END OF THE INNINGS: City of Derry Forced Out of Cricket.

It passed by relatively unnoticed at the time but a fateful meeting on the evening of Wednesday 26 April 1978 signalled the sad demise not just of a distinguished local club, but also the end of senior cricket on Derry's west bank.

Officials at the City of Derry Cricket Club didn't take long to come to a decision; they had little to work on as numbers had dwindled.

Across Europe the Italian government was also on the horns of a dilemma. They had agonised for weeks on how to respond to the demands of the Red Brigade, kidnappers of the senior Christian Democrat statesman, Aldo Moro.

The crisis facing the only senior cricket club on the city's west bank was directly a result of the ‘Troubles.' However, when the inevitable happened, the story - even locally - did not get much mention in a spring awash with dramatic events: the super-tanker Amoco Cadiz had split in two off the coast of Brittany, spilling her cargo of 220,000 tons of crude oil into the Channel - then the worst spillage in history. Meanwhile Princess Margaret was seeking a divorce from the Earl of Snowdon and the European Court had ruled that birching was degrading.

The summer of 1978 was therefore the first since 1907 that the North West Cricket Union's line did not include the illustrious name, City of Derry. Elsewhere the sport was firmly in the headlines: it was the summer Ian Botham at the age of 22 single-handedly destroyed Pakistan: the all rounder hit a century and then, as the tourists followed on, he conjured up a bowling analysis of 8 for 34 - the best performance by an English bowler since Jim Laker in 1956.

But, alas, displays of heroic bowling would never again occur at Duncreggan. City of Derry's glorious deeds were about to be consigned forever to the fading, yellow pages of history.

It was after tea on the evening of 26 April 1978 when nine men made their way to the vandalised club premises. Their mission was to bow to the inevitable and rubberstamp the withdrawal of City of Derry from local cricket.

A committee meeting two days earlier, on Monday 24 April, had bravely selected a team for the first match of the season. However, the real world soon began to permeate; only eight players were available.

Present at the final meeting in the club's Duncreggan headquarters were the following: chairman, Sammy Hamilton, Jim Wallace, Claude Wilton, Cecil Baird, Connie McCaul, Billy Ayton, Eric Cooke, Paddy Armstrong and Tommy McBride.

It was an easy decision. There was no choice other than to fade into oblivion.

City of Derry had been threatened by antisocial behaviour for several years. The club's pavilion was destroyed in 1972. A new one was built in 1973 but the ground continued to be vandalised.

The fencing surrounding the ground was torn down, toilets destroyed and equipment damaged. Junior players and club officials were subject to abuse, some of it sectarian. This was ironic for City of Derry had always been a cross-community club. Its membership came from all walks of city life. Catholics had served on its committees and had also played a leading role on the field of play. The famous Derry City international footballer, Jimmy Kelly, had been a playing member. He'd been on a winning Senior Cup final team - scoring 22 runs against St Johnston in the 1932 decider. And that cross-community spirit remained right to the end.

One of those who attended that final, fateful meeting - Claude Wilton - succinctly observed: "The club was looked upon, completely wrongly, as a Protestant institution."

Around this time Frank Curran in his widely read "Roundabout in Sport" column in the Derry Journal was reporting a club member as saying ‘unless the vandalism and the abuse to young junior members cease the club will certainly be out of business by the end of this season'

The inevitable, sad end was in sight.

City of Derry's last senior league fixture was played on 27 August 1977. It was in section B of the North West League and they were defeated by Bready. That fateful campaign ended with the club bottom of the table after registering only two wins. In a strange coincidental way two well-known Americans passed away at that time. Eleven days earlier the rock and roll legend, the "King" Elvis Presley, was found dead at Graceland, the Memphis, Tennessee mansion where he had lived. And four days later another American icon died: the 86-year old comedian, Groucho Marx.

City of Derry's decline had begun in the 1970's. In the 1969 season the playing strength was still substantial with the first and second elevens both contesting the semi final stages of the Senior and Intermediate Cups respectively though neither side won. However, as the Troubles escalated membership began to plummet.

City of Derry's final flourish in the top division saw them defend a small score at Duncreggan against old adversaries, Sion Mills on 21 July 1973. They managed to scramble 90 with man of the match Robert McGonagle, the only home batsman to reach double figures, scoring a fine half-century (53). McGonagle then took 5 for 28 and Raymond Robinson was also in fine form with ball chalking up figures of 5 for 30 as Sion Mills were sent back for 63.

But the ‘Troubles' that were ultimately to force City of Derry out of cricket showed no sign of letting up. The day after the Duncreggan men shocked Sion Mills the newspapers were awash with stories of mass arrests by troops and police on both sides of the border.

City of Derry's last game in the top division of local cricket - just over a month later - was a heavy defeat by Donemana at Duncreggan. City could manage only 67 and the Tyrone men passed that score with four wickets to spare.

City's halcyon years had been between the two great wars of the 20th century.

During that time the club's stalwart servants included the brothers Freddie and Herbie Chambers, Johnny Boyd, Bertie McClelland, J.L.Fanning, John Condron, Dougie Caldwell, Archie McCandless, Willie Caldwell, Robbie McKeegan and for a time Willie Jeffrey who scored City's first century in a competitive game.

And their displays were often awesome, partly, because they had in their ranks one of the greatest North West Union batsman of all time, EDR Shearer. The club also had another accomplished international in the 1930's: R.W. Moore who came from Cliftonville. Other outstanding players of that era included Gilbert Smyth, Stanley McCombe, George Stewart, George Morrow, Bryson McCarroll, George Callan and Freddie Moore.

After World War Two, Wallace Allen emerged as an outstanding batsman and Edwin McKerr scored thousands of runs. The arrival of Raymond and Angus Platt and Abe Simpson during this post war period added much to the club's competitiveness.

In his history of the club, published in 1991, WHW Platt writing of this period said: "City had a team capable of winning trophies but their best achievement was to finish runners-up in the league in the 1954 season despite many fine performances from well-known North West cricketers such as Tommy Orr, Bristow Stevenson, Reggie Jeffrey, Davy Todd and Jim Wallace."

In the late 1950's and during the 1960's no trophies were won but a number of young players - Ernie Faulkner, Roy Stewart, Billy Platt, Sonny Nicholl, Scott Kelso, Brian Moriarty, Markie McGonagle, Raymond Robinson and Alan McClure joined the senior players to keep the flag flying at Duncreggan.

The story of the most accomplished cricket team to flourish on Derry's west bank began in 1907. Initially they were called Idlers and their first home ground was at Brandywell.

Two years later came a change of name and a change of venue: the club was renamed City of Derry and their new home was opposite the Londonderry High School at Upper Duncreggan Road.

The club's first game in the North West Senior League was a low scoring victory over Strabane on a warm sunny afternoon at Brandywell on 11 May 1907. Five days earlier James Larkin had begun a series of strikes at the docks in Belfast.

Despite winning their first competitive game in senior cricket in 1907 success was slow in coming. The Great War had passed by - claiming an estimated ten million lives - before City of Derry became a potent force in North West Union cricket. It was the beginning of a golden era for the club.

Jim Wallace, an Irish badminton international, but also an accomplished cricketer at the Duncreggan club from 1953 onwards, and later chairman, said that in the 1920's and into the early 30's City and Sion Mills were, by and large, the dominant teams of the time.

"When they met huge crowds turned up. Andy McFarlane was the great player in the Sion Mills team and Derry's great champion was EDR Shearer," Jim Wallace recalled.

City of Derry won the Senior Cup for the first time in 1920 having been beaten previously on four occasions in the final. And they were also victorious in 1922, 1923, 1924, 1927, 1929, 1932 and 1933.

The Senior League Championship came to Duncreggan for the first time in 1921. League titles followed in 1922 and 1924. For three seasons in succession - 1926 to 1928 - City were runners-up to Sion Mills.

The day of Saturday 18 June 1927 marked a new chapter in the club's history when they moved to their final home, Lower Duncreggan. The same day in a sport much removed from the leisurely afternoon North West of Ireland cricket scene the Nurburgring motor racing circuit was opened in Germany. And just under a month previously, as summer gently unfolded in Derry, Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo non-stop flight between New York and Paris in his Ryan MYP monoplane, the Spirit of St Louis.

That same year a momentous event of a different kind occurred at City of Derry: EDR Shearer joined the club. He went on to score 11 centuries for the club including a record individual score for a North West batsman - 233 against Killaloo in 1933. Shearer was the first North West Union player to score a century in the Senior Cup final (1932) 110 v St Johnston. He also played 32 times for Ireland and had the immense distinction of scoring a century at Lords against the MCC.

The Londonderry Sentinel of 3 May 1978 reporting City of Derry's demise noted that one of the club's last acts was to dispatch a letter to the North West Union's general secretary, James Simpson, signifying their intention to withdraw from both the senior and intermediate leagues.

The club captain Tommy McBride summed up the situation: "It's sad but it's impossible to carry on," he said.

Ironically, a week earlier, EDR Shearer, City's great champion had been back in Derry to open Eglinton's new £40,000 pavilion.

Claude Wilton, one of those present at the club's final meeting, said the end was inevitable. "The mood was sad but everyone was resigned - if you haven't players you can't go on. No young blood was coming through."