Sinn Fein's own goal in political football

There's always a wag. The ball skidded out near the Donegal Celtic and Park FC dugouts in Derry on Tuesday night. Celtic claimed the throw-in, Park, from Claudy in Co Derry, got it. The Celtic players unsuccessfully protested. Then came a shout from the Park supporters' group: "Look, if you want to make a complaint, make it to the RUC."

Guffaws from the Park crowd. Wry smiles from the Donegal Celtic people, who took the crack well. But for the west Belfast club there's no getting away from the RUC or republicanism. They're caught in the middle of a struggle that has everything to do with politics and little to do with sport. There's little humour and maybe little future in the whole business.

It's been a bad few weeks for the Belfast club. Players have faced what most reasonable people would accept as intimidation and boycotts, as well as potential community ostracisation.

At least they had some good news in Derry on Tuesday night. They won 4-3 in the last seconds of added time.

Sinn Fein might view it differently, but neither has it been a good period for the republican movement. Nobody likes bully boys. Sinn Fein describes the claims of intimidation as "nonsense" but reliable sources say these are the tactics which republicans used to force Donegal Celtic to withdraw from their game against the RUC. Republicans may have over-played their hand.

Towards the end of October Donegal Celtic were drawn against the RUC in the semi-final of the Steel and Son cup, the final to be played on Christmas morning. It's one of the big days in junior soccer. Shortly afterwards manager Paddy Kelly gathered players and mentors about to hear their views.

All favoured the game going ahead, although they would have been conscious that it might arouse some controversy. Two years ago Donegal Celtic had to withdraw from another game against the RUC. This time though, according to club secretary Brian McCartney, the Belfast Agreement was in place and there "was a new atmosphere".

One of the Celtic players, whose father was murdered by an RUC officer who ran amok in the Sinn Fein press office, killing three people some years ago, also favoured playing. Preparations began in earnest for the club's biggest game of the season. But one week later two players from the panel of 20 first-team members said they would not be available. This was as the republican machine was getting into gear.

Sinn Fein expressed its opposition to the game, and Relatives for Justice, which has had family members killed by the RUC and British army, directly appealed to the club to pull out.

Club members, in press interviews, said they wanted the game to go ahead, but the pressure continued to rise.

On Sunday week last the club, seeking to take the focus away from the players, held an extraordinary general meeting at which 108 voted for the game proceeding and 70 voted against. This was after Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams said it was for the club to take its own decision. He also added: "No nationalist, indeed no democrat, should have anything to do with the RUC."

The issue had divided the club and the community. Indeed, Mr McCartney, a 53-year-old father of seven, said it caused some division in his own family. But he felt a democratic decision had been taken.

"I got one of them questionnaires into my home recently asking if the RUC had ever done this, that or the other. And I was ticking yes to every one of them. The RUC in the past have battered down my front door. They've knocked my child off his trike and deliberately driven over it.

"There were plenty of incidents like that over the years of the Troubles, but when the Good Friday Agreement was signed I thought everything had changed. There should be changes made to the RUC to make them more acceptable, but it would be a very poor area that did not have a police force," said Mr McCartney.

But that wasn't the end of it. Some of the players were visited by republicans who offered them an "analysis" of the situation, according to reliable sources. In one case a player was visited three times at his workplace.

One source said: "Nobody was threatened with being knee-capped or anything like that. But the analysis went like this: players were told that if they went into a local bar republicans couldn't guarantee their safety if somebody attacked them, that they couldn't `mind them' all the time.

"They were told the safety of their families couldn't be guaranteed, that `you never know, somebody might vandalise your car', that sort of thing. There was also talk of the club going up in flames. Well if that isn't intimidation, what is?"

This is what the Donegal Celtic players and supporters reflected upon as they travelled to Derry on Tuesday for the final of the Intermediate League Cup. There was some consolation for the team in that Celtic, or DC as they are known in west Belfast, despite the Park taunts, had the last laugh on Tuesday night, winning with a last-minute headed goal from striker Gerard "Jap" Topping.

After receiving the silverware, team captain Joe Donnolly said: "I was going to lift the Steel and Son cup, but this will do." That's the trophy Celtic really wanted.

Success in that prestigious junior tournament could have opened the door for Donegal Celtic moving up the divisions, ultimately maybe even entering the premier division of the Irish League, their chief ambition. They're an attractive team.

They also have an opportunity to win substantial lottery funding for a new stand and other facilities. Looking rather enviously at the new stand at the Institute ground on Tuesday night, Mr McCartney said: "That's what we want, what we could have."

Donegal Celtic would like to put the RUC controversy behind them. "It's really unfortunate that we couldn't play the match. But it's over and done with now. We are just glad to be back playing football," said Joe Donnolly.

"That's all we're here for, to play football. We don't want to get involved in anything else. We want to get into the B Division. All the boys know we are good enough to be there, and should be there. Hopefully, in time we will be there," he added. But the RUC are in the B Division.

This controversy isn't over and done with. How can it be when, in many tournaments in which Donegal Celtic compete, they are very likely again to come up against the RUC? Rather than a future, the Irish Football Association, because of DC's inability to guarantee fulfilling all fixtures, could throw the club out of junior competitions.

The divisions and tensions caused by this controversy are perhaps best exemplified by the editorial lines of the two main nationalist papers based in Belfast.

Robin Livingstone, editor of the weekly Andersonstown News, whose 14-year-old sister Julie died when hit by an RUC plastic bullet in 1981, wrote a tough editorial in last week's edition, published at a time when the game was to go ahead.

It said Donegal Celtic had "ineptly and clumsily allowed a position to develop wherein it was seen to be taking sides against a very significant proportion of the community from which it draws its support". It accused the club of estranging itself from that community and of snubbing the Andersonstown News, "which was ill advised in the extreme".

It also accused a "small minority" of club members of attempting to "denigrate and humiliate" members of the Relatives for Justice group who had urged Donegal Celtic to withdraw. "The club has dealt with the issue badly from day one and things have not improved in recent days," the editorial added.

The lead story in that edition of the paper carried a report of a looming boycott against Celtic, which Mr McCartney confirmed. "Local clubs said they would stop playing in darts, pool and snooker tournaments with us."

The daily Irish News, on the other hand, advocated from the outset that the game should go on. After Celtic finally withdrew from the game last Friday it carried an editorial criticising Sinn Fein and saying that "republicans are wrong to force a vulnerable football club to take up cudgels against the RUC on their behalf".

It caustically added: "It is remarkable that Sinn Fein should take exception to this fixture while its politicians are waltzing around the corridors of power at Stormont, sipping tea with the British Prime Minister in Downing Street, and working hand-in-hand with those who, in other times, provided the support structures for the British government in Ireland."

The Irish News opened a phone-in comment line on the issue and, according to deputy editor Noel Doran, callers - the majority of them from west Belfast - by a ratio of 4:1 wanted the game played. Many accused Sinn Fein of scoring an own goal.

One caller reflected the dominant opinion: "The RUC is a sectarian body that needs change, but we now have a climate of change . . . The Provos killed, maimed and ruined the lives of more nationalist people than the RUC ever did . . . we should be trying to go on, not backwards."

Paddy Kelly, the DC manager, who had some success with Leicester in his late teens and early 20s, is committed to the club to the end of the season, and hopefully beyond. The players have also pledged to remain until the season is out. But what happens thereafter?

"If we can't guarantee top-level competitions for our best players then those players eventually could move elsewhere," he explained. That, he fears, could threaten the whole future of the club, which caters for under-10 through to senior level.