All we want to do is play football, said Donegal Celtic manager Paddy Kelly after the west Belfast club, in the face of Sinn Fein opposition, decided to go ahead with next Saturday's soccer match with the RUC.
In recent weeks Donegal Celtic, based in Andersonstown in the heart of nationalist west Belfast, have come under increasing pressure from republicans, including the Sinn Fein leader Mr Gerry Adams, to withdraw from the game. But yesterday club members took their own stand, deciding that football and politics don't mix.
Mr Adams stated on Friday that "no nationalist, indeed no democrat, should have anything to do with the RUC". He denied, however, that in so commenting he was exerting pressure on Donegal Celtic to pull out of the game. Two years ago the club was forced to withdraw from another encounter with the RUC. But in view of the Belfast Agreement club members felt the climate was changing. Yesterday, according to the club, an emergency general meeting decided by 148 votes to 70 to honour the junior cup fixture at Castlereagh Park, Newtownards, next Saturday.
Welcoming the vote, Mr Kelly told The Irish Times: "We never wanted to bring politics into this, but inevitably it entered the equation. All we want to do is play football. Sinn Fein and Relatives for Justice have their opinion, I can understand that, I know where they are coming from. But I come from this area as well, and I have my opinion. And I don't think politics should come into sport."
Donegal Celtic have asked that proceeds from the game go to the fund organised on behalf of the family of the three Quinn brothers killed in an arson attack on their home in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, during the height of the Drumcree protest in July.
Mr Gerard O'Neill, a local Sinn Fein councillor, said he was disappointed at the decision, "as I believe most of the people from the community from which Donegal Celtic draws its support will be. Given the history of brutality and abuse suffered by our community at the hands of this discredited force, it is seen as granting legitimacy to our abusers."
