Limavady United Football Club is an intermediate,

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club playing in the NIFL Premier Intermediate League. The club comes from

Limavady Limavady (; ) is a market town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, with Binevenagh as a backdrop. Lying east of Derry and southwest of Coleraine, Limavady had a population of 12,032 people at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 Census ...

County Londonderry County Londonderry ( Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry ( ga, Contae Dhoire), is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty two counties of Ireland and one of the nine counties of Ulster. B ...

, and plays home matches at the Showgrounds. Club colours are royal blue shirts with white trim, blue socks and royal blue shorts. Away colours are all yellow. The current manager is Paul Owens.

History

There have been many football clubs in Limavady, dating back to 1880, when Alexander, a founding member of the

Irish Football Association The Irish Football Association (IFA) is the governing body for association football in Northern Ireland. It organised the Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became the Northern Ireland national football team. ...

was formed by the Alexander Cricket Club. Alexander merged with another local club, Wanderers, in 1884 to form

Limavady F.C. Limavady Football Club was an Irish football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most ...

. Club historian David Brewster, however, dates the current Limavady club's formation to 1955. After a long time as a junior team, the club joined the senior Irish Football League in 1997–98, and reached its first

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. Ina ...

semi-final in over a century in 2003–04. In 2008, the club lost its senior status when it failed to gain admission to the new

IFA Premiership The NIFL Premiership, known as the Danske Bank Premiership for sponsorship purposes, and colloquially as the Irish League or Irish Premiership, is a professional association football league which operates as the highest division of the Northe ...

. Since then, the club played in the

IFA Championship The Northern Ireland Football League Championship (known as the Lough 41 Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the second level of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national football league in Northern Ireland. Clubs in the Championshi ...

until relegation in May 2019. In April 2013, three players received suspensions after being found guilty of breaching IFA betting rules on one of the club's league matches. The club won the

NIFL Championship 2 The NIFL Premier Intermediate League is the third division of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national association football league in Northern Ireland, and the highest intermediate division in Northern Ireland, occupying level three in ...

in the 2015-2016 season but were denied promotion to

NIFL Championship 1 The Northern Ireland Football League Championship (known as the Lough 41 Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the second level of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national association football, football league in Northern Ireland. Cl ...

as they were unsuccessful in applying for a licence. However they were promoted as winners of the Premier Intermediate League in 2016-2017

Carlos Tevez loan

In September 2011, the club vice chairman David Brewster issued a fax to

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

, offering to take Argentinian International Carlos Tevez on loan after the player had refused to go on as a substitute in a

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

fixture. The club offer suggested that they would ensure Tevez stayed match fit and would avoid being cup tied, but asked that City continued to pay his reported £200,000 per week wages, a figure higher than Limavady's entire turnover for a year. The offer, although meant as tongue in cheek became global headline news with some news agencies believing the offer to be a serious one. The story gained the club brief worldwide recognition although Manchester City themselves did not respond.

Current squad

Honours

Senior honours

* County Londonderry Cup/North West Senior Cup: 6 **1993–94, 1998–99, 2003–04, 2005–06, 2015–16, 2018–19

Intermediate honours

* Irish League B Division: 2 **1983–84, 1992–93 *

: 1 **2015–16 * NIFL Premier Intermediate League: 1 **2016–17 * Irish Intermediate Cup: 3 **1973–74, 1995–96 , 2016–17 *

George Wilson Cup The George Wilson Memorial Cup is a competition open to the reserve football teams of member clubs of the NIFL Premiership. Initially it was open to all members of the B Division, both "attached and unattached" (i.e. reserve sides and independen ...

: 1 **1975–76 *

Craig Memorial Cup The Craig Memorial Cup, also known as the William Craig Memorial Cup is an intermediate football competition in Northern Ireland run by the North West of Ireland Football Association. The competition culminates in the final which has traditionall ...

: 9 ** 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 2008–09, 2010–11, 2012–13, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17 * B Division Knock-out Cup: 2 **1992–93, 1995–96

Junior honours

*Irish Junior Cup: 1 **1963–64 * North West City Cup: 2 **1960–61, 1966–67 *North West Junior League: 1 **1968–69

External links

Official Website

References

{{NIFL league Association football clubs established in 1955 Association football clubs in Northern Ireland Limavady Association football clubs in County Londonderry 1955 establishments in Ireland NIFL Championship clubs