association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
Although a form of 'mob' football had been played in the town, the association game was introduced to Aberfeldy by bank clerks, with the first club being called Breadalbane Rangers; one of the founders was a clerk named Fisher, who had played for a club of the same name in Edinburgh in 1875. In response the "artisan" men founded their own club, initially called Aberfeldy Breadalbane, in 1880, and sometimes referred to simply as Aberfeldy, but becoming Breadalbane by the mid-1880s. Rangers did not last long as its players gradually joined the new club.
The club entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Vale of Teith in 1884.
The club started to enter again in 1903–04, by which time smaller clubs had to start with the
Scottish Qualifying Cup
The Scottish Qualifying Cup was a football competition played in Scotland between 1895 and 2007. During that time, apart from a brief spell in the 1950s, it was the only way for non-league teams to qualify for the Scottish Cup. The Qualifying Cu ...
, and the club won through the qualifying rounds every season from 1922–23 to 1925–26, plus 1928–29, albeit the club never won more than one Qualifying Cup tie in each of those seasons, relying on byes to reach the main competition. The club lost in the first round proper on every occasion. Twice the club lost 10–0 to
Falkirk
Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow.
Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...
, the first tie in 1923 seeing
Syd Puddefoot
Sydney Charles Puddefoot (17 October 1894 – 2 October 1972) was an English footballer who played for West Ham United, Falkirk and Blackburn Rovers. He played mainly as a centre forward or inside right. He was also a cricketer for Essex. ...
score five goals, although the club made £100 simply by selling the right to host the tie to the Bairns. The club continued to enter the competition until
World War 2
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilisin ...
.
The club has the unenviable record of most appearances in the first round proper of the Cup without scoring a goal, with six. No other club has more than three.
Breadalbane was a member of the small Atholl League in the 1900s and the larger Perthshire League until the latter's end in 1957; the club won the championship on nine occasions, including the final two. Since then it has been in the Perthshire Amateur League, winning the title three times, most recently in 2005–06. The club has also won the
Perthshire Cup
The Perthshire Cup was an association football cup competition for clubs in the county of Perthshire, Scotland. The competition was founded in 1884 and was last competed for in the 1974–75 season.
Format
The competition was a knock-out tourname ...
on several occasions, first entering in 1884–85 but not winning the trophy until 1936–37, with a 4–1 win over Blairgowrie; the team was met at the east end of the town after the win in the second (away) leg by the Aberfeldy Pipe Band. The club won the competition every season from 1956–67 to 1962–63.
Colours
The club's traditional colours are blue shirts and white shorts, which in 1884–85 was a dark blue, although until 1884 the shirts were one-inch blue and white hoops, with navy knickers.
Ground
The club has played at Home Street since 1961. Its previous grounds were at Castle Menzies Park (until 1885) and Castle Weem Park.