Question 1

How does 'Competitions' work if I select that menu option?

Accepted Answer

Believe it or not the results on this website actually span 40 different competitions in which Irish League teams have competed. To make access easier, these are divided up into four geographical regions called 'British Isles', 'Europe', 'Northern Ireland' and 'North-South'. When you click 'By Region' you will be able to select one of these regions and an appropriate page will display listing all the competitions in this region. The history of each competition and the involvement of Irish League teams is briefly explained.
 
Under each competition's description you will have two buttons which you can select. The first button is called 'Get more info.' This is a link to an external web page and if you click this a new window will open up and give you a much fuller description from a source such as 'Wikipedia'. When you have finished reading here just close the page and you will be returned to the 'region' page. The second button is called 'Get the results.' Click here will take you to the results page for that competition.

Question 2

I'm on the 'Results' page for a competition. How does that work?

Accepted Answer

The 'results' page can work in one of two ways depending on the competition.
 
If the competition is defunct and did not have too many results then all the results for all seasons will be shown when the page is displayed. The old North-South competitions are good examples of this. If the competition is current but will never have too many results then the page will also operate in this way. The Champions' Cup (Unite the Union) is an example of this. Again all results will be shown. However you can filter the list of results by team. Enter a team name and 'Click to filter'. The list of results will be reduced to only show the ones featuring your chosen team. To clear the team name filter just 'Clear filter'.
 
If the competition is defunct but had hundreds or even thousands of results then no results will initially be shown when the page is displayed. The same will apply to current competitions that have or might have loads of results. This time you have to choose a season first of all from the dropdown. When you have done that the results for the season will be displayed. Then, if required, you can enter a team name and 'Click to filter'. The season's results will be reduced to only show the ones featuring your chosen team. To clear the team name filter just 'Clear filter'.

Question 3

I can't see my team's name in the dropdown list on the 'Results' page

Accepted Answer

The only team names shown here will be those that have competed in the Irish League competition at some time from the competition's inception to the present day. They could possibly be referred to as 'senior teams.' If your team is not listed but has competed in another competition, such as the Irish Cup, you may see their results in the page for that competition - but only if the game has been against a 'senior team.'

Question 4

I'm not seeing some results for Ballymena, Distillery or Newry"

Accepted Answer

These three teams changed their names at some time. Ballymena merged with Ballymena Crusaders in 1933/1934 to become Ballymena United. Distillery become Lisburn Distillery at the start of the 1999/2000 season. This was nearly 20 years after the club had relocated to New Grosvenor Stadium outside Lisburn. Newry Town became Newry City in 2004, a couple of years after the town of Newry was granted city status. So you need to make sure that you are using the correct name for the correct season.

Question 5

Are all the results, dates etc. correct?"

Accepted Answer

To be honest I would have to say 'no.' I would like to think that they are nearly all correct but some may have been wrong in my sources or I may have transcribed them incorrectly. I did find quite a few results wrong in my sources when I checked them elsewhere. So if they can make mistakes then so can I. I would be willing to say that they are at least 99.9% correct however.
 
If you see something that you don't think is correct then please get in touch with me through the 'Contact' page and let me know. I would, however, need sufficient evidence before I would be willing to correct my data. A bit like VAR I suppose!

Question 6

How does 'By Team' work if I select that menu option?

Accepted Answer

You should use this option if you want to see a team's results for a selected season. These will be ALL the results in ALL competitions in which that team has competed in that season. First of all you need to select a team from the first dropdown. You will see a list of all teams from Northern Ireland that have competed in at least one of the competitions for which this website holds results. Once you have chosen a team, the second dropdown will be enabled. When you click on this you will get a list of all the seasons in which your chosen team has competed in any of the competitions. Click on the appropriate season.
 
As an example, teams like Linfield and Glentoran will have competed in all seasons. So if you choose one of these teams you will see that the dropdown comprises all seasons. However teams such as Belfast Celtic and Clarence only competed in earlier seasons. The choice of seasons for them, therefore, will be limited.
 
The matches will be listed in date order from the beginning to the end of the chosen season. In the table of results a three character code is used to denote the competition. You can find an explanation of these codes when you click the third dropdown at the top of the page.
 
Note that on occasion the final deciding matches for certain competitions were held over to the following season. In these cases the results will be included in the preceding season's results even though their date would appear to place them in the following season.

Question 7

How does 'Tables' work if I select that menu option?

Accepted Answer

The vast majority of the competitions which feature on the website operate using a knock-out format. About a quarter use or did use a league format. Even then some competitions used a league format for some seasons but a knock-out format at other times. Competitions like the City Cup and the Ulster Cup, which are now defunct, used the league format. The Irish League has always used that format. Tables are available for all competitions and all seasons when this league format was employed.
 
First of all you need to select one of the competitions from the dropdown list. When you have done that a second dropdown will appear showing a list of the seasons for which results exist on the website. Select a season and the final table for that season will appear underneath.
 
In earlier years, when teams at the top were tied on points, additional games called 'Test Matches' were held to finally decide a winner. These test matches are included with the results for the competition elsewhere on the website. In the 1951/1952 season test matches were even held to decide second place! The final and most famous test match was at the end of the 1961/1962 season when Linfield defeated Portadown to become league champions and clinch trophy number seven out of seven for the season.
 
Up until the 1975/1975 season positions were calculated on 'goal average'. So that's 'goals for' divided by 'goals against' to produce a ratio. The higher the value the better it was. After that the calculation was based on 'goal difference'. So that's 'goals for' minus 'goals against' to give a value. Again the higher the value the better.

Question 8

How does 'Trophies' work if I select that menu option?

Accepted Answer

The dropdown menu will list all the competitions. Choose a competition and for each season of the competition you will see the winners and the runners-up. You will also see a running total of the number of wins for each team. Note that the trophy may have been shared on occasions. Also note that the competition may not have take place in some seasons or may have been replaced by an alternative one. The 'comments' column will detail this when necessary.

Question 9

How does 'Head2Head' work if I select that menu option?

Accepted Answer

This feature enables you to see the results of games between two selected teams. Initially you need to select the first of the two teams from the dropdown list. Then you can select the second team from a second dropdown list. It doesn't matter which way round you select the two teams. You will then be presented with all the results from all the competitions since the two teams first met.
 
If required you can then additionally select a specific season from the third dropdown list. If no results are displayed at this point it just means that the two teams did not meet in that season. Select a different season if required. Alternatively you could select a specific competition from the fourth dropdown list. If no results are shown it just means that the two teams never met in that competition.
 
If you choose a season and a competition then you will get the results for that competition in that season. Clicking 'Clear filters' will clear the selected season and/or competition and just leave you with all the results between the two teams. Select others teams as required.

Question 10

How does 'Highs&Lows' work if I select that menu option?

Accepted Answer

You would use this option if you wanted to see, for a selected team, their best wins and their worst defeats. By 'best' and 'worst' we mean the highest number of goals scored by the team and the highest number of goals conceded by them.

All you need to do is select a team from the dropdown list. Two lists will then be populated. The first shows all the games, both home and away, where the selected team scored their highest number of goals. The second list shows all the games, both home and away, where the selected team had the most goals scored against them.

If you need an explanation of the match's competition code just click the dropdown list at the top.