WATCH: 'Sweet Caroline' - fans from Germany and Northern Ireland join together with brass band for football anthem at Glenavon friendly

With Laganvale Metal Technology brass band members providing the musical backdrop, Neil Diamond’s hit song now adopted across the modern football landscape as a popular anthem was heard around the Mourneview Park stands from both sets of supporters.

Over 1,000 fans from Erzgebirge Aue made the trip to Northern Ireland for the weekend pre-season friendly arranged as part of a growing bond between the two clubs...thanks to a 1960 European Cup tie that never was!

Visa issues following the fall of the Iron Curtain left Irish League champions Glenavon unable to meet East Germany’s Erzgebirge Aue (then called Wismut) in European competition.

Decades later Adam Carson, Glenavon's current supporters' liaison officer, reached out over social media and that initial conversation led to the Lurgan Blues making the trip to Germany last year before Erzgebirge Aue committed to a Northern Ireland journey.

Erzgebirge Aue won the game 2-0 on Saturday but the special occasion was celebrated more as a long-awaited meeting of clubs around 65 years after domestic success put both together on the European stage before broader issues came into play.

One special guest in Lurgan on Saturday was 91-year-old John Dugan, a player from that 1960s title-winning Glenavon squad.