football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire () (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Renfrewshire is located in the west central Lowlands. It borders East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire, and lies on the southern ba ...
, in
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
.
History
The club was one of four senior clubs in Johnstone formed in 1878, along with Cartside, Johnstone F.C. and Johnstone Athletic. The earliest known matches for the club date from October 1879.
Football in Johnstone grew quickly, the three senior sides having 350 members between them; Rovers' 120 members made it the middle club in the town. (At the time, the two senior Paisley clubs only had a total membership of 220.) By the following season the Rovers had a membership of 183, making it the second-biggest club in Renfrewshire, behind only St Mirren.
Its size however did not translate into success. Rovers entered the Johnstone Association Cup from 1879–80 to 1883–84, without ever winning; curiously its second XI reached the semi-final in the final entry, outlasting the senior XI. The clubs generated enough of a reputation for Rovers to be invited to play friendlies in
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
.
Unlike the Athletic, the Rovers had not been founder members of the Renfrewshire Association, so only entered the
Renfrewshire Cup
The Renfrewshire Cup was an annual association football competition between teams in the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. The final was generally a Renfrewshire derby contested between the two largest team ...
from the competition's second season of 1881–82. The club seemed to have won its first round tie with a 2–1 win over
Pollok
Pollok (, ) is a large housing estate on the south-western side of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate was built either side of World War II to house families from the overcrowded inner city. Housing 30,000 at its peak, its population ha ...
, but the tie was replayed after a protest. The Rovers let a two goal lead slip to draw 2–2, and after the match "a disgraceful scene took place" as the Pollok referee and players were "mobbed by both spectators and players of the Rover's icclub, and at last had to take refuge in the Houston railway station." As a result, the Rovers was expelled from the competition; the Rovers complained that the referee was also the chairman of the committee meeting at which the Rovers' conduct was discussed, although the Pollok stated that the referee was "pursued over hedges and ditches, reaching Paisley all covered with blood and dirt". The Rovers did reach the semi-final in 1882–83, the only season in which the club won any ties.
Rovers entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1880–81 to 1884–85. Similarly to the Renfrewshire, the club only won ties in one year, namely 1883–84. In the first round, Rovers beat Lyle Athletic 4–2 away, and Greenock Northern 6–1 at home. In a sign of how Paisley had overtaken Johnstone in footballing terms, Rovers lost in front of 2,000 spectators at
Abercorn
Abercorn ( Gaelic: ''Obar Chùirnidh'', Old English: ''Æbbercurnig'') is a village and civil parish in West Lothian, Scotland. Close to the south coast of the Firth of Forth, the village is around west of South Queensferry. The parish had a ...
7–0 in the third round.
With the growth of under-the-counter professionalism, Johnstone was too small a town to host three senior football sides; as early as 1881 the Johnstone chairman, Bailie Love, made tentative suggestions of combining the Johnstone and Athletic teams. After Athletic folded in 1884, Rovers still boasted 200 members, more than double that of Johnstone's total, and the same as Abercorn.
Nevertheless, the club members agreed that it made sense to amalgamate the remaining sides, and in 1885 the two clubs merged. Despite Rovers' superior size, and having beaten Johnstone 2–1 in a friendly in October 1884, the new club continued under the simple Johnstone name, wearing Johnstone's navy colours, and at Johnstone's Cartbank Park. The merger may not have received unanimous support, as the Johnstone Harp club was founded in 1886; many of the figures involved in the Rovers had Irish roots.
The name was also used by an unrelated club from
Dundee
Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...
.
Colours
The club originally played in royal blue jerseys, white pants, and royal blue hose. In 1882 the club changed its jersey to white.
Ground
The club originally played at Mains Park, 5 minutes' walk from the station. In 1882 the club moved to Newfield Park.