Ahead of Friday night’s final Louth Derby of the season, Newry-based filmmaker Ally McKenzie has released a new documentary which captures the heat of the Wee County’s big rivalry.
Titled ‘The Wee County’s Big Derby’, the 12-minute film, features fans, players and well-known faces from both clubs.
McKenzie, who has produced a range of documentaries with his company Sideline Films, is also known for creating matchday content on the Match In A Minute social media channels.
An ardent Newry City fan, this is Ally’s first film about football on this side of the border and he said he was looking forward to seeing the reaction of League of Ireland supporters.
“I’m delighted to produce a short documentary on the Louth Derby,” he told dundalkfc.com. “It’s a fixture that has blown me away in the past in terms of atmosphere and match day experience and I have felt for a long time that I wanted to capture that experience and show it to a wider audience.
“This is our first longer-form project since launching Match In A Minute – a TikTok account where we travel around Europe making videos at a number of different clubs.
“We felt like the Louth Derby was the perfect match to highlight and to show our aims of producing short documentaries based on the local game.
“It’s a unique derby involving two very unique clubs. We have touched on a brief history of each club within the film and have featured some well-known current and former players as well as some fans.
“But mostly we wanted to capture the energy of the match and hope we have done that. There’s a lot of stories to be told within this league and some amazing characters so let’s hope we can make more in the future.”
Current Dundalk players Patrick Hoban and Ryan O’Kane, former Lilywhites captain Chris Shields and Drogheda United’s Ryan Brennan and Adam Foley feature in the piece and McKenzie said their presence in the piece was a massive help.
“Both clubs were fantastic and couldn’t do enough to help us,” he said. “The access we were given to the players, the grounds and the fixture itself is something you don’t experience everywhere and is another reason why the League of Ireland is such a unique league.
“We want to show people the importance of supporting local football and how you can experience atmospheres, like the Louth Derby, that pound for pound rivals some of the leagues across Europe.”
The film is centred on Dundalk’s 2-1 win in the 174th Louth Derby at Weaver’s Park in June, a night when Patrick Hoban created history by becoming Dundalk’s all-time leading goalscorer.
“One of the special moments of the film was being able to capture a piece of history on camera,” said McKenzie. “Sometimes when you work on projects, things click into place and it was amazing to watch that historic moment live and be able to capture it forever on film.”
You can follow Match In A Minute on Instagram and TikTok while the documentary is also available on Match In A Minute’s newly established YouTube channel.
