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 ...
team located in the town of
Greenock
Greenock (; ; , ) is a town in Inverclyde, Scotland, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. The town is the administrative centre of Inverclyde Council. It is a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, and forms ...
,
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 ...
.
Ladyburn
The club was founded in January 1880 under the name Ladyburn, after the park where the club played. It entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1881–82 and 1882–83, but suffered heavy first round defeats both times; at half-time in its 1881–82 tie with
Kilbarchan
Kilbarchan (; ) is a village and civil parish in central Renfrewshire, in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It is almost contiguous with Johnstone, about 5 miles or 8 km west of the centre of Paisley. The village's name means "cell (chape ...
, Ladyburn was 2–1 down, but conceded six goals in the second half without replying. In 1882–83 it lost even more heavily, 10–1 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 ...
.
It also 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 ...
for the only time in 1881–82, losing 4–2 at
Sir John Maxwell
''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part o ...
in the only tie it played, the Sir John holding Ladyburn to 2–1 when playing against the wind, and scoring 3 without reply when with it.
Lyle Athletic
After the defeat to Abercorn, the club was re-founded as Lyle Athletic, named in honour of
Abram Lyle
Abram Lyle (14 December 1820 – 30 April 1891) was a Scottish food manufacturer and politician, who is noted for founding the sugar refiners '' Abram Lyle & Sons'' in 1887, which merged with the company of his rival Henry Tate to become Tate ...
, albeit without a number of players, who had decamped to Morton. Its first match under its new name was a 7–3 win over Aldergrove at Ladyburn Park; the club reached the semi-final of the Greenock and District Cup that season.
It entered the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1883–84 and 1884–85, but again lost in the first round both times, the first time 4–2 at home to Johnstone Rovers and the second time 9–1 at
Rangers
A ranger is typically someone in a law enforcement or military/paramilitary role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called "ranging" or "scouting". The term most often refers to:
* Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with prot ...
Northern
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating ...
, Morton, and the 1st R.R.V.; the Athletic was easily the smallest senior club in town. At the end of the 1884–85 season it therefore did not renew its subscription to the
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 ...
and continued as a junior club.
Ironically, as a junior club, Athletic gained its one win in the county competition; in the 1886–87 Renfrewshire Cup the club beat Barrhead Victoria 3–1 in the first round, played at Port Glasgow Athletic due to the loss of Bogston. In the second the club turned up late at
Neilston
Neilston (, , ) is a village and List of civil parishes in Scotland, parish in East Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It is in the River Levern, Levern Valley, southwest of Barrhead, the last remaining town in greater Glas ...
, having missed the Port Glasgow train. It scratched from the fixture, but played a 40-minute friendly out instead, which Neilston won. The club's final match appears to have been at the start of 1889, but the name was revived for a "fast-rising" team in 1892.
Colours
As Ladyburn, the club originally wore blue jerseys and white knickers, but changed to white jerseys and knickers with a red
Maltese cross
The Maltese cross is a cross symbol, consisting of four " V" or arrowhead shaped concave quadrilaterals converging at a central vertex at right angles, two tips pointing outward symmetrically.
It is a heraldic cross variant which develope ...
in 1882. As Lyle Athletic, the club wore white jerseys and blue knickers with a white stripe.
Ground
The club's first ground was Ladyburn Park, close to Bogston railway station. From 1882 it played at Bogston Park, shared with Northern (Greenock). It lost the ground thanks to railway operations, and had to find a new one "further east", although in 1886 it once more used Ladyburn Park thanks to new tenants Rangers.