Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
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 based in the village of
Coylton
Coylton ( sco, Culton) is a village and civil parish in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It is east of Ayr and west of Drongan, on the A70 road, A70. Sundrum Castle Holiday Park is to the west of the village, in the grounds of Sundrum Castle, which ...
,
Ayrshire
Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine, North Ayrshi ...
.
History
The club was founded in 1877 out of a
curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...
club. By 1879 it had enough members to form 2 sides. The club was named after Coila, the muse of national bard
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who ha ...
.
The club entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Kilmarnock Portland at the latter's Hamilton Park ground. Despite being a "very powerful-looking team", the village side was outmatched by the experienced Portland; the Coila conceded the first goal after ten minutes and by the end of the match had conceded seven more.
Coila also played in the
Ayrshire Cup
The Ayrshire Cup was an annual association football regional competition in Scotland. The cup competition was a knockout tournament between football clubs in the historic county of Ayrshire. The Ayrshire Cup was first held in 1877–78, with t ...
from 1878 to 1881. Its last tie in the competition - and seemingly its last ever match - was a semi-final defeat to
Annbank
Annbank is a village in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It is around five miles east of Ayr. Originally a mining settlement, it once had a rail link to Ayr via the Auchincruive Waggonway.
The village has a village hall, bakery, shop, bowling green, ...
in 1880–81. The club's run to the semi-final included a 5–0 win over Kilmarnock, Coila opening the scoring after three minutes; one report suggested that the heavier Coila team used hard charging to intimidate the Kilmarnock side although "we are happy to say that none of the casualties have, as yet, proved fatal", but another report recorded that there was only one foul given, and Kilmarnock's focus was on measuring the pitch to support a futile protest.
Although the club entered both the national and local competitions in 1881–82, it scratched before its first round tie in both; it was due to meet
Hurlford
Hurlford (Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile Àtha Cliath'') is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It has a population of 4,968. Hurlford's former names include Whirlford and Hurdleford. The village was named Whirlford as a result of a ford crossing ...
in the Ayrshire Cup and Beith in the Scottish. The club was removed from the
Scottish Football Association
The Scottish Football Association (also known as the SFA and the Scottish FA; sco, Scots Fitba Association; Scottish Gaelic: ''Comann Ball-coise na h-Alba'') is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility fo ...
roll in August 1882 for non-payment of subscriptions. The club tried to make a comeback by entering the Ayrshire Cup in 1883–84, but again scratched from the competition before playing, this time because the Coila fell out with the Ayrshire FA committee.
Colours
The club played in all white. In the Cup tie at Portland in 1880, the club wore red and white jerseys, as Portland's regular uniform was also white jerseys and knickers.
Ground
The club played at Bogside Park, 2 miles from
Drongan railway station
Drongan railway station (NS445190) was a railway station serving the village of Drongan, East Ayrshire, Scotland. The station was originally part of the Ayr and Cumnock Branch on the Glasgow and South Western Railway
The Glasgow and South ...
, and 300 yards from the Coylton Arms Inn, which originally provided the club's facilities. In 1881 the club found a club house on premises in New Coylton, owned by Matthew Leggatt, landlord of the Finlayson Arms.