| Full name | Harland & Wolff Welders Football Club | ||
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| Founded | 1965 | ||
| Ground | Tillysburn Park, Belfast (Capacity: 3,000) |
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| Chairman | Thomas Flynn | ||
| Manager | Paul Miskelly | ||
| 2010/11 | Joint 5th | ||
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Harland & Wolff Welders FC are an intermediate, Northern Irish football club playing in IFA Championship 1. The club, founded in 1965, hails from Belfast and plays its home matches at Tillysburn Park. The club was formed by the welders of the nearby Harland & Wolff shipyard.
Harland & Wolff Welders are rivals with Dundela F.C.. Wilger Park is only a ten minute drive to Tillysbun Park.
At present the Welders have a small clubroom/bar at their ground in Tillysburn Park, Holywood Road but also have a large social club at Dee Street, just off the Newtownards Road in Belfast.
Club colours are Yellow and Black to display the link with Harland & Wolff Shipyard & its Iconic Cranes. The 2011/12 Jersey is made by Vandanel Sportswear www.vandanel.co.uk and sponsored by Capital Hygiene. It is a retro design based on the clubs jersey from 1978/79.
Their new away kit for 2011/12 will be an Orange Jersey, White shorts & Orange Socks and is based on the Dutch national teams kit of 1974.
The Welders did wear this colour of Orange for a brief spell when sponsored by Cossack Vodka.
In Dec 2006, The Welders reached the final of the Steel & Sons cup for the first time in their 41 year history and played against Brantwood from the north of Belfast.
In 2010 the Welders reached the final of the Steel & Sons Cup once again and after the final was postponed until the 3rd of January 2011, They defeated Knockbreda FC 3-1 and after a long wait, finally brought the Steel & Sons Cup back to Dee Street and Tillysburn Park.
No-one was more overjoyed at this success than current & long serving club secretary Fred Magee who had finally seen his beloved club lift the one piece of silverware that had for so long escaped their clutches.
The Welders are a club steeped in family tradition, an example of this is Current goalkeeper, Michael Dougherty , a highly experienced Irish League Goalkeeper and who is the 3rd Generation of the Dougherty family to play for the club after his father Michael Senior & Grandfather Tucker.
The current manager of the club is Paul Miskelly, after the resignation of Colin Stanex in October 2011.
A Brief History of the club is below.
Formed in 1965 after a collection in the Welding Department of H & W's Musgrave Yard, it was agreed to enter a team into the Saturday Morning League. The first fixture in the league was against Primrose Star on Saturday 25 September 1965.
Progression was fairly swift and by 1967 we had secured our first trophy by winning the league title. Our main aim was to move to the Amateur League and a permanent ground was needed to enable this. This became our priority and no stone was left unturned in our quest for a new home.
The social side of things was moving on as well, and from that first meeting in the Vulcan Bar when ballots and sweeps were distributed to raise funds, we were actually planning to take over 13 Castlereagh Street as our first home. We remained there until we took up residence in our current home in Dee Street, which is now one of the biggest and best social clubs in Northern Ireland.
The word was spreading that this 'wee team' from East Belfast were making people sit up and take notice and we in turn were keen to progress to a higher level of football. This was being hampered by the ground problem, which was resolved by Brantwood allowing us to share Skegoneill Avenue.
We then entered the Amateur League and in our first season made a little piece of history by winning the Clarence Cup by beating league Kingpins Chimney Corner 2-1 in the final. In our Amateur League days we also won Division 2A in 68/69, Division 1A 78/79, plus reached three Cochrane Corry Cup Finals.
Intermediate football was our next goal and we achieved this in the mid 70's which allowed us to play in competitions like the Steel and Sons and Intermediate Cups. A pitch of our own was still a huge problem and for the next few years we continued to move around until we could find a permanent home. This came in the shape of two donations, one from the Managing Director of H & W, John Malabar and one from a Norwegian shipping company which allowed us to build a pitch at the Belfast Harbour Estate.
The emphasis was always on improving ourselves both on and off the pitch and although we settled in quickly it never felt that it was ours forever. The Parent Committee of the Club were engaged in seeking out a suitable plot of land for a permanent home and that actually became reality when we moved to Tillysburn Park in 1983, a date which coincided with our debut in the Irish league B Division.
We have gone from strength to strength at this level we have won the Intermediate Cup in 2003 and 2007, and the Smirnoff Cup on three occasions namely 1998, 2001 and 2002. We have also added Championship league and cup doubles back to back in 2009 and 2010 and gained promotion to the Ladbrookes Championship 1 in May 2010.
Fred Magee (Football Secretary)
League History
1983/84 to 1989/90
SEASON DIVISION POS TEAMS P W D L F A PTS 1983/84 'B' Division Section One 3 16 30 16 8 6 52 28 40 1984/95 'B' Division Section One 5 16 30 14 9 6 55 44 37 1985/86 'B' Division Section One 6 16 30 14 9 7 52 34 37 1986/87 'B' Division Section One 3 16 30 19 5 6 62 30 62 1987/88 'B' Division Section One 5 16 30 17 4 9 70 39 55 1988/89 'B' Division Section One 7 16 30 13 8 9 47 41 47 1989/90 'B' Division Section One 2 16 30 20 3 7 70 38 63
1990/91 to 1999/00
SEASON DIVISION POS TEAMS P W D L F A PTS 1990/91 'B' Division Section One 4 16 30 18 6 6 66 27 60 1991/92 'B' Division Section One 3 16 30 15 9 6 56 36 54 1992/93 'B' Division Section One 13 16 30 6 5 19 41 77 23 1993/94 'B' Division Section One 10 16 30 11 3 16 43 49 36 1994/95 'B' Division Section One 10 16 30 9 11 10 51 52 38 1995/96 'B' Division Section One 6 16 30 17 6 7 71 39 57 1996/97 'B' Division Section One 8 16 30 13 4 13 46 38 43 1997/98 'B' Division Section One 7 14 26 9 9 8 41 35 36 1998/99 'B' Division Section One 8 14 26 9 4 13 45 43 31 1999/00 Second Division 5 12 22 9 5 8 31 24 32
2000/01 to 2008/09
SEASON DIVISION POS TEAMS P W D L F A PTS 2000/01 Second Division 5 14 26 13 5 8 61 51 44 2001/02 Second Division 3 13 24 15 3 6 48 28 48 2002/03 Second Division 2 16 30 16 9 5 71 35 57 2003/04 Second Division 5 12 22 9 6 7 29 24 33 2004/05 First Division 4 12 22 10 6 6 35 29 36 2005/06 First Division 9 12 22 7 4 11 21 31 25 2006/07 First Division 7 12 22 8 3 11 30 36 27 2007/08 First Division 10 12 22 6 8 8 19 27 26 2008/09 Interim League 1 12 22 19 2 1 53 19 59 2009/10 Championship 2 1 15 28 23 2 3 73 30 71
Other Honours
Clarence Cup 68/69
Amateur League Div 1 78/79
Smirnoff Cup 97/98, 2000/01, 01/02
Intermediate Cup 02/03, 06/07
Interim League Cup 08/09
Interim League Championship 08/09
Championship 1 League Cup 09/10
Ladbrookes.com Championship 1 09/10
Steel and Sons Cup 10/11
Tillysburn Park is the home ground of Harland & Wolff Welders F.C.. The stadium holds 3,000. The ground recently just got a new seated stand build.
Won by Harland & Wolff Welders "A"
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