Nations League: 1,280 days without a home game – Northern Ireland’s nomad years

In their latest Nations League fixture Northern Ireland will take on Belarus in Hungary on Saturday, the neutral venue the result of Uefa restrictions on the hosts. Fifty years ago, it was Northern Ireland playing in homes away from home with no international football staged in Belfast between October 1971 and April 1975. BBC Sport NI looks back on the side’s nomadic years.

Sammy McIlroy still vividly remembers what it was like to see George Best in the flesh for the first time.

While the two would later become Manchester United and Northern Ireland team-mates, for a 13-year-old to watch the soon-to-be Ballon d’Or winner against Scotland at Windsor Park in October 1967 was “absolutely mesmerising”.

“To this day I can still see things George did with the ball,” remembers the midfielder who went on to win 88 Northern Ireland caps before managing his country.

“I’ll never forget it. The crowd, the atmosphere, it was electric.

“I’d never seen anything like that, a player with the ball tied to his boots. It just made me want to go back home and get the ball out on the street.”

It would be a rare privilege soon denied to the people of Northern Ireland.

By the time of McIlroy’s own international debut against Spain in a Euro ’72 qualifier just five years later, Northern Ireland were the “home” team in a game staged at Hull City’s Boothferry Park, an arrangement enabled by Terry Neill being the player-manager of both sides.

The early 1970s provided the bloodiest years of the Troubles, the name given colloquially to the decades-long sectarian conflict in the country and, after a 1-1 draw against the USSR in October 1971, Northern Ireland was deemed unsafe to host international football.

“To be honest, I was devastated it wasn’t in Belfast,” says McIlroy of the 1-1 draw with Spain, the first of 18 consecutive fixtures played outside of Northern Ireland.

“I was delighted to play, to make my debut for Northern Ireland, it just took the gloss off it that it wasn’t in Belfast in front of my home fans. That was very, very sad.”

During the following years Northern Ireland would play in front of a small mix of expats and curious locals, using Goodison Park, Highfield Road, Hillsborough and Craven Cottage just to fulfil their World Cup ’74 qualifying fixtures, as well as those in the British Home Nations Championship.