Now: History
Where did it all begin?
In 1989 McLaughlin's Irish Pub opened and about a year later a certain Cahill Murray from Elfin in County Roscommon in Ireland formed a football team.
At first the team only played friendlys and a certain Jamie Anderson put in a few guest appearances as he still played for a different team. In fact the first few matches were played in strips borrowed from his team so that games could be played. The team then joined an European Irish pub league. This meant travelling to foreign lands to places like Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and many other places for league matches.
After playing in the league for about two years the league folded and Cahill Murray decided to join the Betriebs Sport Gemeinschaft league in season 1993/1994, the league that we are in today. We had to start in the then 3rd division but we were soon promoted to the second division. The following season was when Jamie Anderson started playing regularly for Mc Laughlin's.
In the following session 1994/95 the team reached the final of the Düsseldorf cup. The game was well promoted and about 500 spectators turned up to cheer us on all be it in vain as the team lost heavily to Checkers Discotheque 7-0.
The Highs:
Another highlight was our trip to Berlin and a trip to Carrick on Shannon in Ireland. People still remember these trips very well and are proud to say "I was there ". We actually were promoted but at the end of the season many quality players left Düsseldorf and were replaced by a few players of shall we say lesser ability.
The Lows:
Nigel Reed, Gordon Buchanen, Hugh Burden, Alan Smith and a few others including myself can remember getting thumped many a time including a 17-0 defeat in the pouring rain with 8 players. During days like this we even considered pulling out of the League but some how we continued. At the end of that season 2000/2001we were relegated to the second division. Things didn't improve until the end of the next season when a few players started to arrive the core of today's team.
Players from the Past:
Players who made an impact in that team were certainly dentist Dave Hefforon, Dave Fraser, Mark "Swifty" Maloney, Finton the fullback and the infamous Jamie Anderson. Also a player named Alan Smith who seemed to be ancient in 1993 played for us at the time and stilled played shortly before his 49th birthday in 2003! For the record, the longest serving player is probably Gordon Buchanen .
Also never to be forgotten is a certain Jean Louis who will not be remembered for his playing skills but for the time he turned up with a sponsorship check from his company worth TWENTY THOUSAND DM!!!! We didn't have to collect any "subs" after that for a while and we also always seem to have the newest strips, balls etc. Three cheers for Jean Louis and if you ever read this the same again please :-).
Nobody ever knew what ever happened to him. Cahill Muray left Düsseldorf in 1998 and Jamie Anderson was asked to run the team. I accepted and I have been running things ever since. The team went along nicely usualy ending up just below the promotion places but we didn't do very well in the cup.
In season 97/98 things changed with the arrival of players such as Chris Hudson, Craig Blyth, Mad Alan Jones, Terry "the goalie" Kiely and not to forget "Never miss a penalty" Ray Judge. Jamie Anderson used to take the penaltys untill ray said "I"ll take the penalty" ray said. "Will you score?" Ray grinned and nodded. Besides being an exceptionally good player he never missed a penalty and I was degraded to taking the goalkicks. We were in the top league for the first time but we hardly had enough players and were often short in numbers. It was too Iate for promotion that year but we enjoyed success a year later and this season was our first season in the top league again.
We have had about 200 players over the years and have played in this league for some 10 years. I think we can call ourselves a successful team and a team with some future.
By Jamie Anderson
