How 'a crazy group of people' created Premiership history and why one former player believes they remain the Irish League's 'best footballing side'
If Linfield win their final three league matches, they will join an exclusive club of champions to hit the 91-point mark – something which has only been achieved three times, and by two clubs, since a 12-team Premiership was introduced in 2008.
The first to break new ground was Cliftonville’s all-star cast of 2012/13, led by legendary Irish League figure Tommy Breslin, who delivered the club’s maiden Gibson Cup crown since 1998 with a stunning season which included 29 victories and 95 goals.
Having just arrived in Northern Ireland’s top-flight that summer from Scotland, Marc Smyth wasn’t sure what to expect, but quickly realised the true potential Cliftonville’s squad possessed.
"I always remember my first training session and I played against Liam Boyce - he scored a hat-trick, one with his right foot, one with his left and a header,” reflected Smyth. “I remember thinking 'he can play'.”
Play he could – Boyce would finish the 2012/13 campaign sitting top of the goalscoring charts with a remarkable 29 while partner-in-crime Joe Gormley, who is still terrorising defences to the current day, struck 17 times.
It was Boyce’s first full season back at Cliftonville since returning home from Werder Bremen, marking it with a NIFWA Player of the Year and Ulster Footballer of the Year double, and it was that golden period that laid the platform for his decade-long stay across the water.
"Boycey had everything - he was strong, quick, powerful, vision, could finish,” said Smyth. “I always think if you go to England or Scotland you need more to your game than just being a good finisher, so it didn't surprise me that Boycey went away and stayed away.
"That season was very easy because you just gave Liam or Joe the ball! Football is a very simple game: if you have two strikers that can score goals you're going to win trophies.
"In terms of Irish League partnerships, I can only speak from 2012 onwards because that's when I arrived, but I don't think there has been a better pair.”
Despite finishing on 91 points – a number which remains the record alongside North Belfast rivals Crusaders (2015/16, 2017/18) – the season didn’t get off to a perfect start, narrowly beating Glenavon before drawing against Dungannon Swifts and Glentoran, but it was a trip to Coleraine when things started to click.
An emphatic 5-1 victory over the Bannsiders moved Cliftonville top of the table and one comment while walking off at The Showgrounds still sticks with Smyth.
“One of their fans shouted 'if you haven't won the league by Christmas I'll eat my hat',” he added. “I didn't think anything of it because Cliftonville hadn't won the league in years, but he was right.
"He'd watched the Irish League over the years and must have seen something that day which was different.
"A memory popped up on my Facebook the other day from when I shared a photo of that team and I'd said it was the best footballing side to play in the Irish League. I still believe it was.
"There's not a striker in the league over the last 10 years that gets ahead of prime Liam Boyce or Joe Gormley, there's not a midfielder that gets in front of Barry Johnston or Ryan Catney.”
By Smyth’s own admission, that Cliftonville squad “was a crazy group of people” with big characters determined to succeed, but their fire was perfectly counterbalanced by the calming presence of boss Breslin.
Breslin, an icon inside Solitude, led the Reds to consecutive Premiership titles and won eight trophies across a golden four-year period.
He sadly passed away in 2019 with former Cliftonville chairman – and current NIFL CEO – Gerard Lawlor saying at the time: “Our club has lost one of its greatest sons – if not the greatest”.
"He was a lovely human being, very sincere and very honest,” said Smyth. "You always felt he was in control.
"You talk about nurturing players, players love to be loved regardless of age and they want to be able to express themselves. He allowed you to do all of that.
"He was like everybody's dad and regardless of what he did or said, nobody would fall out with him because you seen him as a father figure.
"That was an insane group...big characters, punch-ups in the dressing room, but the leader at the top was just so calm.
"By his actions and who he was, people always respected his decisions and that's a skill. He was always one step ahead."
While the likes of Boyce and Gormley stole the headlines due to their goalscoring exploits, it was a wider collective effort which propelled Cliftonville towards a historic Gibson Cup crown.
"You'd two players for every position,” recalled Smyth. “It was an amazing team.
"The group of people involved, you were always going to get that desire to succeed.
"The biggest lesson for me in leadership was that everyone looked at leaders years ago as these powerful figures who ruled with an iron fist, but that's not leadership - that team had leaders in every single department.
"George McMullan was captain, Ryan Catney was quiet but led by example, a true group of leaders. We didn't like losing and there was no hiding place.
"I look through the whole team and I would struggle to tell you anybody who wasn't a leader in some way. It was a group that was driven."