October 13, 1972: Derry City Withdraw From the Irish Football League

Brandywell Stadium

October 13, 1972: Derry City Football Club withdraw from the Irish Football League, the governing body for soccer in Northern Ireland, after what turned out to be the hardest year of "The Troubles" in that "country."

The conflict was especially dangerous in their own city, known as Londonderry to the governments in Belfast and London, but as simply "Derry" -- or, perhaps, "Free Derry" -- to the Catholic people who lived there. Ireland has had a few days in its history known as "Bloody Sunday," including "The Battle of the Bogside," earlier in the year in Derry.

Founded in 1928, and nicknamed the Candystripes for their shirts of red and white stripes, and playing in Brandywell Stadium on the west bank of the River Foyle, 3 miles from the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Derry City won their only title in the IFL in the 1964-65 season. They had also won the Irish Cup, Northern Ireland's version of England's FA Cup, in 1949, 1954 and 1964.

Surviving in junior football for 13 years, Derry City entered the Republic of Ireland's football system for 1985-86, joining its 2nd division, known as the League of Ireland First Division. They were an immediate success. On February 23, 1986, "the randy Brandywell," as its fans call the stadium, hosted 9,800 fans, still a record attendance for a League of Ireland team, for an FAI Cup Second Round match against Finn Harps of County Donegal. In Ireland, Derry vs. Finn Harps is known as the Northwest Derby.

Derry City won the title in their 2nd season, 1986-87, and were promoted to the actual first division, known as the Premier Division, winning the title in 1989 and 1997. In 1989, 1995, 2002 and 2006, they won the ROI's version of the FA Cup, the FAI Cup. (The Republic's governing body is the FAI, the Football Association of Ireland. Northern Ireland's is the IFA, the Irish Football Association.)

The Cup win over 1989 meant that they won their adoptive country's "Double." They also won the League of Ireland Cup that year, so their victory in the FAI Cup Final on April 30, 1989, at Dalymount Park in Dublin, the last of the three trophies available, gave them a domestic "Treble."

The club was expelled from the LOI in November 2009, when it was discovered there were unofficial secondary contracts with players. It was reinstated a few weeks later but, as punishment, was demoted to the First Division.

The club eventually won its way back to the Premier Division. Although they have not won the league since 1997, they have won the FAI Cup again in 2012 and 2022. More importantly, there has never been a violent incident at a Derry City game since they entered the LOI in 1985. In 2018, the stadium was renamed the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium, in memory of McBride, Derry's Captain, who died in his sleep, without explanation, the year before. He was only 27 years old.

As I said, Derry City have won the top division of Republic of Ireland football twice. Teams from County Dublin have won 58 titles, while all other Counties combined have won 41.

Shamrock Rovers, of Tallaght, south of Dublin, have won it 20 times. Shelbourne, of North Dublin, have won 13. Bohemian, or "Bohs," of North Dublin, have won 11. St. Patrick's Athletic, of Inchicore, west of Dublin, have won 8. Drumcondra, of North Dublin, have won 5. St. James's Gate, of South Dublin, have won 2. Dolphin, of Dolphin's Barn in South Dublin, won the title in 1935 and finished 2nd in 1936, but the Depression meant that it couldn't pay wage increases, and went out of business.

Dundalk, of County Louth, have won 14 titles. Waterford, of the County of the same name, have won 6. Sligo Rovers, of County Sligo, have won 3. Limerick, of the County of the same name, have won 2. Athlone Town, of County Roscommon, have won 2. Drogheda United of County Louth won the title in 2007.

In County Cork, Cork United won 5 before going out of business in 1948. Cork Athletic, intended as United's replacement, won 2 before going out of business in 1957. Cork Hibernians won the title in 1971, and Cork Celtic won it in 1974, before going out of business in 1977 and 1980, respectively, and being replaced by Cork City in 1984. Cork City have won 3 titles.    

In Northern Ireland, the Irish Football League was reorganized into the NIFL Premiership in 2008. Overall, Linfield, of South Belfast, have won 56 titles, more national league titles than any team in any country; Glentoran, of East Belfast, have won 23; Belfast Celtic, of West Belfast, won 14 before withdrawing from the League in 1949, for reasons similar to Derry City's, and went out of business in 1960; Crusaders, of North Belfast, have won 7; Distillery, of West Belfast, won 6 titles, the last in 1963, before moving to South Belfast and becoming Lisburn Distillery, and haven't won one since; Cliftonville, of North Belfast, have won 5; Portadown, of County Armagh, 4; Glenavon, of Lurgan in County Armagh, 3, the last in 1960; Coleraine, of County Londonderry, 1, in 1974; Queen's Island, of South Belfast, 1, in 1924, and went out of business in 1929; and Ards, of Bangor in County Down, 1, in 1958.

UPDATE: In the LOI, Shamrock Rovers won a 21st title in 2023, and a 22nd in 2025. Shelbourne won a 14th title in 2024. In the NIFL, Linfield won a 57th title in 2025. Larne, of County Antrim, which had never won the title before, have now won 3: In 2023, 2024 and 2026.

*

October 13, 1973 was a Friday -- a Friday the 13th. Summer Sanders, winner of 2 Gold Medals in swimming at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, was born on this day.

Also on this day, a Friday the 13th, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, taking off from Uruguay's capital of Montevideo and intending to land in Chile's capital of Santiago, crashes in the Andes Mountains outside Malargüe, Argentina. Of the 45 people on board, only 24 survived the crash.

The passengers were members of Old Christians, a rugby team from Montevideo, traveling to play Santiago team Old Boys. Those who survived did so as best they could, but their food ran out quickly. Eventually, they turned to cannibalizing the bodies of those killed. On October 29, 8 of the survivors were killed in an avalanche.

By the time they were finally rescued on December 23 -- a Christmas miracle -- only 16 of the passengers were still alive. Incredibly, 48 years later, 15 of those 16 are still alive. In 1993, the film Alive, starring Ethan Hawke, dramatized the events.

In sports: Baseball was between its Playoffs and the World Series. The Oakland Athletics went on to beat the Cincinnati Reds in 7 games.

There were 7 games played in the NBA:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 112-104 at the Boston Garden.

* The Buffalo Braves beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 104-101 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 115-98 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena).

* The Houston Rockets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 109-108 at the Cleveland Arena. Austin Carr scored 40 in defeat for the Cavs.

* The Detroit Pistons beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Bulls, 100-91 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns, 117-105 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led all players on the night with 41 points.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat their arch-rivals, the Portland Trail Blazers, 92-84 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland. Spencer Haywood scored 35 points and grabbed 16 rebounds for the Sonics.

And there were 3 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 114-90 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Carolina Cougars beat the Indiana Pacers, 106-88 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

* And the Denver Rockets beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 109-100 at the Peterson Gym on the campus of San Diego State University.

There were no games scheduled in the NHL. The World Hockey Association's Quebec Nordiques played their 1st home game at Le Colisée de Québec. They beat the Alberta Oilers 6-0. They would reach the WHA Finals in 1975 and win the title in 1977.

Not so lucky are fellow their fellow WHA home debutantes, the Philadelphia Blazers. First, they were frozen out of using Philly's new arena, The Spectrum, because it was owned by Flyers owner Ed Snider. So they had to use the much-older Convention Hall of the Philadelphia Civic Center.

Then, their 3 biggest acquisitions all got hurt in preseason: John McKenzie (also their head coach) and Derek Sanderson, from the 1970 and '72 Stanley Cup-winning Boston Bruins; and former Flyers goalie Bernie Parent. Then, on October 12, they lost their 1st regular-season game, 4-3, to the New England Whalers at the Boston Garden, where, presumably, some people had bought tickets expecting to see McKenzie and Sanders.

But on this night, when the Zamboni was driven onto the playing service, the improperly made ice could not support its weight, and it cracked. The game was postponed. They ended up losing their 1st 7 games, including their eventual home opener, on October 25, 8-2 to the Cleveland Crusaders. Their 1st win finally came on October 27, 5-4 over the Los Angeles Sharks.

Incredibly, they went 38-33 (no ties) the rest of the way, and make the Playoffs, but are swept by the Crusaders. So few people came out to see them that they moved to Vancouver for 1973-74, and had to sell Parent back to the Flyers, where he helped them win back-to-back Stanley Cups. The Blazers became the Calgary Cowboys in 1975, and folded in 1977.

The Minnesota Fighting Saints, named for their home city, lost their debut, 4-3 to the Winnipeg Jets at the St. Paul Civic Center. And the Houston Aeros and the Los Angeles Sharks made their debuts, against each other, with the Aeros winning, 3-2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

March 28, 1979: The Three Mile Island Meltdown

March 28, 1979: On an island in the Susquehanna River, in Londonderry Township, outside the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg, stands the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. Its Unit 1 began operation in 1974. Its Unit 2 began on December 30, 1978, just 3 months before the event in question.

On March 16, the film The China Syndrome was released, starring Jack Lemmon as the manager of a nuclear power plant, Jane Fonda as a TV reporter, and Michael Douglas as her cameraman. Douglas, like the other 2 a member of a multi-generational acting family, also co-produced the film. (His eventual wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, was 9 years old, living in Wales, and had probably not yet heard of any of these people.)

American conservatives dismissed the film as fearmongering, since they liked nuclear power. They had also not forgiven Fonda for her activities in the Vietnam War in 1972. Then again, liberals had never forgiven them for making Fonda's activities possible.

But on March 28, just 12 days after the film's release, the fear became real. At 4:37 AM Eastern Time, while most of America was asleep, in TMI's Unit 2, the cooling system malfunctioned. This resulted in the release of 2 radioactive gases: iodine-131 and krypton-85.

Save your Superman jokes: We almost needed a real Superman, and we didn't have one, although Superman: The Movie, starring Christopher Reeve, was still in theaters after 3 months.

Metropolitan Edison (Met Ed, now known as FirstEnergy) contacted the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), which contacted Governor Richard Thornburgh upstream in Harrisburg, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) downstream in Washington.

Met Ed thought they had the situation under control. But on March 31, a hydrogen bubble was discovered in the dome of the pressure vessel. If it were to explode, the entire plant might blow up, and then it would have been off to the races.

The TV news broadcasts weren't sure what to make of it. How dangerous was it? Walter Cronkite on CBS, John Chancellor on NBC, and Frank Reynolds on ABC were not scientists. ABC News science editor Jules Bergman explained it as best he could.

Had there been an explosion, the wind currents would have carried the radioactive gases east. To the east, it was 89 miles to Center City Philadelphia (the city as a whole then had 1.7 million people), 170 miles to Midtown Manhattan (New York City had a shade over 7 million), and 140 miles to East Brunswick, New Jersey, where 9-year-old yours truly lived, and was watching these reports.

There were 3 stories that really spooked me as a kid. One was the Son of Sam murder case, in New York in the Summer of 1977. But I soon realized that the Son of Sam -- eventually revealed to be mailman David Berkowitz -- wasn't targeting little boys. (Had I known about John Wayne Gacy, that might have spooked me, but he was in Chicago, far away.)

Another was the Jonestown Massacre in November 1978, in which there were children in the nearly 1,000 people who died. But that was in South America: As creepy as it was, it was far from me.

The other was Three Mile Island. This scared the living hell out of me. The TV ads for The China Syndrome didn't help. And it went from box office bust to hit very quickly.

Met Ed found that there was no oxygen in the pressure vessel, meaning the hydrogen bubble would not explode. They managed to reduce and remove the hydrogen, by venting it straight into the atmosphere. That was okay: It was not radioactive.

After 3 days, the crisis was over. To emphasize this, President Carter, who had worked with the Atomic Energy Commission while serving in the U.S. Navy in 1952, toured the plant. It may have been the last time in his Administration that Jimmy Carter inspired confidence in anyone. 

Nearly 2 million people were exposed to higher-than-normal radiation. Subsequent studies have shown that there was no increase in cancer, and no deaths for any reason, attributable to the accident.

Nevertheless, Unit 2 was never restarted. Exelon, which now owns the plant, shut Unit 1 down on September 20, 2019. Because of the danger of radiation, it will take until 2079, 100 years after the meltdown, for demolition of the facility to be safe.

As the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine proved on April 26, 1986, what happened at TMI could have been a lot worse. It is believed that 43 people died as a result of the Chernobyl explosion, 3 in the initial explosion, the rest from cancer later.

On July 7, 1991, I was with members of the youth group at my church, which had spent the previous week helping to build a Christian camp at a lake in Tennessee. Our trip back took us down the Pennsylvania Turnpike. As we approached the Susquehanna, I saw the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, and a chill ran through me.

I pointed the towers out to the other teenagers in the van. But it just didn't register with them. Most of them were anywhere from 14 to 18 years old -- 3 to 7 years younger than I was. One passenger in the van wasn't even born yet in March 1979. None of them had any memory of it. They only knew it as history, as something that could have been a big deal, but wasn't.

I was there -- well, not there on the ground, but within the path that the radioactive cloud could have taken. And, as much as any kid could have at the time, I knew what was going on.

It was a very big deal. May there never be another such big deal.

*

March 28, 1979 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was in the off-season. There were 9 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Seattle SuperSonics, 111-105 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Washington Bullets, 127-108 at the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey. (It's now named the Jersey Mike's Arena.) "Super John" Williamson scored 37 for the Nets, and Bernard King scored 24. But it was far from enough against the defending NBA Champions, who got 28 from Bob Dandridge, 22 from Elvis Hayes and 20 from Charles Johnson.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Chicago Bulls, 112-96 at The Spectrum. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 35 points for the Sixers.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Detroit Pistons, 115-110 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Boston Celtics, 135-117 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Houston Rockets, 125-124 at The Summit in Houston. Billy Knight scored 37 for the Pacers. But, knowing that Bobby Knight was then coaching Indiana University, it is strange to see a box score listing of "B. Knight-IND 37." (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the New Orleans Jazz, 122-94 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 112-106 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Kansas City Kings, 132-122 in overtime at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Boston Bruins, 9-2 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Washington Capitals, 6-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Detroit Red Wings, 8-1 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 2 games played in the World Hockey Association, now entering the last 2 weeks of its existence. The Quebec Nordiques beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-0 at the Colisée de Québec. And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 6-3 at the Winnipeg Arena.