St Bernard's F.C.

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St Bernard's F.C. was a Scottish Association Football club based in Edinburgh from 1878 to 1943.

With the dominance of Edinburgh giants Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian in the city, St Bernards only had a small band of followers and disappeared from the Scottish game during the Second World War. The other Edinburgh sides Edinburgh City and Leith Athletic also went out of existence in the preceding decades.

The team was founded in the stockbridge area of Edinburgh and were named after St Bernards well that sits on the banks of the water of Leith in that area. They became a prominent local team in the late 19th Centuary and were admited to the scottish league division one in 1893. The club's finest hour came in 1895 when they defeated Renton in the scottish cup final at Ibrox, Glasgow.

In the summer of 1900 the club failed in a bid to be re-elected to division one and were demoted to division two, they were never to return. The club had a slight revival in the late 1930's challenging unsuccessfully for promotion to the top flight and losing in a scottish cup semi-final after a second replay in 1939 to eventual winners East Fife.

During the 2nd world war the club's long term benefactor died, and the excutors of his will forced the sale of club assets to repay its debt to him. As the club was in effective hibernation for the war it had no means of recouping any money and never reappearred after the war.

The club had several grounds during it existence but its longest and final home was the gymnasium located in the new Town off Royal Cresent. The area is now split between a car park and public park. The Saints home tops were blue.