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12 November 1998 Edition

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Sportsview: Donegal Celtic to face RUC despite local anger

By Peadar Whelan

Anger at the decision by West Belfast soccer club Donegal Celtic to go ahead with its Steel and Sons Cup semi-final match against an RUC team may lead to a local boycott on the team.

Already I have been told that pool teams from other clubs and bars throughout West Belfast will refuse to compete against the `DC' if they play Saturday's match at Ards' Castlereagh Road pitch.

The decision taken last Sunday after a secret ballot of just 178 of the club's 320 members was greeted with dismay in West Belfast. 108 people voted in favour of the match and 70 voted against while there was one abstention.

Members passed through a picket organised by the Relatives for Justice group who were representing their loved ones killed by RUC members over the years.

However, I've talked to lots of local people who are angry that the committee opted for a secret ballot instead of deciding themselves what to do.

``The committee is there to make these decisions, they should have done so'', I was told.

And anger within the club is boiling over as well with one senior member saying that ``the committee should resign as it does not represent the wishes of local people who have had their loved ones killed, been arrested, their houses raided and been abused by the RUC down the years''.

And the club can take only take cold comfort from the support it has received from the likes of Sammy Wilson and Ulster Unionist Jim Rodgers.

Rodgers on Radio Ulster this week slammed Sinn Fein's call for the local club to withdraw from the match saying, ``sport and politics'', shouldn't be mixed.

But Rodgers displayed his own bent for mixing politics and sport last year when he was with a crowd of East Belfast loyalists preventing Cliftonville supporters going to a match at the Oval against Glentoran.

The incident arose during a time when Cliftonville fans were being targeted as part of the on-going fallout from Drumcree 1997. They were attacked in Portadown and threatened as they travelled to other away fixtures.

Rodgers claimed the actions of the East Belfast loyalists was to prevent republican trouble makers attending the game and was not directed at, ``genuine football fans''.

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