A DANK Thursday night at Solitude lost somewhere in the early 1990’s. The rickety old floodlights swayed and cast shadows on the soft sod.
The reserve team training session was over for the evening, but not for Marty Quinn and I.
In his flawed wisdom, Marty believed he could turn me into a goal-scoring centre forward for Cliftonville Olympic. Ha!
He wanted to plane the rough edges off my game and maybe one day I could push for a place on the first team.
But I don’t think Marty realised just how many rough edges he was about to encounter during our post-training crossing-and-shooting drill.
We took four or five balls down to the goal at the away end. The drill couldn’t have been more straightforward.
Marty would cross the ball and I simply had to finish into an empty net with one touch. I was tempted to blame Marty’s poor deliveries because I shanked roughly seven-out-of-10 balls.
It was an horrendous 10 minutes.
After another ball sailed over the crossbar, both of us realised that I was never going to be the goal-scoring striker my manager had envisaged.
Truth be told, I had no real desire to play for Cliftonville.
My sporting dream was a little more modest than that.
I wanted to wear the Cromac Albion jersey, the team my father managed, for all of my playing days.
But Cromac Albion disbanded the previous season, and so my father rang Marty who was Cliftonville Olympic manager at the time.
And he kindly gave me a chance.
Marty was a member of the lauded '79 crew, a Cliftonville legend in everyone's eyes.
He had a fearsome reputation but never once did he raise his voice to me during games or in training. He was down to earth, charismatic and a hugely likeable man.
He also taught me that football management was not necessarily about what you know about the game; it was how you managed different personalities in the changing room. That was Marty's exceptional gift.
And you never wanted to let him down when you went out wearing the Cliftonville jersey.
I lasted almost a season at Solitude. I remember ringing Marty from the upstairs phone at home one night and telling him that I was leaving to go and play Amateur League football.
I remember the phone call as clear as day. He tried to talk me out of leaving and that I had potential.
I always appreciated that.
Before having the privilege of playing for the Reds, I always had a soft spot for Solitude because it was the people’s club.
Through the dark days of ‘The Troubles’, the old ground was the physical manifestation of defiance.
The seemingly endless RUC baton charges were like tidal waves of evil, the most frightening things in the world.
I remember the night Celtic played Cliftonville at Solitude in 1984 and escaping the deathly baton charges at the Cage End, and running out of Solitude, and I kept running all the way up to Balholm Drive at the top of Ardoyne to my grandfather’s house.
A few days later, I found out my school friend Francis Duffin suffered a fractured skull when he was caught up in the rioting.
Francis wouldn’t have harmed a fly.
Throughout the years Solitude always looked battered and bruised and carried many scars - but Cliftonville Football Club would never die.
It would always be there, no matter what. It would never fall to progress.
The 1998 league championship run-in was truly the stuff of dreams.
Paul Williams, Eamonn McCarthy and me sat on the same seats in the old stand every week and were seduced by Harry McCourt and Jody Tolan and through the din of the crowd you could feel and hear the beating hearts of Marty Tabb and Mickey Donnelly.
Fearless, defiant and led by the inimitable Marty Quinn.
Throughout the years, the Reds have had more bad days than good, but it made the good days all the better.
In a weird way, the bad days strengthened the romance felt on the terraces.
But even during the rough times, the club had some fantastic players.
Jim McFadden was pure class and had a wand of a left foot.
There weren’t many better than Peter ‘Minto’ Murray or the great Tommy Breslin.
I watched Chris Scannell on many a night carrying the team on his shoulders, and doing it with unforgettable style.
I never seen Keith Mulvenna, Gerry Flynn or Stevie Small have a bad game for the Reds.
And Tim McCann would produce something special when the occasion was crying out for a hero.
For a couple of seasons Mickey Collins and Tommy McCallion made sweet music in the middle of the park, all the while Hugh McCartan did miraculous work in keeping the club afloat.
Eddie Patterson laid the foundations and the club was blessed by the golden generation: Georgie McMullan, Liam Boyce, Ronan Scannell, Joe Gormley, ‘Cats’, ‘Janty’, Chrissy Curran, not many got past Marc Smyth and Jaimie McGovern, young Tomas Cosgrove was cutting a dash too, and nobody gave more than Stevie Garrett.
And how could you not love ‘Bressy’, ‘Minto’ and ‘Skin’ who masterminded some of the greatest days in the club’s history in 2013 and 2014.
Through rough waters, chairman Gerard Lawlor deserves much praise.
Last Christmas, I introduced Rosa, my six-year-old daughter, to Solitude. She watched Paddy McLaughlin’s side beat Coleraine and Glenavon.
From the first match Rosa was hooked, so much so that she made flags out of paper, straws and Sellotape for our next visit.
And we’ll bring them too.
It was only when I passed Solitude a few weeks back I became miserably sentimental about the old place.
Doors locked, it was far too quiet for a ground that could tell more than a thousand stories.
Even the crumbling concrete walls, the frayed paint work and desperate potholes on its outer rim exude a certain character.
It’s at that moment the idea: ‘Voices of Solitude’ took root.
In Monday’s edition of The Irish News, Johnny Madden, Chris Donnelly, Stephen Rafferty, Jan Marie Reel, Brian ‘Smitty’ Smyth and Tim McGarry kindly agreed to write about what Solitude means to them.
Mine, as you can see, is miserably sentimental, while theirs is a special kind of poetry. From the heart.
The way poetry was meant to be.
We long for the day when this terrible pandemic is over and Solitude’s doors creak open.
That's when north Belfast will find its pulse again. Thank you Johnny, Chris, Jan Marie, Tim, 'Smitty' and Stephen.
Some of the true voices of Solitude.
