Selkirk F.C.

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Selkirk Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the town of Selkirk. They are members of the East of Scotland Football League and currently play in the Premier Division.

Nicknamed The Souters, the club was founded in 1880 and is the oldest club in the Borders. Their home ground is Yarrow Park.

The club have appeared in the Scottish Cup on numerous occasions, with their most infamous appearance having been in 1984-85 when they were beaten 20-0 by Stirling Albion. This was the biggest winning margin in British senior football during the 20th century. In actual fact, the club had temporarily dropped out of the East of Scotland League and were effectively defunct at this time; in order to preserve future Scottish Cup participation upon their return, the club allowed local Border Amateur League club Selkirk Victoria to field their team under the Selkirk F.C. banner during that season's campaign.[1]

Famous players produced by the club include two Scottish internationals - locally born Bobby Johnstone who was a member of Hibs' Famous Five and Bob Mercer who played for Hearts. Ironically, Mercer collapsed and died while playing for Hearts in a friendly match at Selkirk, aged only 36.

Selkirk won promotion in 2005-2006 after some spirited performances, including a 6-1 win over Gala Fairydean. They are currently the only team from the Scottish Borders to play in the East of Scotland Premier League.

[edit] Sources

  • "Soccer in Selkirk": Article by Keith Anderson in Scottish Football Historian magazine, No.5 (Mar 1983)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lothian keen to set the record straight for Selkirk's castaways Times Online, 19 November 2005. Accessed 9 April 2007