The Cameronians Football Club was an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is t ...

club, formed out of the

Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) was a rifle regiment of the British Army, the only regiment of rifles amongst the Scottish regiments of infantry. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 26th Cameronian Regi ...

regiment of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

History

The regiment's side emerged from the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Scottish Rifles, and was formally called as the 4th V.B.S.R. as a result, the Cameronians name being official from 1897. The club was founded in 1893 and, with the regiment being based in north-east Glasgow, entered the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Glasgow Cup The Glasgow Cup is a football tournament open to teams from Glasgow, Scotland. Operated by the Glasgow Football Association, it was competed for annually by senior Glasgow clubs from 1887 until 1989. It is now (since the 2019–20 amended rul ...

and

Glasgow North Eastern Cup The Glasgow North Eastern Cup was a senior competition organised by the North Eastern FA in Glasgow, and open to clubs in the East and North End of the city. 1881–82 season Matches Semi-final Final 1881-92 season 1882-83 season ...

(the last edition of the latter) in the 1893–94 season. The club beat Shettleston Swifts 7–1 in the first preliminary round of the national competition (the tie being drawn to be played at Shettleston, but actually played at Maxwell Park), but lost in the second to

Cowlairs Cowlairs is an area in the Scottish city of Glasgow, part of the wider Springburn district of the city. It is situated north of the River Clyde, between central Springburn to the east and Possilpark to the west. Administratively, in the 21st cen ...

. The club continued to enter the

Glasgow Cup The Glasgow Cup is a football tournament open to teams from Glasgow, Scotland. Operated by the Glasgow Football Association, it was competed for annually by senior Glasgow clubs from 1887 until 1989. It is now (since the 2019–20 amended rul ...

and the Scottish Cup - from 1895 to 1896, 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 Cup ...

- until 1902–03. It lost every single competitive cup fixture it played, other than a win over Glengowan in the first round of the Qualifying Cup in 1898–99, and a 3–2 replay win over the fallen giants of Renton in the same competition in 1900–01, with goals from Hill, McKnight, and Denholm. The score slightly flattered Renton, which scored its second on the whistle. Despite the poor cup record, the club applied to join the

Scottish Football Alliance The Scottish Football Alliance was a football league football structure set up in Scotland in competition with the Scottish Football League. Its success in the early years of professional football in both England and Scotland made Alliance the bas ...

in 1896, and was accepted, ahead of Mossend Swifts and

Bathgate Bathgate ( sco, Bathket or , gd, Both Chèit) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston, Scotland, Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway (Scotland), M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Armadale, West Lothian, Armadale, Blackburn, ...

; albeit this was a sign of the Alliance's decline, as many of its clubs had been recruited into the

Scottish League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km sout ...

, and it was only by a margin of 6 votes to 3 that the Alliance was not disbanded. Cameronians finished bottom of the 5 clubs, with only one win, 4–1 at home to

Blantyre Blantyre () is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with an enumerated 800,264 inhabitants . It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, Li ...

, and the Alliance did not continue afterwards. From 1904 to 1912, the regiment was stationed outside the United Kingdom, and it had considerable success in competitions; from 1906 to 1909, it won four trophies in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

(including the

Durand Cup The Durand Football Tournament, commonly known as Durand Cup, is an annual domestic football competition in India which was first held in 1888 in Shimla. Hosted by the Durand Football Tournament Society (DFTS) and All India Football Federation ...

twice), and, having been re-deployed to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

in 1910, it won the

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...

Cup, the Orange Free State 2nd division, and the Dewar Trophy. In 1912, the regiment returned to Scotland, and re-entered the Qualifying Cup, but again with the same lack of success; its one win in the competition was 3–2 at

Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...

in 1913–14. However, the club did achieve its greatest success in Scottish football that season, by winning the

Scottish Amateur Cup The Scottish Amateur Cup is a nationwide knockout tournament supported and organised by the Scottish Amateur Football Association. The Scottish Amateur Cup is contested by hundreds of football clubs every year. The first and second rounds are r ...

, beating the Albert Road Former Pupils at

Hampden Park Hampden Park (Scottish Gaelic: ''Pàirc Hampden''), often referred to as Hampden, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The -capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. It is the no ...

. The outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

meant this was the club's last competitive match; it had to withdraw from the 1914–15 Qualifying Cup and never returned to senior football.

Colours

The club's original colours were red and white jerseys with blue knickers. From 1900 to 1904, the club wore maroon, and while stationed in India reverted to red and white stripes, but with white shorts. From 1912 to 1915, a combination of black, green, and blue, the colours of the regimental tartan.

Ground

The club's ground in Scotland was Maxwell Park off Alexandra Parade.

References

External links

Scottish Cup seasons
{{Defunct Scottish football clubs, state=collapsed Cameronians Association football clubs established in 1893 Association football clubs disestablished in 1913 1893 establishments in Scotland 1913 disestablishments in Scotland Football in Glasgow Military football clubs in Scotland