Supporters
By Irish standards, Derry City have a relatively large and loyal fan-base. The club was considered among the strongest and best-supported teams in the Irish League, and upon the club's entry into the League of Ireland in 1985, crowds of nearly 10,000 attended to the Brandywell for the return of matches. Derry's average home attendance of 3,127 was the highest of any team for the 2006 season. The highest attendance was the last-night-of-the-season meeting between Derry and Cork City at the Brandywell on Friday 17 November when 6,080 watched Derry win 1–0. Domestically, Derry's supporters travel to away games in "bus-loads". They gave large support in the club's 2006 UEFA Cup run – around 3,000 travelled to Motherwell and "maintained a wall of sound" as Derry beat Gretna 5–1 at Fir Park, and "some 3,000" went to Paris to see Derry play Paris Saint-Germain in the Parc des Princes. During the home legs, ticketless fans desperate to see the games watched from a distance while standing on the high vantage point overlooking the Brandywell offered by the City Cemetery in Creggan and parked hired double-decker buses outside the stadium to help them see over the ground's perimeter.
The club is known for its community spirit, and the supporters have played a pivotal role in the survival and successes of the club. When debts brought Derry close to extinction in the 2000–01 season, the local community responded en masse to help save the club. During the club's successful 2006 season, club captain, Peter Hutton said:
Nobody owns Derry City F.C. apart from the people of Derry. Five or six years ago the club was on its knees, on the verge of going out of business. There was no sugar-daddy, no millionaire, no Roman Abramovich to save the club. It was the people and the city who saved the club. People, fans, ordinary people; they went out and banged on doors to collect money, they went around pubs with collection buckets, they did what they could to keep the club alive. Derry is a close-knit place, a small community, they care about their club and that's why we still have a club. And every bit of success we may get this season is down to them.
Likewise, former Social Democratic and Labour Party leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume MLA MP MEP, who is the club's current president, stated in 1998 of the club's relationship with the community:
Derry City F.C. has been the linchpin in the life of the community in Derry since its foundation in 1928. Throughout the club's history, the Candystripes have provided a sporting outlet for young people and older supporters alike. The history of the club is intertwined with that of its city. It has seen struggle and marginalisation turn to renewal and success. The pride people have in this club reflects the pride we hold in our city. Derry City players and supporters alike are superb ambassadors for the city. Today, the club, like the city, looks to the future with great hope. For all its successes, Derry City would be nothing without the people of the city.
Support for the club is quite dependent on geography and crosses social boundaries. Fans come from both working class areas, such as the Brandywell area and Bogside, and more affluent regions of the city, like Culmore. The Cityside is seen as the traditional base of the club, especially the Brandywell area, although the Waterside is also home to a smaller number of supporters. The club are supported mainly by Derry's nationalist community. The connection is argued to be rooted mainly in geography, as well as social, cultural and historical circumstances, as opposed to the club or its fans pushing towards the creation of a certain identity. The club has a small minority of supporters of a Protestant upbringing. The city's Protestant community is largely apathetic, though some unionists and loyalists see the club as a symbol of Catholicism and nationalism as a result of the sectarian divide in support. Joining the Republic of Ireland's league augmented the perception and, on occasion, Protestant hooligans have thrown missiles at Derry's supporter buses as they journeyed to or returned from games across the border. Minor nationalist elements within the Derry City support-base see football as a means of reinforcing sectarian divides.
With the city being a focal point of culture and activity serving the north-west region of Ireland, support stretches beyond the urban border and into the surrounding county; Limavady, Strabane in nearby County Tyrone and areas of bordering County Donegal contain support. The club has numerous supporter clubs, along with ultra fans, and support beyond Ireland – mainly emigrated city natives. Derry City Chat is a discussion website run by fans. Derry's fans share a rivalry with the supporters of Finn Harps and sing the Undertones' Teenage Kicks as a terrace anthem.
Read more about this topic: Derry City F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)