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Tag Archives: Irish Football Association


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Death of George Best, Northern Irish Footballer

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George Best, Northern Irish professional footballer, dies on November 25, 2005 due to complications from the immunosuppressive drugs he required following a 2002 liver transplant.

Best is born on May 22, 1946 and grows up in Cregagh, east Belfast. In 1957, he passes the eleven-plus and goes to Grosvenor High School, but he soon plays truant as the school specialises in rugby. He then moves to Lisnasharragh Secondary School, reuniting him with friends from primary school and allowing him to focus on football. He plays for Cregagh Boys Club. He grows up supporting Glentoran F.C. and Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C..

Best spends most of his club career at Manchester United. Named European Footballer of the Year in 1968, he is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. A highly skillful winger, considered by several pundits to be one of the greatest dribblers in the history of the sport, he receives plaudits for his playing style, which combines pace, skill, balance, feints, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to get past defenders.

In international football, Best is capped 37 times for Northern Ireland between 1964 and 1977. A combination of the team’s performance and his lack of fitness in 1982 means that he never plays in the finals of a major tournament. He considers his international career as being “recreational football,” with the expectations placed on a smaller nation in Northern Ireland being much less than with his club. He is regarded as one of the greatest players never to have played at a World Cup. The Irish Football Association describes him as the “greatest player to ever pull on the green shirt of Northern Ireland.”

With his good looks and playboy lifestyle, Best becomes one of the first media celebrity footballers, earning the nickname “El Beatle” in 1966, but his extravagant lifestyle leads to various personal problems, most notably alcoholism, which he suffers from for the rest of his life. These issues affect him on and off the field, often causing controversy. Although conscious of his problems, he is publicly not contrite about them. He says of his career, “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds [women] and fast cars – the rest I just squandered.” After football, Best spends some time as a football analyst, but his financial and health problems continue into his retirement.

Best is diagnosed with severe liver damage in March 2000. His liver is said to be functioning at only 20%. In 2001, he is admitted to hospital with pneumonia. In August 2002, he has a successful liver transplant at King’s College Hospital in London.

On October 3, 2005, Best is admitted to intensive care at the private Cromwell Hospital in London, suffering from a kidney infection caused by the side effects of immunosuppressive drugs used to prevent his body from rejecting his transplanted liver. In the early hours of November 25, 2005, treatment is stopped. Later that day he dies, aged 59, as a result of a lung infection and multiple organ failure. He is interred beside his mother in a private ceremony at Roselawn Cemetery, overlooking east Belfast.


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Founding of the Irish Football Association

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The Irish Football Association (IFA), the governing body for association football in Northern Ireland, is founded on November 18, 1880. It organises the Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, becomes the Northern Ireland national football team.

The IFA is founded by seven football clubs mostly in the Belfast area, as the organising body for the sport across all of Ireland. A meeting is called by Cliftonville F.C. of other football clubs that follow the rules set out by the Scottish Football Association (SFA). At that meeting at Queens Hotel, Belfast, the seven clubs form the IFA, making it the fourth oldest national football association in the world, after those of England, Scotland and Wales. The founding members are Alexander F.C., Avoniel F.C., Cliftonville F.C., Lisburn Distillery F.C., Knock F.C., Moyola Park F.C. and Oldpark F.C.

The IFA’s first decisions are to elect its first President, Major Spencer Chichester, and to form an annual challenge cup competition similar to the FA Cup and Scottish Cup competitions, called the Irish Cup. Two years later, Ireland plays its first international against England, losing 13–0, which remains a record for both teams, a record win for England and a record loss for Ireland.

Shortly after the partition of Ireland in 1921, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) is established as a rival association to regulate the game in what is to become the Irish Free State. The immediate cause of the split lay in a bitter dispute over the venue for the replay of an Irish Cup match in 1921 involving Glentoran F.C. of Belfast and Shelbourne F.C. of Dublin. When the first cup match is drawn in Belfast, because of the Irish War of Independence, the IFA reneges on a promise to play the replay in Dublin and schedules the rematch again for Belfast. Shelbourne refuses to comply and forfeits the Cup.

Such is the anger over the issue that the Leinster Football Association breaks away from the IFA and forms its own national association. Those behind the FAI believe that football should be regulated by a federation based in the Irish Free State’s capital, Dublin. They also accuse the IFA of neglecting the development of the game in the South. The IFA’s supporters argue that the federation should be based where the game is primarily played – namely Ulster, and its principal city Belfast.

Both associations claim to represent the whole of the island, each competing internationally under the name “Ireland” and selecting players from both the rival national leagues, which also split at this time. Interventions by FIFA give the FAI de jure organising rights over the 26 counties of the Republic, with the IFA restricted to Northern Ireland. From the 1950s onwards, the IFA no longer claims it is the association for the whole of Ireland.

In 1960, the association moves to its present location on Windsor Avenue in south Belfast, in a building once occupied by Thomas Andrews. The IFA continues to regulate the game in Northern Ireland, and all results obtained by the Irish national side and records in the Irish Football League and the cup competition stand as Northern Irish records.


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Ireland’s First Ever Win in International Soccer

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Ireland wins its first ever match in international soccer on February 19, 1887, beating Wales 4-1 in Belfast. Prior to 1921 and the partition of the country, all of Ireland is represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team, organised by the Irish Football Association (IFA).

On February 18, 1882, fifteen months after the founding of the Irish FA, Ireland makes its international debut against England, losing 13–0 in a friendly played at Bloomfield in Belfast. This remains the largest ever defeat for the team, and is also England’s largest winning margin.

Ireland competes in the inaugural British Home Championship in 1884 and loses all three games. Ireland finally wins its first game on February 19, 1887, with a 4–1 win over Wales in Belfast. Between their 1882 debut and this game, the Ireland team has a run of 14 defeats and 1 draw, the longest run without a win in the 1800s. Despite the end of the losing streak, heavy defeats continue. In March 1888 they lose 11–0 to Wales and 10–2 to Scotland. Further heavy defeats come in March 1890 when they lose 9–1 to England, in 1899 when they lose 13–2 to England, and in February 1901 when they lose 11–0 to Scotland.

Ireland is partitioned into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland in 1920. Southern Ireland gains independence in 1922 as the Irish Free State, later to become a republic under the name of Ireland. Amid these political upheavals, a rival football association, the Football Association of Ireland, emerges in Dublin in 1921 and organises a separate league and international team. In 1923, at a time when the home nations have withdrawn from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the FAI is recognised by FIFA as the governing body of the Irish Free State on the condition that it changes its name to the Football Association of the Irish Free State. The IFA continues to organise its national team on an all-Ireland basis.

Between 1928 and 1946 the IFA is not affiliated to FIFA and the two Ireland teams co-exist, never competing in the same competition. However, on March 8, 1950, in a 0–0 draw with Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham, North Wales in a World Cup qualifier, the IFA fields a team that includes four players who were born in the Irish Free State. All four players have previously played for the FAI in their qualifiers and as a result have played for two different associations in the same FIFA World Cup tournament.

After complaints from the FAI, FIFA intervenes and restricts players’ eligibility based on the political border. In 1953, FIFA rules that neither team can be referred to as Ireland, decreeing that the FAI team officially be designated as the Republic of Ireland, while the IFA team is to become Northern Ireland.