Gala Fairydean Rovers Football Club are a Scottish

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 based in the town of

Galashiels Galashiels (; , ) is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive history in the textile in ...

in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by West Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian, and East Lothian to the north, the North Sea to the east, Dumfries and Galloway to the south-west, South Lanarkshire to the we ...

. The club competes in the , after joining from the

East of Scotland Football League The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior association football, football league based in the east and south-east of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–9 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowlan ...

in 2013. At the same time the club changed its name to Gala Fairydean Rovers, following a merger between Gala Fairydean and Gala Rovers. The club plays its home matches at

Netherdale Netherdale is a sports complex in Galashiels, Scottish Borders, consisting of two adjacent stadiums used for rugby union and Association football, football. The rugby ground is the home of Gala RFC and was formerly used by the professional Border ...

.Information – Gala Fairydean
, East of Scotland Football Association. Retrieved 1 April 2013.Netherdale
''footballgroundmap.com''. Retrieved 30 March 2013. Gala Fairydean won the

eight times and finished runners-up on seven occasions. The club reached 15 Scottish Qualifying Cup South finals, winning it 11 times, before the competition was abolished in

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

. Gala Fairydean Rovers qualify automatically for the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Scottish Football Association The Scottish Football Association (; also known as the Scottish FA and the SFA) is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility for the control and development of football in Scotland. Members of the SFA incl ...

(SFA). The best performance by the club was reaching the third round, done on five occasions.Football Results Summary for Gala Fairydean
''londonhearts.com''. London Hearts Supporters' Club. Retrieved 1 April 2013.Gala Fairydean
''www.fchd.info''. Football Club History Database. Retrieved 1 April 2013. Gala Rovers won the Border Amateur Football League 13 times.

History

Gala Fairydean Rovers was first formed in 1894. In 1907 the club was separated into two teams, known as ''Gala Fairydean'' and ''Gala Rovers''. The first Gala Rovers was the

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players who are under contract to a club but who do not regularly play in matches for the club's primary team. Reserve teams usually include players who are part of the larger first-team squad but ...

of Gala Fairydean. Both clubs ceased operations in 1914 due to the outbreak of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and the consequent loss of male population in Galashiels. Gala Fairydean resumed in 1919, after the war had ended, and was a founder member of the

in 1923. Gala Rovers were only reformed in 1947 and joined the Border Amateur League. Although the two clubs were separate, they were closely linked through operations such as a joint lottery. Although Gala Fairydean were a semi-professional club and needed funds to pay players, Gala Rovers were amateur and could save some of the funds generated. This helped to fund construction of the 1960s main stand at

. Gala Fairydean applied to join the

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) is a defunct 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&nbs ...

in 1966, 1994, 2000 and 2002, but were unsuccessful on each occasion. The two clubs merged to form Gala Fairydean Rovers in 2013. The club was admitted into the new

Lowland Football League The Scottish Lowland Football League (SLFL, commonly known as the Lowland League) and the Park’s Motor Group Scottish Lowland League for sponsorship reasons is a senior football league based in central and southern Scotland. The league sits a ...

in 2013.

Stadium

Gala Fairydean first played its home matches at Eastlands Park in Galashiels between 1909 and 1913, before moving to

Mossilee Mossilee is a cricket ground in Galashiels, Scotland. Established prior to 1899, the first recorded match held on the ground was a first-class match between Scotland and the touring Indians in 1911. The three-day match between the sides ended ...

for a spell until the 1920s. The club moved back to Eastlands, and stayed until 1929, when Netherdale was opened. Netherdale has been the club's home since 1929 and is located in the south-east of

. The ground's main spectator stand was designed by architect

Peter Womersley Peter Womersley (24 June 1923 – 1993) was a British architect, best known for his work in the modern architecture, modernist style. He lived in the Scottish Borders, where a number of his buildings are located, although he worked on projects th ...

, alongside engineers

Ove Arup Sir Ove Nyquist Arup (16 April 1895 – 5 February 1988) was an English engineer who founded Arup Group Limited, a multinational corporation offering engineering, design, planning, project management, and consultant, consulting services for bu ...

and built between 1963 and 1965. The stand has a capacity for 750 spectators and the ground as a whole up to 4,000. The

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is unsupported at one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cantilev ...

ed concrete structure is protected as a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The club bought 300 seats from

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Since th ...

St James' Park St James' Park is a Association football, football stadium in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the home of Newcastle United F.C., Newcastle United. With a seating capacity of 52,305, it is the List of football stadiums in England, 8th la ...

stadium when it was refurbished, but were replaced in 2006 by wooden benches.Gala Fairydean – Ground
, Vale of Leithen F.C. Retrieved 1 April 2013.

Current squad

As of 12 July 2025

Season-by-season record

Lowland League

† Season curtailed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Honours

League

*Eastern League:East of Scotland Football League – Final tables 1923-date
, Scottish Football Historical Archive. Retrieved 1 April 2013. **Winners (1): 1921–22 *

East of Scotland League The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior football league based in the east and south-east of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–9 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowland Football League. Fo ...

(1923 to 1987) and East of Scotland Premier Division (after 1987): **Winners (8): 1960–61, 1961–62, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1968–69, 1988–89, 1990–91 **''Runners-up (7)'': 1925–26, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1983–84, 1985–86, 1994–95, 1995–96 * East of Scotland First Division (after 1987): **''Runners-up (1)'': 1999–00

Cup

* Scottish Qualifying Cup South:Scotland – List of Qualifying Cup Finals
''rsssf.com''.

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

. 15 December 2004. Retrieved 1 April 2013. **Winners (11): 1961, 1965, 1966, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991 **''Runners-up (4):'' 1981, 1988, 1992, 1996 *King Cup: **Winners (11): 1911–12, 1912–13, 1914–15, 1929–30, 1946–47, 1960–61, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1968–69, 1971–72, 1988–89 *East of Scotland Qualifying Cup: **Winners (10): 1926–27, 1946–47, 1961–62, 1965–66, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91, 1994–95 *East of Scotland (City) Cup: **Winners (3): 1960–61, 1987–88, 2021–22 *East of Scotland League Cup: **Winners (2): 1968–69, 1993–94

Gala Rovers AFC

BAFA honours

* Winners (13): 1951, 1953, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1978, 1987, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2013 B Division * Winners (1): 1995 South Cup * Winners (4):1954, 1963, 1964, 2007 Border Cup * Winners (6): 1963, 1968, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2003 Beveridge Cup * Winners (6): 1954, 1967, 1978, 1996, 2003, 2013 Wright Cup * Winners (4):1963, 1966, 1985, 1995 Walls Cup * Winners (1): 1995 Waddel Cup * Winners (3): 1988, 2001, 2003 Dudley Cup * Winners (4): 1949, 1950, 1953, 2013

References

;General
Dean Unveil Dream TeamFairydean legend Notman slams Youth CoachingRow over Gala player Gass explodesLatest Gala Fairydean Committee unveiled

External links

*
Gala Fairydean
at

Soccerbase ''Racing Post'' is a British daily horse racing, greyhound racing, and sports betting publisher published in print and digital formats. It is printed in tabloid format from Monday to Sunday. , it has an average daily circulation of 60,629 cop ...

{{Lowland League Association football clubs established in 2013 Football clubs in Scotland 2013 establishments in Scotland East of Scotland Football League teams Lowland Football League teams Galashiels Football clubs in the Scottish Borders