Lurgan Celtic Football Club is a Northern Irish intermediate football club based in Lurgan, County Armagh, that plays in the Mid-Ulster Football League Junior Division 1. The club was founded 1903 and reformed 1969 as the respected spiritual successor (acknowledged within the clubs crest). The club plays in a strip based on Scottish team Celtic, although began with green and white candy-stripe shirts. They form part of the Mid-Ulster Football Association.
In August 2019, Lurgan Celtic announced that its senior side would withdraw from the NIFL and implement new youth academy structures, with a view to restarting its senior teams for the 2020–21 season. Lurgan Celtic resumed senior football activities at the bottom of the Mid-Ulster Football League pyramid, upon the commencement of the 2020–21 season.
History
A club by the name of Lurgan Celtic was originally formed in 1903, with its name slanting towards the Roman Catholic community of Lurgan, adopting the name and colours of Glasgow Celtic, a popular club among the Irish Catholics population of Glasgow and the west of Scotland.The Gaelic Athletic Association was in its early stages and was keen to promote Gaelic games and association football in particular, perceived as "foreign", was discouraged. A change in attitudes gradually took hold in the early 1970s and Lurgan Celtic was reborn, subsequently rising to become one of the strongest clubs in the Craigavon area. There was also a suggestion that it was the club's nationalist stance as they pushed for membership of what was considered a predominantly Unionist league that stood in their way. So strongly was this felt that the club joined forces with Belfast club Donegal Celtic, another club that took its name and kit from the Glasgow club, and threatened the league with legal action to gain membership. In the Irish Cup semi-final they were defeated 3–0 by Linfield with Aaron Burns scoring a hat-trick.
Despite the achievement of reaching the Irish-Cup semi-finals, manager Colin Malone resigned at the end of the 2016-17 season and the club endured a period of instability. The appointment of Brendan Shannon as Celtic player-manager could not prevent a downturn in results, and Shannon left halfway through the 2017-18 season, to be succeeded by Frankie Wilson. By this point, relegation to the third tier had become an inevitability; Celtic finished the season 20 points adrift of 11th-placed Dergview.