This article covers the history of Derry City Football Club, from the club's early days in the Irish League, through the "wilderness years" and into the present day as the club competes in the League of Ireland. For season by season results see Seasons
Foundation and the attaining of senior status (1913–29) In 1913, eleven years after their creation, Derry Celtic were voted out of senior soccer in Ireland. This left the city of Derry without a senior team – a situation which was to last for some time. It was a period lengthened as a result of the First World War, the Easter Rising, and the partition of Ireland. The division of the country led to the creation of two football leagues when the clubs south of the border broke away from the Irish Football Association (IFA) and their Irish League to form the Football Association of the Irish Free State (FAIFS, later to become the FAI) and Free State League. With Derry being a part of Northern Ireland post-partition, any club in the city would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Irish Football Association. The people of Derry were irate that a city of its size did not have a senior team, especially when near-neighbours Coleraine, with only a quarter the population of Derry, had been elected to the Irish League in the mid-twenties.
In 1928, a group of football fans got together to rectify this situation and decided that the name of Derry Celtic would not satisfy their cross-community, non-sectarian requirements so they settled on the name Derry City. At the time, the dispute over the city's official name had not yet become as politicised as it would in later years. On 9 May 1928, Derry City affiliated to the North-West Football Association and, in a link with the past, Norman McClure son of a Derry Celtic director, was appointed the club's secretary. On 25 May 1928, William Arthur led a delegation to a meeting of the Irish Senior Leagues Committee (ISLC) to attempt to secure Derry's senior status.
Along with Crusaders F.C. and Brantwood F.C., Derry City's application was rejected. The Belfast clubs were not considered to be of senior quality, while Derry's application had been received two days after the deadline. The directors returned to Derry disappointed but determined. The next year saw them preparing for the inevitable move from amateur to senior status – their confidence buoyed by the fact that after they failed to apply by the requisite deadline, a motion at the ISLC to waive the deadline was only defeated by 17 votes to 15. The president of the IFA, Captain James Wilton, a Derry-man, announced on 30 May 1929 that he felt confident that Derry City would be admitted to the Irish League, which since 1922, had covered only Northern Ireland, the following night.
During the final of the local McAlinden Cup being played between Derry Celtic and Richmond in the Brandywell on Friday 31 May 1929, the announcement that Derry City had achieved senior status was greeted with a chorus of cheers and applause. Queen's Island were voted out at the expense of Derry. Joe McCleery, a native of the city, was enticed from his managerial post in Dundalk with Dundalk F.C. to become Derry's first manager and he quickly signed Fred Mason from his former club. The big Birmingham-born player settled well in the team and city, eventually establishing Mason's bar in Magazine Street after his playing career ended. Plans to purchase a pitch fell through due to the tight timescales and so the Londonderry Corporation was approached for the use of the Brandywell Stadium which had been used for football up until the end of the 19th century. This began an association between the club and the ground which has survived until the present day. The club are still operating under the constraints of the Honourable the Irish Society charter limitations which declare that the Brandywell must be available for the recreation of the community. In effect, the club do not have private ownership over the ground and, thus, cannot develop it by their own accord with that discretion left to the Derry City Council (formerly the Londonderry Corporation).
The early years in the Irish League (1929–49) On 22 August 1929, Derry City ran on to the Brandywell turf for the first time in claret and blue shirts with white shorts. McCleery's full-time professionals led Glentoran F.C. by a score of 1–0 at half-time with a goal from Peter Burke – a recent recruit from the Free State Army. The attendance of 7,500 saw a Derry team captained by Con Hilley lose that lead in the second half and leave the pitch without any points after Glentoran's second-half brace. Their trip to Portadown resulted in Derry's first hat-trick in senior football through Sammy Curran, but they still managed to lose 6–5 in an enthralling game. Their first point in senior football came soon after a 1–1 draw in the Brandywell against Ballymena F.C; and a crowd of 12,000 saw Derry get their first cup-game win when they beat the dominant Linfield F.C. side 3–1 in the Gold Cup. On 7 September the Brandywell club gained their first league victory with a 3–2 win over Newry Town at the home of the County Down club. It was not until 5 October 1929 that the Brandywell faithful witnessed Derry's first league victory on home turf when Derry beat Cliftonville F.C. 4–3. They ended the season in an admirable fifth place, and came third in the City Cup.
However, it was not an easy start for the Foylesiders and it certainly was not going to be an easy ride at any stage in the Irish League. The following year, McCleery signed Derry's first legend. Jimmy Kelly, born in Ballybofey, schooled in the Derry and District FA, and polished in the Anfield training grounds, returned to Derry and played his first game on 26 October 1930 against Linfield at Windsor Park. It took him four matches to get on the scoresheet. That goal against Glenavon F.C. was the first of 363 for Derry City in a career spanning almost 21 years. During that time he was capped by the IFA, the FAIFS, the Irish League and the League of Ireland. His arrival though did not inspire Derry who ended the 1930–31 league campaign in seventh place.
The next season saw a brief upturn in their fortunes, which could very well have been directly related to Derry's signing of the club's second superstar. E.D.R. Shearer pulled on the Derry shirt for the first time at the Coleraine Showgrounds in a career spanning eight seasons with the club. With three games of the 1931–32 season remaining, Derry were top of the table, level with Glentoran, but managed to lose all three games and ended up in fourth place. It was gutting to end the season in such a way, especially as they had scored 107 goals. Rumours of McCleery's demise began to circulate. In June 1932, McCleery was sacked despite the fact he had just had his most successful season at the helm. The directors also decided to introduce Derry's second strip at the end of the season – white shirts and black shorts.
A County Donegal man, Billy Gillespie, was given the nod as McCleery's replacement after 20 years playing at Sheffield United. Gillespie did not have a great start and could only help the club to another fourth-place finish in 1933. This was the second year in which ground purchase was mentioned. The board decided against buying Bond's Field in the Waterside as it was thought to be too far away from the fan base which had built up on the Cityside, especially in the Brandywell area. They had first option on Derry Celtic's old ground, Celtic Park, but hesitated on a final decision and the Gaelic Athletic Association bought it ten years later. They also decided not to purchase Meenan Park for £1,500. In 1934 the club came ninth and so the dismissal of McCleery was looking worse by the season.
Shortly before the 1934–35 season, the directors decided on another change of strip. They decided on the red and white striped shirts and black shorts of Sheffield United as a tribute to Billy Gillespie who, despite his less-than-impressive managerial performance, was still an extremely popular figure throughout Ireland and especially the north-western region, due to his international performances for the Irish football team. This was to be the jersey that was to become synonymous with Derry City for the next seventy years, the only break being a period of wearing gold and black in the late 1950s. It was in the "candy-striped" top that Derry lifted their first major trophy. Having won the North-West Senior Cup in 1931–32, 1932–33, and 1933–34, they went a step further and in front of 9,000 at Brandywell – Hugh Carlyle lifted the old Dunville trophy for Derry City as winners of the City Cup by a clear 5 points over 12 games. Derry were to repeat this feat in 1937 but it was not until 12 years later that they were to lift another major trophy, having also lost an Irish Cup final replay to Linfield in 1936.
By 1947–48, the directors were seriously considering Derry's future as the club had entered a demise in the previous decade and were no longer as feared as they once were. However, luckily, then-manager Willie Ross took advantage of having found a considerable sum of money to spend after the sale of players Eddie Crossan and John Feeney resulted in an annual profit of £2,000 – a figure most Irish clubs would have jumped at in the days of red bank balances. This enabled the club to carry on and keep astute on the transfer market.
In 1949 the club won the Irish Cup for the first time."The Great Cup Breakthrough ", CityWeb, 2007. Derry were reduced to 10 men in the final at Windsor Park on 16 April 1949 when Jimmy Kelly was stretchered off. After the opponents, Glentoran, went in front, Hugh Colvan and Matt Doherty put Derry ahead. The team doctor cured Kelly's concussion and the 10,000 Derry supporters roared him back on to the field of play 15 minutes after he had been carried off. Barney Cannon's goal seven minutes from time meant that the 27,000 in attendance saw the Irish Cup going to Derry for the first time.
The fair fifties and the swinging sixties (1949–65) A few years of failure resulted in apathy within the city and by the time another legendary figure in the form of a past Scottish-international was signed in January 1954, memories of the 1949 silverware had gone. Even in 1954 the club came third from bottom, although the signing of Jimmy Delaney, formerly of Celtic and Manchester United, did provide a shining light. Derry's club doctor, Desmond Sidebottom had heard he wanted to settle in Ireland so Derry pounced and secured one of the greatest players ever to play on Irish soil. That year Derry met Glentoran, who were favourites just as they had been in 1949, once again in the Irish Cup final. The first final ended in a 2–2 draw; the replay was a scoreless draw; and the second replay in front of a crowd of 28,000 saw Derry win 1–0 with a Con O'Neill strike from a Delaney assist. At the final whistle the players rushed to celebrate with Delaney but the Scot ran the length of the field to celebrate with and thank Charlie Heffron in the Derry goal who had thwarted Glentoran's attacks time and time again. Together, the three finals saw 93,000 attend – a figure unimaginable in today's domestic Irish soccer.