'It's a celebration of people' - new documentary sheds light on Glentoran

As institutions of Irish League football go, Glentoran Football Club are among the biggest.

In a new documentary, 'Dreams Of Glory: The Glentoran Story', to be shown on BBC One NI and the BBC iPlayer on 28 August at 22:40 BST, filmmakers Matthew Irvine and Matthew Wenlock take us on a fascinating look behind the scenes at the east Belfast club.

The documentary, filmed over three years, follows the club and their fans as they attempt to win the Irish Premiership trophy.

The reigns of managers Mick McDermott, Rodney McAree and Warren Feeney, as well as the beginning of current boss Declan Devine’s tenure, are all covered in the one hour documentary.

“It was very random how it came about,” joint director Wenlock told BBC Sport NI.

“We were shooting another documentary at the time, and we saw Glentoran had started doing well and we follow football.

“At that stage Glentoran hadn’t won the league in 13 years and we thought they could do it that year and we thought it would be really cool to document.

“So we contacted the media officer within Glentoran and grabbed a coffee and that started a train of communication, which led to them letting us come in and document the season.”

When the documentary started, the Oval side had just been taken over by new owner Ali Pour.

“As soon as we walked in the trophy room and saw the magnitude of history, I think it was what captivated us to push through to document this club trying to get back to its glory. What makes Glentoran Glentoran is what we have done,” Wenlock added.

Neither of the brothers-in-law are Glentoran fans but they have always followed the Irish League.

“Even though we weren’t necessarily Glentoran fans, because we connected with the people so much, we wanted success because we knew defeats meant that people we had really built a connection with were suffering,” said Irvine.

“The story isn’t about winning, it’s a celebration of people and all the great historical events. It was just ordinary people working on the boats and playing in Europe and to this day the people who make Glentoran are the ordinary people and volunteers.”

Glentoran have a lengthy history in European competitions, including being the only team to ever win the Vienna Cup back in 1914.

“The story of Glentoran is huge and you could do four series and still not get into the nitty gritty of the club. There are so many people, so many stories,” Irvine continued.

“There is a small history section, and I suppose it’s the past that fuels the present as they are trying to get back to that. There is so much within the club that we couldn’t even scratch the surface.

"It was a tough job cutting it down, but that’s just the joy of filmmaking!"

With their debut venture under their belts, the fledgling filmmakers say they are keen to “keep pushing deeper into the industry".

“When I look at the documentary now the best achievement is actually us getting it to be on somewhere like the BBC so when we found out we were over the moon,” Wenlock said.

“Our ambitions are to keep on creating more films. We have a few ideas of what we want to create, we want to keep on pushing deeper into the industry continue relationship with people like BBC and keep putting films into the world.”