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 ...
club from the city of
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
.
History
The club was founded in 1877 by George Howell, a professional cricketer, out of the Brunswick Cricket Club, and who started the football section by recruiting a number of
rugby union
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
players. Brunswick entered the Edinburgh Cup in its first season of existence, losing 3–1 to Heart of Midlothian in its first tie, played on neutral territory at Newington.
The 1878–79 season saw the club's first
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,3rd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers, In the Edinburgh Cup, the club lost in the semi-final to
Hibernian
Hibernian may refer to:
* Of Hibernia, Latin name for Ireland; hence
** Irish (disambiguation)
Hibernian, Hibernians or The Hibernian may refer to:
Sports clubs
* Hibernian F.C., a Scottish football club, founded 1875
* Hibernian W.F.C., a Sc ...
at
Powderhall
Powderhall is an area lying between Broughton Road and Warriston Road in the north of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Until recently it was best known for Powderhall Stadium, a greyhound racing track, which has now closed. The stadium also p ...
by 6 goals to 0, and a week later lost to the same club 6–1 in a friendly.
Brunswick's biggest competitive win came in the first round of the
1879–80 Scottish Cup
The 1879–80 Scottish Cup – officially the Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup – was the seventh season of Scotland's most prestigious football knockout competition. With 142 entrants, this season saw the largest number of teams to c ...
, 5–0 over the declining Edinburgh Swifts. In the second round, the club lost 4–2 to Hearts at the Powderhall, Brunswick complaining that the third Hearts goal should not have been allowed, and the fourth - an own goal - was scored in darkness due to Hearts being late in providing a match ball. The club lost in the Edinburgh Cup in the quarter-finals at Hibernian, 4–3, having lost a three-goal lead.
With the growth of association football in Edinburgh, Brunswick was firmly in the shadow of Hearts and Hibs, and was overtaken by St Bernard's and
Leith Athletic
Leith Athletic Football Club is a association football, football club based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. They compete in the East of Scotland Football League, First Division. First team matches are played at Meadowbank Stadium.
Th ...
in short order. In 1878, Brunswick had 45 members, the same as Hearts and just five fewer than Hibs; in 1883 the club had dropped to 39 members, while Hearts, Hibs, and St Bernards all had over 150, the newly-senior
Edina
EDINA is a centre for digital expertise, based at the University of Edinburgh as a division of the Information Services Group.
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had 50, and even the
Hanover
Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...
club had attracted more members in its brief existence. The club's last win in the Scottish Cup was against Hanover in 1881–82 and in 1883–84 the club did not even enter the Edinburgh Cup, instead concentrating on the national cup, where it lost 8–0 to Hearts in the first round, six of the goals being scored by Wood; the Brunswick players were described as "out of condition" and only the goalkeeping of William Braidwood kept the score down. The match was the club's last competitive match and, although the cricket club continued, the football side seems to have been abandoned before the next season.
Colours
The club played in black and white hoops, with white knickerbockers.
Ground
The club played at Brunswick Park, on Easter Road.