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
Carronshore
Carronshore is a village in the Falkirk council area of Scotland. The village lies in the Forth Valley, north of the town of Falkirk and directly to the east of neighbouring village Carron.
The village sits north of the River Carron.
Acco ...
,
Stirlingshire
Stirlingshire or the County of Stirling, gd, Siorrachd Sruighlea) is a historic county and registration countyRegisters of Scotland. Publications, leaflets, Land Register Counties. of Scotland. Its county town is Stirling.
It borders Perth ...
.
History
The club was founded in 1886. Its first competitive match was in the 1886–87 Stirlingshire Cup and was a 9–0 win over the Olympic club of
Stirling
Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...
, who blamed a new goalkeeper who "only stopped the shots that were going past".
Gairdoch was one of 35 new members to 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 ...
in 1888, alongside
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foo ...
. The club entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1888–89 without any success - it lost its three ties in the main rounds and, once qualifying rounds had been introduced from 1891 to 1892, never won through to the main competition. The club got to the final preliminary round in 1892–93 and 1893–94, a 3–1 defeat by King's Park in the former year being the closest the club managed to winning through.
The club was however quite a force at a local level. It surprised everyone by reaching the Stirlingshire Cup final in 1889–90, beating Alva 3–2 in the semi-final, all of the goals coming in the first half, and Alva's protest about rough play was dismissed.
Falkirk
Falkirk ( gd, An Eaglais Bhreac, sco, Fawkirk) is a large 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 ...
was far too strong in the final, at East Stirlingshire's Bainsford ground, 2,000 spectators seeing the Bairns stroll home 9–0.
The club also reached the final again in 1893–94, gaining a measure of revenge over Falkirk with a 3–2 semi-final win, nearly throwing away a 3–0 lead and only a last-minute goal-line clearance securing the win. Having beaten final opponents East Stirlingshire in a friendly earlier in the season, Gairdoch was hopeful of winning the trophy, but the original tie at
Brockville
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically independent of the county. It is included with Le ...
had to be postponed because of the cut-up state of the pitch, and the sides played a 70-minute friendly instead, E.S. winning 2–1, and the sides enjoying dinner together afterwards. For the final itself, Gairdoch was handicapped by illness forcing it to make a change, and thanks to injuries to P. Rae and Honeyman, finished the match with 9 men; the Shire ended up winning 5–0.
The club's misfortune in finals continued in the Falkirk Charity Cup later that season. Gairdoch gained revenge over East Stirlingshire in the semi-final and met Falkirk in the final; the game ended 0–0, with the Bairns having a goal disallowed for offside, but the replay at
Camelon
Camelon (; sco, Caimlan, gd, Camlann) is a large set ...
was one-way traffic, Falkirk repeating its crosstown rival's 5–0 win.
Gairdoch did however have one piece of good news at the end of the season, being elected to the Scottish Midland League in place of the moribund
Bridge of Allan
Bridge of Allan ( sco, Brig Allan, gd, Drochaid Ailein), also known colloquially as ''Bofa'', is a town in the Stirling council area in Scotland, just north of the city of Stirling. Overlooked by the National Wallace Monument, it lies on the ...
. Unfortunately this came after East Stirlingshire and Falkirk had both been established as members, and both turned professional, thus enabling the clubs to take players from Gairdoch; in its two seasons of membership, Gairdoch finished bottom both times, only winning 3 matches in 30, one of which - a 5–2 win over
Alloa Athletic
Alloa Athletic Football Club is a Scottish association football semi-professional club based in the town of Alloa, Clackmannanshire.
Formed as Alloa in 1880, the football club shortly changed its name to Alloa Association, and then to Alloa At ...
- was the club's first match in the competition. The club's final match in the competition was a 5–2 defeat to East Stirlingshire in May 1896; the club did not seek re-election at the end of the season.
Gairdoch did enter the Scottish Cup for 1896–97, but scratched to Alloa Athletic, and the formal end for the club was being struck from the local association's register in October. The final indignity was having to face a claim from King's Park for wasted expenses for a cancelled match. The Gairdoch name was kept alive by a Junior side.
Colours
The club originally played in broad black and white hooped shirts and white knickers. In 1889 it changed to light blue jerseys and black knickers, the knickers later described simply as "dark" and the shirts from 1894 as royal blue.
Ground
The club's ground was originally named Grahamston. From 1890 the location was given simply as Carronshore. The ground was off Main Street to the north of the village, in the location now known as Gairdoch Park.