The 5th King's Own Scottish Borderers Football Club was a football team based in
Dumfries
Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...
, Scotland.
History
The club's origin is from volunteer regiments (i.e. part-time soldiers) being raised in response to increasing unrest within Continental Europe and the British Empire in the Victorian era. 5th K.O.S.B. came out of the disbanded Maxwelltown Volunteers F.C. side, after a reorganization of volunteer regiments saw a new regiment, the 5th Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers, formed out of battalions from
Dumfriesshire
Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries or Shire of Dumfries () is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county in southern Scotland. The Dumfries lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area covers a similar area to the hi ...
and
Galloway
Galloway ( ; ; ) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the counties of Scotland, historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council areas of Scotland, council area of Dumfries and Gallow ...
.
The club entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1910–11, losing at
Forfar Athletic
Forfar Athletic Football Club are a Scottish semi-professional football club from the town of Forfar, Angus. They are members of the Scottish Professional Football League and currently play in . They play their home games at Station Park, in t ...
in the first round proper before a crowd of 3,000.
The club inherited the Maxwelltown Volunteers position in local tournaments. It took part in the Scottish Combination from 1908 to 1910 to little effect. The club's only major success was winning the Southern Counties Cup, for teams in the south-west of Scotland, in 1915, beating St Cuthbert's Wanderers F.C. 2–1 in a replay at Dumfries F.C.'s Eastfield Park, the winner being scored by Potter with ten minutes to go.
Formation of Queen of the South
At the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, the rival Dumfries F.C. club was in financial difficulties. One of the Dumfries directors suggested amalgamating with the 5th K.O.S.B. in order to raise crowd levels.
During the war, the 5th K.O.S.B. was given permission to change its name to Palmerston F.C., suggesting the club was looking to widen its catchment, but it does not seem to have played under this name. The merger suggestion came back to life after the war concluded. On 21 March 1919, a public meeting was held in Dumfries Town Hall, with a view to forming a single club to represent the town, perhaps with a view to applying to join the Scottish League. At the meeting, representatives of three clubs in the town - the 5th KOSB, Dumfries, and the works side of the
Arrol-Johnston
Arrol-Johnston (later known as Arrol-Aster) was an early Scottish manufacturer of automobiles, which operated from 1895 to 1931 and produced the first automobile manufactured in Britain. The company also developed the world's first "off-road" ve ...
car factory - agreed to merge into a new club, eventually named
Queen of the South F.C.
Queen of the South Football Club is a Scottish professional football club formed in 1919 in Dumfries. The club plays in , the third tier of Scottish football. They are traditionally nicknamed the '' Doonhamers'' but are more usually referred ...
, and the new club's first meeting took place a week later.
Colours
The club played in blue shirts and white shorts.Scottish Football Historical Archive :: Home Page