Marymass Madness: Irvine Victoria vs Irvine Meadow. A West of Scotland derby.

Words: Reece Mullen

Images: Reece Mullen

Every year, dating all the way back to the Middle Ages, there has been a yearly festival in the town of Irvine in Ayrshire.

It’s called Marymass (pronounced ‘Murmuss’) and has been in its most recent form for the last one hundred years now.

The festival sees pageantry, horses, parades, an elected Queen and her four ‘Marys’ among a mix of historic and more common events taking place over a period of twelve days and culminating on the last Saturday in August.

There are many gala days around Scotland but this one is pretty much the Glastonbury of gala days.

One of the major highlights of the festival for many is the local football match between West of Scotland sides Irvine Victoria and Irvine Meadow XI aka “The Medda”, competing for the Marrymass trophy.

And in keeping with Marymass’ historic traditions, this fixture is as medieval as it gets. The contest has been played 96 times since 1921 and to no surprise this match has been dominated by the Medda, the bigger and more successful club of the two.

But this doesn’t make it less important for the Vics, if anything the record has ramped up the intensity of the derby. The reality is this is a glorified friendly but don’t tell anyone in KA11 and KA12 that. The fact is, for the diehards at least, this means everything, and both sets of fans hate each other, planting their flags based on being “top-enders” and “bottom-enders”, for whoever supports who.

©Reece Mullen/ Terrace Edition. Irvine Victoria vs Irvine Meadow XI

One source commented they heard someone say “He’s no a boattum-ender. Says he is but he’s no!” which translates (if such a translation is needed) as “he’s no Bottom-ender, he says he is but he’s not!”.

It’s such a big deal that crowds will triple or even quintuple from their average attendances and the league even reschedule their fixtures just to play on this weekend.

The atmosphere itself is mental to put it as an understatement. The intensity has grown in recent years along with the ultras culture in Scotland. It’s noted in 2016 that the match was stopped for fifteen minutes due to a pitch invasion, resulting in the referee pulling the players off the park.

Coming in here on a Friday night, I parked in the harbour area of Irvine and almost went right into the festivities, by almost running over the large gathering of Irvine Vics young team in the middle of the road. They were just about to embark on their corteo up to Victoria Park. I followed behind a fair distance as I made the short trip up.

A typical match here would have a couple of old guys to receive your admission money and sell half-time draw tickets. This match was all-ticket rather than a cash gate, a result of the scenes from last year. Instead, there were three layers of security sandwiched in between me and the entrance.

Police, Stewards and even local nightclub bouncers making sure no alcohol, objects and most importantly pyro got through, even asking punters to do star jumps to prove they’re not hiding anything.

They failed.

The Vics are three leagues below Medda and have the ground to match with half the capacity of their neighbours and only two sides of terracing occupying the pitch, although the other side of the goals had crash barriers in place to allow more away fans, resulting in another bumper crowd.

It’s still a fantastic wee ground just to note and is complemented by a railway embankment up high on the opposite side. The pie hatch is right behind the goals with a sign warning of incoming balls, of which lots were flying during warmup.

The Victoria Park DJ got right into the mood with Kaiser Chief’s ‘I Predict A Riot’, of which the lads selling me my pie said, “Of all the music they could have played!”.

We were now ready for the 2023 Marrymass Derby as the Queen and her Marys lined up on the touchline waiting for the teams. The girls were probably fed up standing with dignitaries for photos throughout the week, but this duty was even more surreal.

I had a great view of the doorway to the home dressing room and saw Irvine Victoria manager Dougie MacDuff ready to lead his team out to this battle of Irvine. The teams came out to a tightly packed crowd of around 800, to huge roars from both sets of fans.

While the captains attended to the customary photos with the Queen and others who were part of the Marymass committee, the real shot was in the Irvine Victoria home end.

To put it lightly, the ground looked like a scene out of Apocalypse Now. The Vics ultras all had pyro set off, from orange and black smoke bombs to bright flashing flares, all to the chant of “ooh ahh, ‘toria!”.

The sight was incredible, even more so in the environment we were in. Historic traditions met with a fierce non-League derby with fiery scenes making this ninth-tier ground look like a Galatasaray match.

The match was underway whilst fog covered the ground after the pyro show.

Unfortunately, just like last year, the match couldn’t really live up to the occasion. It was classic old-school junior football, big tackles, stramashes and big, long balls but the excitement factor was not added in.

Irvine Meadow got more and more in control and their work paid when new signing Jordan Boyd was able to head in a corner on the 37th minute, jumping above the stationary Vics defence.

Just five minutes later he was at it again, diving to head in a swinging ball from Sean Ewart to make it 2-0. The third came in injury time, a cleared ball was quickly flicked up by Kyle Faulds and smashed through the defence on the half-volley to all but win the tie for the Medda.

To put it lightly, the Vics had collapsed. Their faces tripping them as they came back into the dressing room told the story.

Regular service resumed in the second-half and the play was back to what it was in the first half an hour. The Vics were up a few times but could not get anything meaningful from it.

In the 61st minute minute, we encountered a case of déjà vu. It was a free-kick from Conor O’Donnell that got the last goal last year, and it would be O’Donnell with the free-kick that would claim the final goal this year. An excellent shot rose above the Vics wall and dipped down into the bottom-left corner of the goal.

The game was done and many home fans headed out. Victoria Park has no floodlights, and the match was supposed to finish as the sun went down.

But ultras did their thing on the sideline, forcing delays that would mean the game finished in near darkness.

The ref wasn’t messing around and called time as soon as was humanly possible, leaving Irvine Meadow to celebrate a 4-0 away win.

The trophy was presented in the dark with only camera flashes to light the way

As I walked out you wouldn’t think the Vics lost as those ultras went out into a mass ensemble and chanted away in defiance under the railway bridge.

Even now, I still can’t quite wrap my head round it. It’s interesting enough for an outsider looking in but I’m still baffled after being there, not necessarily the local derby part but the festival that it’s a part of and the whole significance of the fixture.

These two could meet in a cup and yes, I’d put my money on it being as intense as Friday night, but no doubt the surroundings of the Marymass Derby make this such a unique match in the Scottish football calendar.

I would implore anyone to go at one point in their life as it really must been seen. The Marymass Derby flames have roared and died out, but the fire will be lit next year and this combustible occasion will happen all over again.

You can find Reece on Twitter and Instagram: @reeceymullen

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