Glentoran Football Club
Also written as Glentoran.
The club
Glentoran Football Club were founded in 1882 by workers at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in east Belfast, and the club was established as a limited company in 1889. They play at The Oval, a ground whose current capacity is listed at 15,293 with a safe capacity of 6,500; the shipyard's cranes still overlook the pitch, which the club treats as part of its identity. The Oval was bombed during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, and the "Spirit of '41" name attached to later fundraising refers to the rebuilding effort that followed. A £8-10 million redevelopment was submitted for planning in 2021 but was suspended after the collapse of the Stormont executive in 2022; whether it has since resumed was not established from the sources read here. Glentoran's colours are green and white and the club is nicknamed "The Glens".
Glentoran is not Linfield Football Club. The two are separate clubs and the fiercest rivals in Northern Irish football, both based in Belfast and both among the country's most decorated sides, which is exactly why they get mixed up; Linfield play at Windsor Park on the south side of the city, while Glentoran are the east Belfast club at The Oval. The rivalry has a long history of ill feeling, including an unbeaten run of five straight Irish Cup final wins for Glentoran over Linfield beginning in 1966, ended by a Linfield win in the 2006 final, and incidents such as Glentoran supporters bringing a cockerel, the club's emblem, and a pig painted royal blue to a 1985 final against Linfield. Glentoran is also not Glenavon Football Club, a separate mid-Ulster club based in Lurgan; the two have swapped players and, in Gary Hamilton's case, a manager, but they are unconnected sides in the same league.
The current manager is Billy Crellin, in charge for the 2026/27 season.
Recent seasons
Glentoran finished third in the NIFL Premiership in both 2021/22 and 2022/23, with 71 and 74 points respectively, each time enough to qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League play-offs. They dropped to fifth in 2023/24 on 60 points as Larne won back-to-back titles. In 2024/25 they were third again, with 61 points from 17 wins, 10 draws and 11 losses, as Linfield won the championship with 85 points. In 2025/26 they improved to 77 points, 23 wins, 8 draws and 7 defeats, and finished third behind champions Larne on 83 points and runners-up Coleraine on 80, with Linfield fourth on 66. Glenavon were relegated from the top flight after finishing bottom of the Section B table on 28 points.
Honours and landmarks
Glentoran have won the Irish League title 23 times, the first in 1894 and more recent championships in 1972, 1977, 2005 and 2009; a complete year-by-year list of all 23 was not established from the sources read here. They have won the Irish Cup on multiple occasions including 1973, 2013, 2015 and 2020, and have won the County Antrim Shield, including in 2008 and 2013, having lost the final in 2012. In 1914 Glentoran won the Vienna Cup, which is credited as making them the first British club to win a European trophy. The club's biggest ever win and its record home and away attendances were not established from the sources read here; its heaviest defeat on record was not established either, though a 6-0 loss away to Linfield at Windsor Park under manager Paul Millar in the 2006/07 season is recorded as a notably bad result.
Notable scorelines
Glentoran's European history includes a 0-0 draw at Benfica's stadium in 1967, in which they prevented Benfica from scoring at home, and a run to the Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finals in 1973/74 before being eliminated 7-0 on aggregate by Borussia Mönchengladbach. In the 2023/24 Europa Conference League qualifying rounds, Glentoran drew 3-3 over two legs with Gżira United of Malta and lost the resulting penalty shoot-out 14-13, described as the highest-scoring shoot-out in European club competition history. In 2021/22 they lost 3-1 on aggregate to The New Saints of Wales in Conference League qualifying. Across their European history, Glentoran's overall record stands at 104 matches played, 11 wins, 26 draws and 67 losses, with 73 goals scored and 233 conceded, according to the aggregate figures found in the sources read here.
European record
Glentoran's European entries have generally come through Irish Cup wins or top-three league finishes feeding into the Europa Conference League qualifying rounds, and the club has never advanced beyond the early qualifying stages in the modern format. The exceptions are the 1914 Vienna Cup win, predating UEFA competition, and the run to the 1973/74 Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finals, ended by Borussia Mönchengladbach. A full round-by-round account of Glentoran's European ties beyond the fixtures listed above, including their most recent qualifying campaigns prior to 2023/24, was not established from the sources read here.
Head-to-head notes
The defining fixture is Linfield: five consecutive Irish Cup final wins for Glentoran beginning in 1966 before Linfield ended the run in the 2006 final, a 93rd-minute Glentoran winner over Linfield in 2005 that was followed by crowd confrontations, and a Boxing Day 1995 meeting remembered for being played with both an orange and a white ball after one was damaged. Head-to-head records against Linfield, Coleraine and Larne in recent seasons were not established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Billy Crellin is the manager going into the 2026/27 season. Late-August 2026 club news reported a win over Ballymena United, after which Crellin urged his squad to build on the result, and confirmed loan business either side of that fixture: Rhys Walsh went out on a season-long loan to Annagh United, while Ethan Schilte-Brown arrived on loan from Kilmarnock. The club's reserve side also won at Coleraine in the same period, and the women's team advanced to an Irish Cup semi-final against Lisburn Ladies. Glentoran's 2026/27 league position, any European qualifying involvement this season, and the full run of results since the season opened were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glentoran_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_NIFL_Premiership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%9325_NIFL_Premiership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%9324_NIFL_Premiership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%9323_NIFL_Premiership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%9322_NIFL_Premiership https://www.glentoran.com/news
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.