22 August 2002

More on Lennon..

We have the first rash of post-mortems on the LVF death threat against the Northern Ireland captain. Henry Winter says:

"Neil Lennon, one of life's decent citizens, a man who lives for football, family and friends, walked away from the Northern Ireland dressing-room after receiving sectarian death threats. Few would question his sanity if he walked away from the Northern Ireland team for good."

Michael Walker sees an historic precedent, in an excellent and committed piece of writing:

"...Windsor Park has not got a history to boast about. The greatest Irish club side ever, Belfast Celtic (perceived as catholic, although members of my own protestant family played for them), met its demise there in 1948. The centre-forward Jimmy Jones (protestant) was dragged into the paddock where I was to stand innocently decades later and had his leg broken by angry Linfield (protestant) fans.

"Basically they tried to kill Jones, a man from Lurgan, Lennon's town. They failed in that but they got the next best thing, Belfast Celtic. The sons and daughters of that mob will have grown up inheriting hatred of all things Celtic as a result."

Action was taken by the authorities against Belfast Celtic which led to their departure from the Irish League for the last time.

And Rosie Cowan reports on a sports club which has lost 5 members in the last twenty years.

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