TWO things have stuck with Adrian Whittle since the age of four – his nickname ‘Sailor’ and his love of, and involvement with, Dungannon Swifts.
Now the vice-chairman of the Stangmore Park club, assisting his cousin Keith Boyd (who’s into his second decade as the head honcho), Whittle is revelling in the Tyrone team’s recent successes.
This morning (Wednesday) the pair will fly out with the team from Dublin to Zurich before the short journey to Liechtenstein to take on its capital club, Vaduz FC, in the Europa Conference League second qualifying round.
The Swifts have some European experience, having been in the Intertoto Cup 20 years ago after a fourth place league finish, then in the Europa League in 2007 as Irish Cup runners-up following a heartbreaking penalty shootout loss against Linfield.
This time feels different, though. The Swifts fly off as Irish Cup-holders, having at last lifted the trophy with a spot-kicks success against Cliftonville.
Whittle wouldn’t have dreamt of such things four decades ago when his dad Ernie, in his role as Swifts kitman, brought him along from the age of four.
His other parent also gave him a lifelong label at that time: “My mother put a sailor suit on me when I was four years of age, and that’s how the name stuck with me ever after.”
Sailor’s standing within the club was soon established. One of his earliest memories of the Swifts was off the pitch: “I remember having a birthday cake at Brantwood Football Club (in north Belfast) when I was about eight years of age, I would say.”
Keith’s allegiance to the Swifts is more recent, although still around 20 years now, but strangely did not come through his uncle or cousins.
“I was into motorbikes from long before. Then Leslie Burnett [a Swifts board member], I was doing his [car repair] work and he kept asking me to come along to a match.
“I played football as a kid, but then once he got me in, it was kind of like a flipping drug.”
Keith was soon literally in an elevated position, taken to the wee boardroom up above the changing rooms.
“Leslie used to take us up there, get us a couple of drinks, then I’d sponsored a couple of matches, and I just started going to matches. I remember being at that Irish Cup Final [in 2007].
“It just grew on you, and thought, ‘To hell with it, I just want to get to the top as quick as I can’, because I don’t like hanging about, I just want to do something, keep doing things.”
Burnett got Boyd onto the Swifts board and he soon adopted a different, direct approach, one of action, not talk.
Having run his own car/ motor repair business for decades at his home village of Bush, Boyd took the lessons learned there to Stangmore.
He didn’t just, ahem, whittle around the edges – he took an axe to the board.
“Not being rude, but it was full of old men, and I just couldn’t be bothered. There was about 18 on the board, and I’m sitting there going, ‘What am I wasting my time here for? We’re going round in circles, all they’re doing is talking.’
“So I kind of fell out with half of them or whatever, but I kept going. To be fair, most of them, I don’t think like them. I just wanted to drive the club forward, I thought: ‘These boys are going nowhere.’
“I run my own business from I was 20, so I knew what I had to do. To be fair, most of them now just say, ‘F---, you’re doing a good job’.
“But I’m not really doing it for myself, I’m doing it for everybody else. I just like putting smiles on people’s faces.”
Sailor is better placed to explain what his cousin has achieved in his 11 years as Swifts chairman.
To paraphrase Neil Young, he brought the Swifts ‘Out of the red and into the black’.
“Keith doesn’t really give himself any credit or recognition,” says Whittle. “When he came into the chair, this football club was £100,000 in debt. In the red.
“What has he done? He’s made the club self-sustaining, well in the black, we’ve won the Bet McLean League Cup [in 2018], we’ve won the Irish Cup, and we’re heading into Europe.
“We also finished fourth this year in the league. Don’t get me wrong, there’s been a few rocky roads along the way, but we’ve come through it, and the club is in a good place.”
Even though there was never much money floating around Stangmore Park, Boyd still felt there was financial waste:
“I treat the Swifts like my own business, like it’s my money.
“Other people come in and think ‘Ach, it’s not mine, spend it’. You can’t do that. To this day, it’s the same: players, managers, everybody.
“Basically they don’t care where me and Sailor get the money. That’s life. They keep moaning at me, ‘Give me this, give me that’; I say ‘You’re doing all right…’
“They’ll always moan, but let them moan away. I have thick skin, that’s probably why I’m still in the job.”
Whittle knows that the times won’t always be this good: “When you’re winning everybody wants to be part of something, but we’ve got to keep the wheels moving, keep generating fans and all sorts of things because without the fans you’re nothing. We depend heavily on the fans.”
Developing local talent is key to the Swifts’ success.
Sailor eventually settles on Johnny Montgomery as his favourite ever Swifts player, a long-serving, long-passing, long-range-shooting legend because of “his commitment to the football club, his dedication and hard work, and obviously I’d know him to knock about with too, which helps.”
Johnny coming from nearby Killyman was also a factor. The Swifts are immensely proud to have Burundi international Gael Bigirimana as their new captain, and Portuguese native Leo Alves alongside him in midfield, but a local core is also important to the club, insists Whittle:
“We pride ourselves on having as many local boys as we can. I think it’s good for the community, it draws a family atmosphere and brings people out of the town.
“There are quality players from the town and around, and we like to hold on to them. Obviously with the limited money we have that’s difficult at times.”
Indeed with money always tight, the Swifts have twice come close to dropping out of the Northern Irish top flight in recent years. Just two summers ago they edged a relegation/promotion play-off 3-2 against Annagh United.
They had finished bottom after the 2020/21 campaign – but fortunately there was no relegation as that was ‘the Covid Season’.
The return of Rodney McAree as team boss in the summer of 2023 has proved pivotal; like Sailor, he’s someone who grew up around the Swifts.
With chairman, vice-chairman, and manager all aligned, the Swifts secured a comfortable eight-placed finish in 2024, their 75th anniversary year.
Although Keith has a (partially-deserved) reputation as ‘Mr Grumpy’, he insists everything he does has this aim: “I just want to put smiles on people’s faces.”
He’s certainly done that this year, with the Swifts finishing fourth in the NIFL Premiership and then, unforgettably, winning the Irish Cup for the first time in the club’s history.
There were tears on his cheeks after that penalty shoot-out triumph, mostly due to the sudden death less than a month earlier of his dad Bobby.
The club wrapped its arms around Keith, and his brothers Darren and Trevor, who are also involved at Stangmore Park.
Keith acknowledges that the days and weeks after the shock passing of his father were a daze, but that his involvement with the Swifts probably helped him at such a difficult time:
“It kind of helped me, by winning it…but it’s still tough, no matter what you do.
“The two or three weeks before the final, and maybe after, I don’t even know what I was doing half the time, I just kept going, kept working, kept coming in here, kept doing things, so it was all done.”
That desire to succeed, to over-achieve, motivates both men.
“We’re in a league with 12 teams, five of them full-time, and what we’ve done this season, with the second lowest budget in the league…
“Keith and I both get a buzz out of that, getting value for money players, watching what we’re doing, trying to get the best out of our players.
“Getting into Europe, by winning the Irish Cup, it’s an extremely proud moment.”
Boyd concurs, commenting: “We’ll keep going, hopefully we’re climbing now, but it’s tougher every year.
“We’re a small club, but that’s what drives me and Sailor on. I don’t mind having no money - I’d rather beat big guys with no money than have plenty of money.”
The European money will help stop Boyd having sleepless nights worrying, for a season or two, but he’s never going to splash the cash.
“Wages are up, insurance is up, rates is up, everything is up. I looked at our books the other day and it’s now nearly a million pound turnover.”
They will spend on what they believe in, of course. Their ambition to do more includes plans submitted for £5m worth of improvements at Stadio Stangmore, including new changing rooms and facilities.
Ironically the second leg against Vaduz, next Thursday, July 31, will be at Cliftonville’s home Solitude. “I just want to take it to the next level now,” says Boyd.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get to [host matches in] Europe because I don’t think we’ll have enough capacity…
“I still want to do a couple of new stands and new changing rooms, put in a wee indoor pitch for the kids.
“The wee pitch right beside here, it’s booked out every day, every night, but there’s nothing in Dungannon itself for kids with disabilities.
“The amount of kids who just want to come down and play on the pitch… It’s like when I was a kid going to Anfield.
“They just love it, they love the players. Kids actually look up to our players, and it’s fantastic.”
Under the astute guidance of Keith Boyd and ‘Sailor’ Whittle, Dungannon Swifts will keep on providing inspiration.
