The Wilderness Years (Derry City F.C.)

The "wilderness years" was a period of time between 1972 and 1985 when the city of Derry, Northern Ireland was without a senior footballing side participating in a senior national league.

Derry City F.C., the city's primary club since it was founded in 1928 and accepted into the Irish League in 1929, became victim to the 'Troubles' in the early 1970s when the police and the Irish Football League banned the use of their ground, the Brandywell near the notoriously volatile Bogside area, for security reasons. The club was forced into travelling an unsustainable journey to Coleraine to play their home games each week. The ground-ban continued despite police forces eventually ruling the area safe enough to visit for opposing team's fans. Derry was eventually voted out of the Irish League by what it perceived to have been a sectarian vendetta against a club based in a staunchly republican area in a mainly nationalist-Catholic city by a body which was traditionally seen as the footballing branch of unionism. Football supporters in the city often referred (and still do refer) to the period as the "wilderness years".^[1]

The club survived as a junior team contesting in the local leagues on a weekend morning basis until 1985 when it applied for entry into the newly formed First Division of the Republic of Ireland's League of Ireland. The application was accepted and the club, despite being from Northern Ireland, continued to play in the Republic's league structure until it folded in late 2009, shortly after being expelled from the League of Ireland for financial irregularities. Following a newly founded holding company taking hold of the rights of Derry City, the club were admitted into the First Division the next season, which they won at the first attempt.

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