Cliftonville FC
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| Full name | Cliftonville Football & Athletic Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Reds |
| Founded | September 1879 |
| Ground | Solitude |
| Capacity | 3,200 |
| Chairman | Gerard Lawlor |
| Manager | Barry Gray |
| League | NIFL Premiership |
| 2016–17 | NIFL Premiership, 5th |
Cliftonville Football & Athletic Club (the Reds) is a Northern Irish semi-professional association football club playing in the NIFL Premiership. Founded on 20 September 1879 by John McCredy McAlery in the suburb of Cliftonville in north Belfast, it is the oldest football club in Ireland and celebrated its 130th anniversary in 2009. Since 1890, the club has played at Solitude. Cliftonville contests the North Belfast derby with nearest rivals Crusaders, and also has historical rivalries with Belfast's Big Two clubs, Glentoran and Linfield.
The club has won the Irish League championship four times outright and once shared, the Irish Cup eight times and the NI Football League Cup five times.
The foundation of Cliftonville F.C. was announced on 20 September 1879 in notices in the Belfast News-Letter and Northern Whig, which asked "gentlemen desirous of becoming members" of the "Cliftonville Association Football Club (Scottish Association Rules)" to communicate with J.M. McAlery, a young Belfast businessman and manager of the "Irish Tweed House", Royal Avenue, and later with premises in Rosemary Street, or R.M. Kennedy, and advertising an "opening practice today at 3.30".
Only one week after the advertisement was published, Cliftonville played its first recorded game at Cliftonville Cricket Ground against a selection of rugby players known as Quidnunces, the game took place on 29 September 1879. The newly formed club, however, was beaten 2–1. In its first match against the Scottish club Caledonians, it fared worse: a 1–9 defeat.
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