up down at least six rows of steps!

“When fans rushed on to the pitch after the final whistle I just stayed on the terraces watching the celebrations and taking it all in.

“Later my Dad would tell me how he saw his Uncle in tears, the town had waited so long for that first league win and it meant so much.

“The Richhill Reds Supporters’ Club had been going since the 1970s I think and you used to get buses going to games from all sorts of places around the town, even as far as Cookstown.

“When I came out of the ground and went to phone my Mum to get a lift home...there was a massive queue stretching back from the payphone!”

Alan Wright

Alan Wright has spent much of his life watching Portadown teams win, lose or draw games of football.

However, for the biggest single match in club history he spent the afternoon in his car sitting outside the ground with the windows rolled down and radio on.

The commentary from the stereo speakers and cheers from the crowd kept Wright aware of the history unfolding - history he had waited decades to witness.

Unfortunately, superstition prevented him from walking through a turnstile.

“I’d been going since I was a boy, including many of the big disappointments from the past that added to the fans’ desperation for that league,” he said. “But because I was self-employed at the time so many weekends had been taken up that season with work.

“My brother, Phil, had been on at me to go to the game with him but there was no way I was going to risk putting the scud on us.

“Growing up watching Portadown I had all sorts of superstitions about wearing the same clothes during a good run and things like that, it was the same when I would go to Liverpool games across England and Europe.

“I used to get so worked up about big games so once the final whistle confirmed we had won the league I basically collapsed in relief more than anything.

“I could hear the crowd celebrating from the ground but, as fantastic as I felt, I just was drained and ended up going home.

“But I’ve no regrets and over those next number of years in the 1990s the club would give us all so many memorable moments.

“It was a special group of players and people who formed a real bond with the fans.

“You felt they played for you out on that pitch and the sense of pride you had as a Portadown supporter was thanks to them.

“I was part of the Seagoe Reds Supporters’ Club and back in that period the fans’ groups would do so much to help out financially but everyone was in it together.”

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