A distillery product with a KICK!

Whiskey distilleries produce whiskey; that is usually the product they will be known for. When a distillery closes and distilling comes to a halt, the remaining maturing stocks of whiskey will keep its name alive for a number of decades and when all its whiskey is bottled, sold, and drunk, and its buildings demolished, a distillery only lives on in people's memories, a paragraph or two in a book on whiskey history and maybe a collector's bottle or a piece of merchandise.

In 1869, Dunville & Co., a firm of Belfast blenders, established the Royal Irish distillery near Grosvenor Road, in the outskirts of Belfast. Operations, on a scale not seen in Belfast before, began a year later. By producing pot still, malt and grain whiskey in its distillery, the company was soon completely self-sufficient and Dunville's whiskey obtained first gold medals at a range of exhibitions. Despite its initial success, the distillery could not avoid being dragged down in the general collapse of the Irish whiskey industry and basically closed in the late 1930s; a brief bout of distilling in the early 1950s led to the handful of bottles of Royal Irish whiskey still around. Although the main buildings survived until the 1980s, the Royal Irish distillery would have gone the way of many closed distilleries had it not spawned something that keeps its name very much alive beyond the last drop of its whiskey: a football club!

            The story of a unique chapter in Ireland's whiskey heritage begins with Robert Baxter. Baxter moved from Banbridge to Belfast's Grosvenor Street in 1878. A keen cricketer, he became friendly with some of the employees of the nearby Royal Irish distillery and in the summer of 1879 they formed the V.R. Distillery Cricket Club under his captaincy. By the end of 1880, the members of the cricket club decided to form a football club in order to stay active during the winter months: Distillery Football Club was born and held its first practice session on November 20 1880. No photo of the founding members is known to have survived; the oldest surviving photo shows the team of the 1883/4 season.

The directors of Dunville's, especially James Barr, took great interest in the club from the start. They agreed to fill in a waste pond at the back of the distillery to make a ground for the team. The ground, Daisy Hill, was elevated several feet above sea level. Because it was filled in, it was soon known in the community under several nicknames such as 'Cinder Park' and 'Coke Yard'. On December 11, Distillery FC played its first match there against Dundela, winning 1-0.

When Alfred Barnard visited the distillery in the mid 1880s, he described almost every nut and bolt of the distillery in his usual methodic way, but made no mention whatsoever of its football club. Barnard did not slip up and overlook something as large and obvious as a football ground: during the 1882-3 season the team had moved from Daisy Hill to a larger ground at Broadway. A few years after Barnard's visit, James Barr paid for the move of the club (including a new pavillion and changing facilities) from Broadway to Grosvenor Park, close to Daisy Hill. On an undated advertising poster for the company, the football ground is (barely) visible behind the distillery buildings. In 1923 Distillery FC moved to York Park as Dunvilles decided to sell the Grosvenor Park ground. However in 1929 the firm agreed to re-lease the ground back to Distillery FC in a generous gesture as the club's premises in York Park had been blown down in a gale and a deputation had asked for help. Further testament to the close link between the distillery and the club, another of Dunville's directors, Robert Grimshaw Dunville, donated a cup to the Irish Football Association in 1894 to be competed for by the major teams. Originally called the Dunville's Cup, this cup was later renamed the City Cup. Ironically, it wasn't until 1905 that Distillery FC would win its 'own' City Cup.

From winning their first piece of silverware, the Irish Cup, by beating Wellington Park 5-0 in April 1884, Distillery Football Club grew into a major football force in Ireland in the late 19^th and the earlier part of the 20^th century; a look at their trophy cabinet at the end of this article, full of domestic silverware, is a testament to this. Their first foreign foray was to Scotland in December 1884 and ended in a 0-4 defeat to Harp of Dundee. Five years later, they became the first Irish club ever to win a foreign match away from home: a 2-1 win over the English club Newton Heath which, incidentally, is now known as Manchester United. The club's finest hour in European competitions was undoubtedly the 3-3 draw at home in 1963 against the Portuguese club Benfica, certainly in those days among the strongest European club teams. Former England International Tom Finney came out of retirement to play for Distillery FC - it was the only time that he played in the European Cup in his illustrious career.

            Distillery FC suffered during the 'Troubles'. In 1971, a firebomb attack caused Grosvenor Park to burn down and the club was forced to vacate the grounds it had called home for most of its existence. Not only did the fire eliminate the grounds, it also destroyed most of the club's records. After sharing grounds with a number of clubs for almost a decade, Distillery FC found a new home ground at Lisburn's Ballyskeagh Road in 1980. To symbolise the club's rising from the flames, a new badge was designed featuring a phoenix on a football. This badge replaced the original simple white 'DFC' shield.

 In 1995, Distillery FC was relegated to the newly-formed First Division. In 1999 they won the First Division Championship and with it promotion back to the Premier League. Later that year, the club's name was officially changed to Lisburn Distillery and the 'rising phoenix' badge replaced with one incorporating Lisburn's coat of arms. Unfortunately, relegation back to the First Division followed the year after. Under the management of Paul Kirk and with top-scorers (at the time of writing) Kevin Bates and Darren Armour, the fight is on to regain a place in the Premier League.

In a curious sort of way, Distillery FC leaves traces of whiskey in its wake. The club's first foreign scalp, Manchester United, now has its own brand of blended Scotch. Another British premiership club with its own whiskey brand (a blended Irish and a blended Scotch) is Glasgow's Celtic FC. The link with Distillery FC in this case is Celtic's present manager, Martin O'Neill, who is a former Distillery FC player. He helped Distillery FC win the Irish Cup in 1971 and set up a European Cup Winners Cup clash with the Spanish club Barcelona that same season.

Distillery FC's trophy cabinet

© 2001 Alex Kraaijeveld & Dawson Simpson