Larne F.C.

The club was founded in 1889 after Rev. Turner, Mr WN Brown and L. Jackson Holmes watched a game of football between Distillery and the Black Watch regiment of the army and thus took inspiration to create Larne FC on 14 October 1889. The club in their early days would play against Ballyclare as well as the Fisherwick club in Doagh, when, amid the rise in football interest at the turn of the century, the club experienced relative success at a junior level, winning an IFA Junior Cup in 1901, as well as winning an Intermediate Cup and a Steel & Sons Cup prior to the outbreak of the First World War. Larne would enter senior football for the first time in 1923, reaching two Irish Cup finals in the 1920s and 1930s, before dropping out of senior football as a consequence of World War Two. The following decades would see a relative amount of success for the club, with a first ever senior trophy win in the Ulster Cup in 1950, as well as a dominant period in Intermediate football over the next 20 years, winning a great deal of silverware. As a result of the departure of Derry City from Irish League football in 1972, Larne would thus take the place of the Candystripes in senior football, with numerous relatively successful Irish Cup runs however the Invermen would never make it as far as the final. Following the appointment of Paul Malone as player/manager in 1984, the club would have quite a strong decade that spilled into the early 1990s, with several respectable league finishes and…

Senior honours

NIFL Premiership: 3 2022–23, 2023–24, 2025–26 County Antrim Shield: 4 2020–21, 2021–22, 2022–23, 2023–24 NIFL Charity Shield: 2 2024, 2026 NIFL Championship: 1 2018–19 Ulster Cup: 2 1949–50, 1987–88

Intermediate honours

Irish League B Division: 10 1954–55, 1956–57, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1971–72 Irish Intermediate League: 1 1952–53 Irish Intermediate Cup: 3 1942–43†, 1958–59, 1969–70 George Wilson Cup: 6 1958–59, 1959–60, 1968–69, 1970–71, 1977–78†, 1978–79† Steel & Sons Cup: 11 1909–10, 1941–42†, 1942–43†, 1956–57, 1958–59, 1959–60, 1964–65, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1971–72 Louis Moore Cup: 2 1956–57 (shared with Banbridge Town), 1958–59 McElroy Cup: 1 1948–49 † Won by Larne Olympic (reserve team)

Junior honours

Irish Junior Cup: 1 1900–01