To comprehend the recent revival of Larne FC requires proper context. Retreat to October 2017 and the club were bottom of the Northern Irish Championship — the country’s second tier — with their Inver Park stadium deemed unfit for use by the local council over safety concerns. The entirety of their first-team squad and coaching staff had left at the expiry of their contracts that summer.
Advertisement Tiernan Lynch, previously a coach at the Belfast Metropolitan Football Academy, was appointed in his first managerial role and tasked with rebuilding a club without a home ground and flinging together a squad on a shoestring budget. Lynch turned to players from the youth academy where he worked. His team, comprised mainly of teenagers, took just two points from their opening seven league matches.
Fast forward seven years and the transformation is staggering. Larne have won back-to-back Irish Premiership titles and, this season, became Northern Ireland ’s first ever representatives in the group stage of a European competition. Today (Thursday), they host their first game in the UEFA Conference League — against Shamrock Rovers, the champions of the Republic of Ireland ’s League of Ireland.
“It has been a hell of a journey,” Lynch, 44, tells The Athletic . “But that has made the success extra sweet.” Let’s be clear, Larne’s rise to the summit of the game in Northern Ireland is no underdog story.
In 2017, they were taken over by Kenny Bruce. A native of the h.