Football Under the Floodlights

Details

Location

Distillery Street, Grosvenor Park, West Belfast

Year

1952

Date

30 December 1952 (of event)

Length

14min 36sec

Audio

silent

Format

16mm

black and white

Source

Courtesy

National Museums NI, Tourism NI

Rights Holder

Tourism NI

It is illegal to download, copy, print or otherwise utilise in any other form this material, without written consent from the copyright holder.

Description

Historic footage of two prestige friendlies. First, on 30 December 1952, at Distillery’s Grosvenor Park ground, the first full match played under floodlights, anywhere in Ireland, took place. The home side’s opposition were English team Burnley, then challenging for the English First Division Championship.

Also featured here is Distillery’s third ‘Floodlight Friendly’, on 29 January 1953, against English League Division 2 side, Blackburn Rovers.

This film was digitised as part of the BFI's Unlocking Film Heritage project.
 

Notes

12,000 attended the Burnley game, paying between 2s and 12s 6d to witness this momentous event. This revenue helped to pay the £750 that it cost to bring Burnley over. Burnley, who had no game the previous Saturday, brought their full League side, including Internationals Jimmy McIlroy (Northern Ireland) and Billy Elliott (England). Burnley triumphed 3-2. By the end of the game, both players and spectators were suffering the effects of the floodlight glare. The match against Blackburn would also end in a Distillery loss, the visitors winning 5-1. This historic footage is courtesy of the National Museums Northern Ireland collection and was digitised as part of the BFI's Unlocking Film Heritage Project . 

Credits

Research provided by Dawson Simpson, Historian for Lisburn Distillery F.C.

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