Linfield F.C.

For the women's team, see Linfield F.C. Women.

Linfield
Full nameLinfield Football Club[1]
Nickname(s)The Blues
FoundedMarch 1886; 138 years ago (1886-03)
(as Linfield Athletic Club)[1]
GroundWindsor Park
Capacity18,434[2]
ChairmanRoy McGivern
ManagerDavid Healy
LeagueNIFL Premiership
2023–24NIFL Premiership, 2nd of 12
Websitehttps://www.linfieldfc.com
Current season

Linfield Football Club is a Northern Irish professional football club, based in south Belfast, which plays in the NIFL Premiership – the highest level of the Northern Ireland Football League. The fourth-oldest club on the island of Ireland, Linfield was founded in 1886 by workers at the Ulster Spinning Company's Linfield Mill.[3] Since 1905, the club's home ground has been Windsor Park,[1] which is also the home of the Northern Ireland national team and is the largest football stadium in Northern Ireland. They train at Midgley Park which is beside the stadium. The club's badge displays Windsor Castle, in reference to the ground's namesake.[4]

Historically, Linfield shared a fierce rivalry with Belfast Celtic until Celtic's withdrawal from the league for political reasons in 1949. Since that time the club's main rival has been Glentoran, with the duo known locally as the Big Two. This rivalry traditionally includes a league derby played on Boxing Day each year, which usually attracts Northern Ireland's highest domestic attendance of the season, excluding cup finals. For the 2021–22 season, Linfield's average league home attendance was approximately 2,900, the highest in the division and more than double the league's overall average of around 1,400.[5] The team, nicknamed The Blues, is managed by former Northern Ireland international and the country's all-time record goalscorer, David Healy. Healy was appointed on 14 October 2015 to succeed Warren Feeney,[6] following Feeney's resignation.[7]

Domestically, Linfield has been one of the most successful clubs in the world, holding several national and global records. The club has won 56 league titles, which is more than twice than any other Northern Irish club, and makes Linfield the world's most successful club in terms of national championships won.[8] The club has lifted the Irish Cup 44 times, the second-highest number of national cup wins worldwide. It has also won the League Cup a record twelve times, as well as four all-Ireland cup competitions, among other domestic cups, taking its trophy count to well over 115. In the 1921–22 season, Linfield completed an unprecedented clean sweep of all seven available trophies (Septuple) – to date, this is the only recorded instance of a seven-trophy season being achieved in world football.[9][n 1] In the modern era, the club won all four available domestic trophies in 2006 to complete a domestic quadruple, and has also won three domestic trebles. The club also holds the world record for the most domestic doubles, with 25.[10] Linfield is one of only three clubs to have completed an Irish League campaign unbeaten, having done so on four occasions.

The club was one of the eight founding members of the Irish League in 1890, won the inaugural league title, and is one of only three clubs to have gone on to compete in every season of the Irish League's top division since; a joint world record for the longest continuous membership of a national league's top division. In European football, the club's best finish is the quarter-finals of the 1966–67 European Cup.

  1. ^ a b c "Club History". linfieldfc.com. Archived from the original on 25 December 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  2. ^ "NIFL Premiership Football Grounds In Northern Ireland". footballgroundmap.com. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  3. ^ Garnham, Neal (2004). Association football and society in pre-partition Ireland. Ulster Historical Foundation. p. 47.
  4. ^ Bairner, Alan (2004). Sport and the Irish. Dublin: University College Press. p. 199. ISBN 9781910820933. Archived from the original on 25 April 2022. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  5. ^ "2021–22 NIFL Premiership results". Northern Ireland Football League. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
  6. ^ "David Healy appointed as new Linfield manager". BBC Sport. 14 October 2015. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
  7. ^ "Warren Feeney quits Linfield to become Newport assistant boss". BBC Sport. 7 October 2015. Archived from the original on 7 October 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  8. ^ Trivia on Winning Domestic Championships: Total Number of Championships. RSSSF.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference seventrophies was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Doing the Double!". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Archived from the original on 26 November 2015. Retrieved 3 April 2014.


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