Bomb Wrecked Oval beginning of an era - not the end

Homeless without even a pair of laces for non existent football boots - stands and offices smouldering ruins and the playing pitch a yawning water filled crater.

Such was the plight of Glentoran on that sunny morning of Monday May 5 1941 after Nazi Heinkel bombers, droning interminably throughout the previous night, had rained terror on Belfast, a vital port in the busy wartime industrial production centre.

For the Oval was reduced to a shambles by bombs intended for the nearby world's largest shipyard, Harland & Wolff Ltd, whose crane gantries almost threw shadows across the playing arena.

There were no cheering crowds that morning or indeed for years after...no star spangled teams...no clicking of turnstiles...no programme sellers.

Yet from that day until August 20 1949 when Glentoran returned home a battle was fought.

It was a battle which proved tougher than many of those on the field of play...a battle against the old enemy....flooding water, daily it was pumped away from the ground, leaving in it's wake treacle like mud: disused baths, buckets and even a pair of men's boots, all of which were seeped from the soil.  However the following morning the crater had filled again.  It was a relentless struggle.

Homecoming

To visit the Oval in those days as many did it was a strange experience.  Your feet sank ankle deep in the mud.  Water lay in pools all around.  The grotesque twisted steel structure of the unreserved stand and the rusted track railings looked sadly out of place and emblems of another age.

Everything was cathedral quiet, the silence broken only by the throb, throb of the pump and occastional rumble of the passing train on the Bangor (Co.Down) line.  It was not until August 20 1949 that Glentoran returned home, and what a homecoming they enjoyed too.  In Dee street and the other gateways to the Oval leading from the Newtownards Road, women and children stood in groups watching the enthusiasts on their way to the ground.

Children many of them seeing for the first time a gathering of football fans on route to the match, cheered.  They felt they were part of soccer history, "Come on the Cock and Hens", they called, it was a wonderful day....the start of a new era. 

The bombing of the Oval is only a minute part of the background to this East Belfast club, founded in 1882.  Today the Green, Red and Black colours of the Glens are known throughout  the world while in the Ballymacarret district and beyond they have become a symbol or clan characteristic of Irish Soccer.