Editor:
A new film made for Galway based TG4 is about a young football team in North Belfast at the start of the Troubles has been selected to be screened at the prestigious Galway International Film Festival opening this week.
Star of the Sea club was seen as a Catholic football club with different age group teams. The under 16 team however included both Protestants and Catholics. Bobby Sands, Terry Nicholl and Michael Acheson were on the team and Sands ended up joining the IRA and Nicholl and Acheson both joined the loyalist UVF.
Five members of the team, McCord, Sands, Hussey, Nicholl and O'Neill, all lived in the biggest housing estate in Europe at the start of the Troubles, Rathcoole. Rathcoole became a strong unionist/loyalist estate controlled by loyalist paramilitaries where Catholic homes including, Sands and O'Neills, were attacked and forced out.
My son was murdered on November 9th 1997 by UVF killers who were police state agents. I am now a prominent victims campaigner for both Catholic and Protestant victims and both the major loyalist paramilitary organisations in my own community have tried to kill me several times. I live under a threat of death.
Myself and three other former players, one Protestant, Georgie Hussey and two Catholics, Dennis Sweeney and Desi Black, who are all in the film, remain firm friends to this day. I was the last Protestant to play for Star of the Sea as the others had left due to the violence of the Troubles.T
This film pays honour to this unique cross community team. Part of the film also includes the murder of Raymond McCord Jnr. and my campaigning to get justice. It is an emotional film showing the best young football team on the island of Ireland in 1969-70, the Troubles, and the aftermath.
From 16-year-old footballers, the murder of Raymond McCord Jnr., the deaths of IRA hunger striker Sands and UVF member Terry Nicholl, the film covers how the Troubles destroyed a cross community football team because of the sectarian conflict.
What could have been only for the Troubles also tells a story in this film. Heartbreaking, great moments, a trophy winning team, the breakup of the most successful youth team of its time, sectarianism, deaths and a murder, and yet it still shows the everlasting cross community friendships of the team so making this an outstanding film. It also tells where the former teammates are now. This is a film without politics and a cross community football team without sectarianism. From the successful team of 1969 to those still here in 2026 who share the memories together before the Troubles took over. This is a fantastic film of an incredible team of kids from both Protestant and Catholic families. We won every tournament and cup we played for. I am proud to say I played on that team. The film, Realt Na Mara (Star of the Sea) is produced and directed by Dublin-based filmmaker James Wynne,
Raymond McCord, Belfast
