Port of Clotaire

Port of Clotaire Football Club was a professional football team from Clotaire, Candelaria And Marquez. Considered the most popular club within the city for the best part of a century, the Harpies were the consistent epitome of mediocrity for much of their history, their CMSC league title victory of the XII season aside.

During Candelariasian football’s ‘International Era’ – during which time no club conceded more top-flight goals than the PoC – the team was an ever-present force in the CMSC1 without finishing higher than sixth until a golden period lasting the final four seasons of professional football in C&M. During this time the team enjoyed four straight top-four finishes, finished as league runners-up in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth CMSC seasons, and took the final Clausura title.

Though the club remained under Candelariasian ownership to the last, they established a strong relationship with Sorthern Northland which contributed greatly to their latter-day success under Northlandish manager Winston Muscat, with their teams frequently featuring a majority of players drawn from the Sorthern international squad.

Early history
Established following a meeting of seventy-seven dockworkers in 1919, the club soon became known nationwide for a strong-armed and often tactically negative style of play that proved surprisingly successful in the north-east Candelarian amateur leagues, as well constituting a real pull for working-class northerners. This status was enhanced in later years when the more middle-class Radyukevich CSC and the Clotaire Dragons franchise emerged as their major challengers, though the PoC never managed to match the Candelarias-wide popularity of the romantic Jukos or success of the financially well-healed (though short-lived) Dragons.

Port of Clotaire’s closest NFBL title challenge came in 1960, shortly after the move to the Harper Street stadium – the ground which they inhabited forever after, making it the eldest in the modern CMSC1 by quite some distance. After that second-place finish to Deevin FC the club returned to a near-endless series of relegation struggles, and from 1966 were a second division side.

Following the establishment of the CMSC, the PoC proved one of the more durable outfits, assisted by large crowds but ultimately damaged by the lack of financial muscle. Under Francis Ryan however, they would break the habit of a lifetime by winning the league, finishing narrowly ahead of Turks’ Club with a side consisting of youngsters and veterans alike that appeared to sum up the best and worst of the club’s traditional footballing philosophy.

In the following years, the Harpies slipped steadily out of contention and – a CMS Cup title in XXII aside – the primary aim for each season became simply staying up, and staying ahead of Radyukevich in the table. Their closest taste to glory came during XXVIII; when a team still managed by long-term coach Niko Mason, and including players such as the Zwangzug international centre-half Natalie Instonenext, C&M-born Sorthern Northland forward Lee Waywide and C&M international defenders Tom Redway and Doug Szczechowicz, were placed fourth after the half-way stage. This gave them a TQCC qualifying play-off but, in their debut international tie, the team were beaten home and away by Yaforite giants IYC Ajer.

Domestically, they still finished an impressive sixth in the league, and a burst of rare spending threatened to lift them into regular international contention, but the team failed to make good on that promise, Mason was sacked, and the club returned to their status as strugglers. Their inability to hold on to impressive performers was displayed most obviously by the sale of home-grown wonderkid Jason Federici to Cathedral City prior to XXIX – to the point where many supporters remained convinced that a relegation to clear out the current boardroom management would now be in the club’s best interest.

Rise of Muscat
The club had had long-time connections with St Patrick’s FC, a lower league side from Sorthern Northland based in the town of Little Clotaire, from whom they had signed Waywide some years previously in exchange for financing the building of a memorial in the town to the devastating Great Flood still sharp in the memories of many Clotariens with family members among Sorthern Northland’s Candelariasian expat community and the native population alike.

The relationship would bear considerable fruit for both clubs over the years, and came to the fore at the half-way stage of the XXXII season. With the PoC bottom of the table, manager James Hannah and his backroom team were sacked and unexpectedly replaced by St. Pat’s coach Winston Muscat and his lads Dermot, Donagh, Brian, Ronan, Brian, Andrew and Brian. That Muscat was assaulted and robbed on his arrival in C&M by a man dressed as a kebab didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for his new job and, despite considerable doubts among supporters and pundits over the appointment of a manager from the second tier of the Sorthern Football League who just happened to be a mate of General Manager Robert Moyes, Muscat perfected a true great escape with the PoC coming from two goals down on the final day of the season to take a victory over the El din Marbles that sealed their XXXIII place in the CMSC1.

Waywide returned to play out the twiglet years of his career at St.Pat’s, with his impact sufficient that the Sorthern Northland and C&M national teams even played a friendly in Little Clotaire to serve as his testimonial. Despite his absence however the squad would soon take on an ever more Northlandish flavour, aided by the numbers of Sorthern natives able to bypass the CMSC’s foreigner quota via judicious exploitation of the granny rule.

The rapid rise of Northlandish football over the ensuing months, with semi-final success at World Cup 45 and at the year’s TQCC and Globe Cup competitions, failed largely to rub off on PoC however. The team struggled throughout Muscat’s first full season without ever dropping into the bottom three; the goals of Ham Hyi-san repeatedly saving their bacon and eventually helping them to a very modest fifteenth – enough to see Moyes’ firm trust in Muscat’s abilities retained, but only just.

Recalling striker Iñaki Arrigorriagakoa from his loan role at St Pat’s, and giving first-team roles to fellow Sortherner Santiago Fuentes and Candelariasian Ricky Archer in the full-back positions, Muscat attempted to inject increasing supplies of youth into the team with keeper Karl John and box-to-box midfielder Toirdhealbharch O’Airmeadhaigh similarly promoted as XXXIV went on. The presence of a huge chunk of a still highly successful Sorthern Northland national team should by rights have at least assured mid-table respectability, if not rather better, but once again the Harpies started in hopelessly poor form – finally winning their first game at the twelfth time of asking, and only then at fellow strugglers Cathedral City, with their previous games including a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of Albrecht FC.

As Muscat’s continued employment increasingly became a nationwide joke, and PoC supporters became resigned to a historic relegation as long as Moyes insisted on sticking to his guns, the team began to string a few more solid results together. By Matchday Twenty-Five, and a superb 4-1 victory at Arrigo Portuguese, the club had hauled themselves out of the bottom three and remained just inside safety for the remainder of the season – even moving ahead of Radyukevich on the final weekend.

The following season, the Harpies appeared much improved and for a time threatened Globe Cup qualification. Despite the performances of Ham – enough to earn him the Silver Boot, in a year in which he was very publicly dropped from his role with the Sorthern national team – as part of a new 4-3-3, the club finished in the bottom half. This time at least Port of Clotaire never looked relegation candidates, and supporters could be forgiven for experiencing a modest degree of hope for arguably the first time in a decade.

Golden years
The newfound belief of the supporters proved entirely justified, as the PoC broke through in XXXVI in a manner that almost no-one else had anticipated. With a highly settled squad now in place, and the likes of Ham, holding midfielder Caleb Edwards and centre-half Alan Cooper all at their peak, the Harpies soon put aside their traditionally poor start – a 4-1 home drubbing by Mayo Valley – to issue a genuine threat to the main title challengers. The team still topped the table by Matchday Ten as the division’s top scorers, the highly drab teams of the recent past now a distant memory in Muscat’s new free scoring era; Ham, Sánchez García and O’Airmeadhaigh looking world class in particular, while even reserves like young striker Jamie Hamblett weighted in against top-quality opposition.

The Harpies were inevitably less impressive at the back, with no side in the top half ultimately conceding more goals, while the inspirational presence of Edwards began to wane as the season progressed; but Muscat’s men were still able to keep up a challenge until relatively late on and earned a third-place finish – unprecedented in the modern era. Having made the TQCC group stages for the very first time, Port of Clotaire finished an honourable third – albeit with their only victories coming home and away at Sorthern side Corcaigh – and were knocked out by Medoria Löwen upon dropping into the Globe Cup for the first time, but Muscat had clearly lain down a marker both at home and abroad, providing perhaps the finest example in Candelariasian football of the value of leaving seemingly underachieving managers in place for a decade or more and allowing them to germinate at their own pace. Though now, of course, Muscat had to prove his worth all over again in XXXVII.

Muscat made the bold decision to hand Ham more of a part-time roll the following season, intent on making full use of his sizable array of striking talents. Though Sánchez García would take responsibility for most of the goalscoring – falling only just short of winning XXXVII’s Golden Boot – the remaining four players to make regular appearances in the front three contributed hugely to the Harpies’ second straight top four finish. Defensively the side improved, despite Alan Cooper’s considerable personal problems, with their main impediment to greater success being the lack of a solid partner for the increasingly influential O’Airmeadhaigh and Sorthern youngster Will Hooper in the centre of the park, too often leaving them overrun in midfield.

That said, the team broke new ground for Port of Clotaire by making the last sixteen of of TQCC19, winning their three group games at home before a comprehensive beating at the hands of the Sonoma Center Panthers.The following year however, with Muscat’s focus perhaps set on the battle to take fourth place in the league ahead of a resurgent Turkish and their arch-rivals Radyukevich, the Harpies finished bottom of their TQCC20 group with only one victory.

The following season saw the retirements of Cooper and Edwards and Archer’s big-money move to Cafundéu, but such disruption had no obvious negative effect. With the team augmented by yet another Sorthern international in the form of midfield maestro Peter Jones, fans and pundits alike purred over a team capable of dismantling foes like few others. Opening back-to-back 5-0 and 5-1 victories over Ironside-Talinger and NAPPC confirmed that there was now no finer sight in the CMSC than the Harpies in full flow, and the team went top of the table following a rather more controlled performance and 1-0 victory against Albrecht FC.

The following two matchdays brought defeats at Arrigo Portuguese and Albrecht Turkish however, setting the tone for a season in which, despite all their attacking talent, the team would be undone too often by poor defending – particularly away from home. Further memorable results were to come, including a 6-3 CMS Cup quarter-final win against Albrecht FC and a 4-0 league thumping of Green Island – but it was the young GIZ side who would ultimately take the title, twenty-five goals behind but three points ahead of the CMSC1’s top scorers from Clotaire.

The Harpies made it through to the Champions’ Cup knockout stages for the first time, but were ousted by Sargossan surprise package El Nacional. Domestic glory was to follow however, their 4-0 drubbing of McDonald SC being the widest margin of victory in the history of the CMS Cup final.

The XXXIX and final CSMC1 season saw Port of Clotaire recover from an underwhelming Apertura to keep alive a close title race between themselves, Albrecht FC and Caires City. Youngster Tadhg Ó Lorcáin, though inconsistent, performed brilliantly in flashes to emerge as a new hero alongside the less anticipated emergence of Candelariasian Hamblett as a striker of international quality. Both scored during a 6-3 victory at Portuguese in the final CMSC1 match before that season’s World Cup, and it was a very different C&M that hosted the low-key final title run-in when the players returned in the aftermath of the Beatrice event. A 3-1 win at the Scorpions at a half-empty Tristar Songstress Stadium and a Hamblett hat-trick at home to Turks’ Club put the PoC seemingly back on course for the title, but soon after they were smashed 6-2 away at Caires City and held at home by the Jukos, and ultimately finished two points shy of Albrecht FC for a second straight second-place finish.

Internationally, the PoC enjoyed lengthy Globe Cup runs before their involvement in professional football came to a close with an away-goals, last-sixteen, defeat to the eventual Champions’ Cup winners, Ad’ihani side Tallyn Rovers.

Legacy
Within weeks of the beginning of the CMSC’s indefinite hiatus, Port of Clotaire’s businessman owners Patrick Verde and Steven Bennett had seen the writing on the wall more rapidly than most and cut their losses, handing the club over to a supporters group who run it to this day as an amateur multi-sports association. Given the continued rise of Sorthern football to world domination over the coming decade, it seems likely that the Harpies would have been one of the teams of the 40s domestically and highly competitive in UICA competition but, as it was, those few locals fans who continued to mourn the professional team’s loss had to be content with victories achieved elsewhere by teams and players with a Clotaire connection.

While the squad’s Candelariasians accepted early retirement alongside their countrymen and women across the league, the Sorthern players would soon find a new lease of life under Winston Muscat at Beningrad – the most poisoned of the Sorthern Football League’s chalices. Having gone almost two decades without taking the title, the capital giants could suddenly boast the likes of Hooper, Ó Lorcáin and Arrigorriagakoa, alongside fellow former CMSC stars including the Marquez-Onwere defender Kaeton Fishsnapperbottom and Weegian Caires City striker Quentin Gorrie.

To no-one’s great surprise Beningrad powered to the league title, but an even greater feat was to follow when the club stunningly beat Hatton Town to win the twenty-eighth Champions’ Cup. Muscat was quick to dedicate the club’s victory to his former employers and supporters, and express his belief that Port of Clotaire deserved to share in Beningrad’s success.

In subsequent seasons a new generation of Beningrad players without Candelariasian connections failed to live up to the achievements of their immediate predecessors, and frequently struggled against relegation. Most of the playing and coaching staff ultimately lost their lives in the atomic devastation of their nation.

In the years that followed, the hitherto unheralded Rushmori country of Ancharmunn achieved modest international sporting success – to a significant degree thanks to an influx of Sorthern refugees. Among the clubs attaining professional status at this time was Clotairien Club, generally known as Clotariens, who to this day play at New Harper Street in Ballyfeeaknock. A typically, and suitably, mid-table outfit, coached for a time by Will Hooper, the Wee Harpies’ familiar red, white and black shirts can occasionally be spotted on the backs (and, equally, fronts) of PoC diehards back in C&M. If nothing else, their continued existence provides one of the few remaining reminders of the glory days of Candelariasian football.

Home stadium
Having gone over half a century without a truly major refit, Harper Street was a fittingly venerable ground for Port of Clotaire. The stadium is noted for its sharply inclined stands, while the Main Stand’s roof helps keep in sound and creates a ‘wall of noise’ that was considered the equal of any in Candelariasian football.

The Main Stand itself was rebuilt several years ago, after being gutted by an arson attack – with Port of Clotaire forced to play at Radyukevich’s home ground for much of that season; the only lengthy period that the Harpies have abandoned their stadium. The board vetoed a bid by the city council to build a new ground as part of C&M’s World Cup preparations, preferring to remain in one of the CMSC’s quainter arenas, and the national team played in the stadium only once, a 2-0 victory over Pljevla during World Cup 48 qualifying. It also hosted a match during the the Second ‘And’ Trophy, in which Nire and Nire beat Kose and the Turkomans.

Today owned by the city council, the stadium occasionally hosts concerts and other cultural events.

Notable CMSC1 International Era players
Goalkeepers
 * Amis Cressey
 * Karl John

Defenders
 * God's Power Adekunde
 * Brian Andrews
 * Ricky Archer
 * Alan Cooper
 * Santiago Fuentes
 * Noah Garrett
 * Natalie Instonenext
 * Sifmir K'latris
 * El-Hadke Murawani
 * George Rachna
 * Tom Redway
 * Doug Szczechowicz
 * Walter Tensen
 * Jari Virta

Midfielders
 * Nathaniel Alaoui
 * Caleb Edwards
 * Todd Garrett
 * Will Hooper
 * Peter Jones
 * Stuart Kim
 * Toirdhealbharch O'Airmeadhaigh
 * Tadhg Ó Lorcáin
 * Kenan Orlovic
 * Panos Petropoulos
 * Serkan Turkmen
 * Tom van Dijk
 * Kim Zetaback

Forwards
 * Iñaki Arrigorriagakoa
 * Dan Davis
 * Kian Donnelly
 * Ham Hyi-san
 * Jamie Hamblett
 * Jason Federici
 * Charlotte Fuller
 * Francisco Manuel Sánchez García
 * Lee Waywide