Oldpark Football Club is an Irish former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club from north

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

History

The club was founded in 1880 by members of the Oldpark Cricket Club. It was subsequently 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 (1882–1950), Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became t ...

in 1880 and the

Irish Football League Irish commonly refers to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the island and the sovereign state *** Erse (disambiguati ...

1890 Events January * January 1 – The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony in the Horn of Africa. * January 2 – Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House. * January 11 – 1890 British Ultimatum: The Uni ...

. The club's greatest honour was winning the

Belfast Charity Cup The Belfast Charity Cup was a football competition which ran from 1883 to 1941, and was based on a similar tournament in Scotland, the Glasgow Merchants Charity Cup. The competition was open to senior sides from Belfast and invited intermediate te ...

in 1884–85, beating

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of Margate in the Thanet District, Thanet district of Kent, England. It includes the Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay estate, built in the 1930s with wide avenues and detached and semi-detached houses with driveways, gar ...

1–0 in the final; the winning goal came early in the match, and was somewhat controversial, the umpires disagreeing whether the ball had crossed the line before goalkeeper Johns cleared it, but the referee deciding it had, "to the surprise and delight of the spectators". It was also runner-up in the

County Antrim Shield The County Antrim & District Football Association Senior Shield (more commonly known as the County Antrim Shield) is a football competition in Northern Ireland. The competition is open to senior teams who are members of the North East Ulster F ...

in 1890–91, losing 4–2 to the

Black Watch The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The regiment was created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881, when the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment ...

. The club's

1891–92 Irish League The 1891–92 Irish League was the 2nd edition of the Irish League, the highest level of league competition in Irish football. The league comprised ten teams, expanding from eight in the previous season. Linfield won the championship for the se ...

season was a disaster, with only 2 wins in 14 matches, and, with the League cutting down on membership, was inevitably going to be voted out; instead therefore of playing the similarly-doomed Ligoniel in a meaningless end-of-season league match, Oldpark instead visited

Distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

for a more lucrative friendly, lost 5–1, and folded.

Colours

The club originally wore maroon, but resolved "unanimously" in September 1884 to change to royal blue and white.

Ground

The club's ground was simply known as the Oldpark ground; it was probably the cricket ground near Cliftonville's Solitude.

Notable players

Two Oldpark players earned national caps; "Cutter" Johnson and Robert Muir, who each collected two caps, in the same two matches, against Wales and Scotland in the 1885

Home International Championship The British Home Championship (historically known as the British International Championship or simply the International Championship) was an annual football competition contested between the United Kingdom's four national teams: England, Scotlan ...

Honours

Senior honours

: 1 ** 1884–85

References

Association football clubs established in 1880 Association football clubs disestablished in 1892 Defunct association football clubs in Northern Ireland Defunct Irish Football League clubs Association football clubs in Belfast 1880 establishments in Ireland 1892 disestablishments in Ireland Former senior Irish Football League clubs Founding members of the Irish Football Association {{NorthernIreland-footyclub-stub