Traditions of Derry City F.C. - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Derry City have made numerous appearances in popular and general culture. In the world of music, the club was given exposure by Derry punk band, The Undertones, who had the cover of their 1980 hit single, My Perfect Cousin, feature a Subbuteo figure sporting the colours of Derry City. The song's video saw the group's front-man, Feargal Sharkey, kick and leap to head a ball while wearing the red and white jersey. Similarly, on the cover of their second ever single, Get Over You, the words "Derry City F.C." can be seen.

The club has also featured on popular television. Because they are a club based in Northern Ireland playing in the league of the Republic of Ireland they often receive the attention of broadcasters in both jurisdictions. A bizarre own-goal, in which the opposition goal-keeper was lobbed from outside the box by a player from his own team, scored by Finn Harps' Terry Leake for Derry City during a 1989–90 season Brandywell-meeting once appeared on the "What happened next?" round of the BBC's A Question of Sport. Furthermore, in the BBC documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? shown the night before Derry's clash with Paris St. Germain in the 2006–07 UEFA Cup's First Round, it was highlighted that Archie McLeod, the grandfather of David Tennant, the tenth Doctor Who, was a Derry City player. Derry had supplied a lucrative signing-on fee and had enticed him over from the highlands of Scotland. Likewise, features about the club were run by Football Focus prior to and after the same UEFA Cup game. Irish television has also featured the club. Derry City played in the first League of Ireland match ever to be shown live on television when they visited Tolka Park to play Shelbourne during the 1996–97 season. The game was broadcast on RTÉ's Network 2 and finished 1–1 with Gary Beckett scoring for Derry. In addition, during an 8 January 2007 episode of RTÉ's The Panel, Irish comedian, Karl Spain, was seen drinking from a mug displaying the crest of Derry City. Although Spain himself is not known to be a fan of Derry, one of the shows producers, Seamus Cassidy from Derry, is. During the next show one week later, fellow comedian, Dara Ó Briain, was also seen drinking from the mug. On 22 January 2007 the mug was seen in the hands of a third panellist, Irish television and radio personality, Ray D'Arcy.

Another medium to play host to the club has been the radio. On 20 April 2005, Derry City featured in an audio documentary The Blues and the Candy Stripes on RTÉ Radio 1's Documentary on One. The documentary was produced in the aftermath of the historic friendly game between Derry and Linfield that took place on 22 February 2005 — the first between the two teams to occur since a game on 25 January 1969 during which Linfield's fans had to be evacuated from the Brandywell by police at half-time due to civil unrest and ugly scenes within the ground. The 2005 match was organised as somewhat of a security test in the run-up to the likely possibility that both teams, with socially polar fan-bases, would qualify for and be drawn against one another in a near-future Setanta Cup competition.

Moreover, the club has appeared in a joke perpetrated by local printed press outlet, the Derry Journal, who once reported that Gary Lineker had signed for Derry. However, the date of the publication was 1 April, and the story was an April Fools' prank.