Lavey's first trophy came in 1936 when they won the Dean McGlinchey Cup. Lavey thought they had won their first Derry Senior Football Championship in 1937, when they defeated Newbridge by a point at Magherafelt. However Lavey were stripped of the title under the Foreign Games Rule, when a Lavey player had been reported attending a soccer match. They won the next year's Derry Senior Football Championship, defeating Pearses of Derry City in the final. In 1947 Lavey schoolteacher Master John Fay originally from County Tyrone, managed Derry to their first ever National League success.