Stenhousemuir Football Club was established in 1884 after breaking away from local junior side Heather Rangers Football Club. By 1890, the club was playing their home matches at Ochilview Park, where they have played ever since. In 2009, Stenhousemuir became the first football club in Scotland to become a Community Interest Company (CIC).
The club’s shirt did not feature a badge until 1984, marking their centenary year. This first badge was an odd number, featuring the club’s sponsor, Hogan Sports (written as ‘Hogan’s Sports’ on the badge). From 1985 until 1991, Stenhousemuir’s shirts featured a stylised ‘SFC’ monogram. This was replaced by a heraldic badge, which did not find favour with the club’s supporters. The heraldic emblem was abandoned after two seasons, when a round badge, derived from the 1985 monogram, was introduced. The Stenhousemuir badge has been based on this 1993 design ever since.
For my redesign, I wanted to hold to the spirit of the quirky brown-and-amber 1993 badge. I decided that the badge could benefit from a local or historical reference, without diving into a full-on heraldic design. The town of Stenhousemuir comes from a particular stone structure (‘sten house’ = ‘stone house’). This round structure, referred to as ‘Arthur’s O’en’ (‘Arthur’s Oven’) was most likely a Roman temple and stood to the north of the River Carron. It was demolished in 1743, but not before some detailed illustrations of it were made. One particular illustration of the foundation of the temple served as my inspiration as I found that it suited a round badge. The entrance to the temple also serves as a handsome frame for the lowest terminus of the ‘F’ in my new monogram. My redesign featuring a new monogram and an illustration of the temple’s foundation is found below:
The redesigned kits are based on traditional Stenhousemuir colours, with the home kit inspired primarily by the 2017/18 home kit and the away kit inspired primarily by 2003/04 away kit, with a wee touch of 1980s Adidas kits.
As ever, I am indebted to Dave at Historical Football Kits for some of the historical information used above.