Larne FC
Also written as Larne.
The club
Larne Football Club were founded in 1889, on 14 October, after the Reverend Turner, W. N. Brown and L. Jackson Holmes watched a match and decided the town should have a club of its own. The first names of Reverend Turner and of W. N. Brown were not established from the sources read here. The club is based in Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and plays in the NIFL Premiership.
The ground is Inver Park, in Larne, capacity 3,000. The club plays in blue and white at home with a navy change kit and is nicknamed the Inver Reds.
The chairman is Gareth Clements and the head coach is Gary Haveron. Haveron follows Tiernan Lynch, who managed the club through its rise from the third tier to the Premiership title; the date of the handover was not established from the sources read here. Kenny Bruce took over a club in 2018 that was facing relegation to the third tier and had been locked out of its own stadium; in July 2025 he sold his majority holding to the investment group Redball Global FC, which acquired a fifty per cent stake.
Confusion warning: these are Larne Football Club, the NIFL Premiership champions who play at Inver Park. They are not Larne Olympic, a separate club from the same town. References in this corpus to Larne mean Larne FC.
Recent seasons
Larne were NIFL Championship winners in 2018/19 and went up. They won the NIFL Premiership in 2022/23 and retained it in 2023/24. The 2024/25 finish was not established from the sources read here, though the club spent that season in the Conference League league phase. In 2025/26 they were champions again, first of twelve, a third Premiership title. Points totals for those seasons were not established from the sources read here.
Honours and landmarks
NIFL Premiership champions three times, in 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2025/26. NIFL Championship winners in 2018/19. Ulster Cup winners in 1949/50 and 1987/88. County Antrim Shield winners four seasons running, in 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24. NIFL Charity Shield winners in 2024 and 2026.
Larne have never won the Irish Cup or the League Cup. They have been Irish Cup runners-up six times, in 1928, 1935, 1987, 1989, 2005 and 2021, and League Cup runners-up twice, in 1991/92 and 2003/04.
The landmark achievement is European. In 2024/25 Larne became the first club from Northern Ireland to reach the league phase of the UEFA Conference League.
Notable scorelines
Larne's record win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here. The heaviest European beating on record is the 9-0 aggregate loss to Red Star Belgrade in the 2026/27 Champions League second qualifying round, 4-0 away and 5-0 at home.
European record
Larne first appeared in Europe in the 2021/22 Conference League, beating Bala Town 2-0 on aggregate, winning each leg 1-0, then knocking out Aarhus Gymnastik Forening 3-2 on aggregate, winning the first leg 2-1 and drawing the second 1-1. They went out to Paços de Ferreira 4-1 on aggregate, having won the first leg 1-0 and lost the second 4-0.
In 2022/23 they lost to St Joseph's 1-0 on aggregate, beaten 1-0 in the first leg and drawing the second goalless. In 2023/24 they lost to HJK Helsinki in the Champions League 3-2 on aggregate, drawing the first leg 2-2 after extra time and losing the second 1-0, then lost 7-1 on aggregate to Ballkani in the Conference League, 4-1 and 3-0.
2024/25 was the breakthrough. After a 7-0 aggregate loss to RFS in the Champions League, 4-0 and 3-0, Larne dropped into the Conference League and beat Ballkani 4-1 on penalties after a 1-1 first leg and a 1-0 win in the second, then eliminated Lincoln Red Imps 4-3 on aggregate, winning 3-1 and losing 2-1. They finished thirty-fourth in the league phase.
In 2025/26 they beat Auda 4-2 on penalties after a goalless first leg and a 2-2 draw after extra time, then beat Prishtina 5-4 on penalties after a goalless first leg and a 1-1 draw after extra time, before losing 3-0 on aggregate to Santa Clara, beaten 3-0 in the first leg and drawing the second goalless.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Gary Haveron is the head coach. As Northern Irish champions Larne entered the Champions League, beating Tre Fiori 3-1 on aggregate in the first qualifying round, 2-1 and 1-0. The second qualifying round against Red Star Belgrade was lost 9-0 on aggregate, 4-0 away and 5-0 at home. They dropped into the Europa League third qualifying round and lost to Iberia 1999 2-1 on aggregate, drawing the first leg goalless and losing the second 2-1 after extra time. That put them into the Conference League play-off round, in the Champions Path.
The play-off is against Lincoln Red Imps, the same opponent Larne eliminated at this stage two years ago. Larne won the first leg 2-0 at the Europa Point Stadium in Gibraltar on 20 August 2026, Paul O'Neill scoring on eighty-five minutes and Kevin O'Hara in the third minute of stoppage time. The attendance was 646 and the referee was Kristo Tohver of Estonia.
The second leg is at Inver Park on 27 August 2026 and is still to be played. Larne lead 2-0 from the first leg. The referee is Radoslav Gidzhenov of Bulgaria.
Larne's start to the 2026/27 NIFL Premiership season and their summer transfer business were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larne_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying_(third_and_play-off_round_matches)
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.