'I remember when we were playing to 40 people': Larne spirits buoyed by major milestone - from bent pitch to straight league wins... now a landmark win in Europe

​And the change has not just lifted just the club but the entire surrounding town, the News Letter has been told.

The paper spoke to a number of figures in the town after the team’s victory against a Gibraltar side on Thursday night put it through to the group stage of the Europa Conference tournament.

It is the first time that an Irish League club has made it through to the group stages in a European competition.

The name that comes up again and again when speaking about Larne’s turnaround is Mr Bruce, the millionaire co-founder of online property firm Purple Bricks, who took over as owner in 2017 (soon after The Sunday Times estimated his wealth and that of his co-founder brother at £190m).

Before he arrived, the club was hovering around the middle of the Irish League championship: the second division of NI football.

In the first five years of his ownership, he had pumped some £5m into the club.

Larne qualified for the premiership in 2019... then won the league in 2023, and again in 2024.

Today fans are full of praise for the team, and for him.

Mark Dobbin (60), vice-chairman of Larne Business Forum, used to play for the Larne 2nds, and his father James was goalie for the club.

Later in life his dad worked on the club's advertising, going from business to business in the town soliciting sponsorship then painting those firm's names by hand on Inver Park's walls (he died last December, prompting a minute's silence at the stadium).

Mr Dobbin remembers watching the club play to 40 or 50 fans back in the 1980s and 1990s.

The difference today is stark, he said.

"When Kenny came in, Kenny got behind the team, invested in the team – and the rest of Larne people got behind them.

"It was brilliant Kenny came in and did what he did. If Kenny hadn't have come in they'd probably still be in the first division in the Irish League.

"The ground was nearly condemned! Like most small football clubs in NI.

"And he put that artificial grass in and he flattened the pitch, because I think there was a 9ft drop from one corner to the other. I played on it a few times and it was like playing uphill!”

Mr Dobbin runs his own DJing business, Sounds Good Music Entertainment, and rents out two shops in the town centre.

"It's just lifted the profile of the whole town,” he said of Larne’s success.

"You know when Larne is playing at home, let's put it that way, with footfall in the town."

Stephen Liddle (57) of the Book Nook in Larne town centre, which has been in business for 40 years, said the club’s success in Europe on Thursday was "quite an achievement" and had left him "super-happy".

Of Larne town’s reputation generally, he said it still gets “quite a bit of slagging off, but we're quite happy to take it on the chin – we're the butt of many a joke: 'On a wet Tuesday in Larne...' and all that."

What impact has Larne FC's success had on the town’s civic pride?

"Years ago we'd have had kids running about the street with Celtic tops on, Rangers tops,” he said.

"There's very little of that now. Just all the kids now have Larne tops – and surely that's got to be the way forward. It's amazing."

He said there are hundreds of kids involved in the club's youth programmes, making the local sportsfields "a sea of red".

"It's just fantastic to see, it really is lovely to see. It's fluffed everything up. Even the elderly people round the main street, that's really all they're talking about. It's nice to have a good, positive vibe."

Gregg McKeen, a DUP councillor in the town and season ticket holder for the last several years, was there on Thursday night.

"It was just a marvellous occasion," he said. "We went through every emotion you could go through – going one-nil down, getting a player sent off. It was unbelievable.

"You look at what has happened with Kenny Bruce and Tiernan Lynch [the manager since 2017] and the whole team at the club, what they've done for the community – that whole feel-good factor right throughout the town has been marvellous. It's given us that sense of pride and achievement in the town.”