Paradise Lost and Found: The Story of Belfast Celtic (Mainstream Sport) author: Padraig Coyle asin: 1840184515 binding: Paperback list price: £7.99 GBP amazon price: £5.99 GBP

Amazon.co.uk Review
Belfast Celtic's last competitive game was played on the April 21, 1949. After the final whistle, the most successful club in the history of Irish football sold its best players, withdrew from all competition and volunteered itself for oblivion. Padraig Coyle's Paradise Lost & Found explores the mystery that still surrounds the closure of Belfast Celtic and reviews the history of a football team which exerted enormous sporting and political influence on the life of Belfast during the first half of this century.
Closely modelled on Glasgow Celtic's combination of stylish football and community leadership, Belfast Celtic grew to dominate the emergent Irish professional game. The club won 71 honours in 50 years, including 14 league championships, but could never discard the shroud of sectarianism. The terrible violence of the mob that attacked the Belfast Celtic team after their derby match with Linfield on Boxing Day, 1948, was effectively the final act in an epic drama blending sporting triumph and the Realpolitic of religious bigotry.

Coyle mines a rich seam of eye-witness accounts in a critical study which never loses its empathy with the individuals involved or its love for the sport. He argues that Irish football must rekindle the optimism and passion that characterises the story of Celtic and this is a powerful elegy for a unique club. --Alex Hankin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Jacket
On Boxing Day 1948, forty thousand spectators gathered in Belfast for the traditional derby game between Linfield and Belfast Celtic at Windsor Park, Linfield's home ground. No one could have anticipated the impact of a horrifically violent incident at the end of the game which was to signal the demise of one of the greatest clubs in the history of Irish football.
In an age of extreme bigotry, sectarianism, poverty and social deprivation, Belfast Celtic offered a beacon of fair play and sportsmanship to the city's beleaguered working-class Catholics. It exerted an enormous influence on them and gave purpose to their lives. As one former supporter recalls, "When we had nothing, we had Belfast Celtic. Then we had everything."
Since its formation in 1891, the club had set out to model itself on Glasgow Celtic through its attractive style of play, its work for charity and its non-sectarian signing policy. Under an astute board of management, it operated as a highly profitable financial institution, searching out the best players available and signing them for what was, in those days, big money. Among its supporters, Belfast Celtic's home ground was known as "Paradise"--a nickname for which no explanation was required.
Fifty years later, in Paradise Lost and Found, Padraig Coyle tells the remarkable story of Belfast Celtic, setting the club's enormous sporting achievements against the turbulent background of the Home Rule era, the Irish Civil War and the formation of Northern Ireland. He uncovers the conflicting theories behind the decision to wind up the club when it was at the height of its success. Was it because of the vicious wounding of a Celtic player in that Boxing Day game? Was it due to a boardroom power struggle? Or was it a risky strategy that backfired?
Whatever the reason, Paradise was lost, and the once-packed terraces would remain forever silent, except in the minds of those left behind. This book reawakens those memories and rekindles the hope that some day Belfast Celtic will return in all its former glory. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.