ReBrand: East Stirlingshire FC

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As with a number of other Scottish football clubs, the origins of East Stirlingshire Football Club can be traced back to cricket. In 1880, a local cricket club in the Bainsford area of Falkirk, the Bainsford Blue Bonnets (styled as ‘Bainsford Bluebonnets’ by some sources), formed a football side called Bainsford Britannia. Britannia had existed as part of the cricket club for a year, when, in 1881, the football club broke away and adopted the name ‘East Stirlingshire’ (after a previous occupant of their home ground, East Stirlingshire Cricket Club). The name East Stirlingshire refers to the historic county of Stirlingshire, of which the town of Falkirk was a part until 1975.

In 1900, when Linthouse FC folded, the Shire gained the vacant spot in the bottom tier (at that time, the Second Division) of the Scottish Football League. East Stirlingshire did not impress during this spell and, in 1915, the Second Division was dissolved due to the First World War. After the war, in 1921, the Second Division was reintroduced and the Shire gained admittance once again.

The club experienced its share of ups and downs over the comings decades. In 1932, East Stirlingshire finished the season at the top of the table, sharing the position with St Johnstone. Thanks to the Shire’s superior goal difference, they gained promotion to the top tier of Scottish football for the first time. Unfortunately, this spell would last only one season.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the league was suspended. After the war, the Shire was not permitted to return to the second tier. Alongside a number of other small clubs, East Stirlingshire competed in the new third tier. At various points, the Shire gained promotion to and were relegated from the second tier, but it was not until the 1963/64 season that the club competed in the top tier for a second time. As with their previous spell, they lasted only one season before relegation.

Although East Stirlingshire’s league performances have proven unremarkable, they have experienced moderate success in cup competitions, reaching the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup on three occasions, most recently, in the 1980/81 competition. In that quarter-final, the Shire lost with a respectable 2-0 to cup-holders and eventual top tier champions Celtic.

At the end of the 2015/16 season, East Stirlingshire gained the dubious distinction of being the first club to have lost their place in the Scottish Professional Football League as a result of a play-off, relinquishing their place to the Lowland Football League champions, Edinburgh City 2-1 over two legs. Since that time, the Shire have competed in the Lowland League.

A version of East Stirlingshire’s current badge was first used in 1987. This first version incorporated orange as an accent colour, which first featured in the club’s 1980 badge. For my redesign, I have chosen to make use of the orange accent, which I find striking alongside the black and white. The roundel and the shield design call back to the 1980 badge, which I find particularly handsome. The two stars in the roundel call back to the old Stirlingshire coat of arms and depict two rowels (the spiked discs at the end of spurs).

For the home kit redesign, I went with East Stirlingshire’s traditional black and white hoops (used in the vast majority of the club’s home kits from 1883 onward). The red socks first featured in 1946 and have been used often ever since. The home kit also features a 1970s-styled collar. The away kit makes use of the orange accent. The shorts for both kits feature only the central portion of the redesigned badge.

ReBrand: East Kilbride FC

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The original East Kilbride Football Club was established in 1871, making it one of the earliest association football clubs in Scotland, after Queen’s Park (1867), Kilmarnock (1869) and Stranraer (1870). East Kilbride’s early years, like many football clubs at that time, were precarious, with the club folding and reforming on several occasions. Ultimately, the club folded for good after about a decade and the town of East Kilbride went unrepresented at the senior level for more than a century.

In 2010, the local junior sides Stewartfield FC and Jackton Boys Club merged to form a new club, taking the defunct East Kilbride FC name. For the 2012/13 season, East Kilbride competed in the South of Scotland Football League before becoming members of the Lowland Football League in its inaugural season the following year. Since joining the league, East Kilbride have proven very formidable, coming second in 2014/15, winning the league in 2016/17, coming second again in 2017/18 before securing their second league championship in 2018/19.

Having won the Lowland League on two occasions, East Kilbride were eligible to compete in a play-off against the Highland Football League champions for a chance at gaining a place in the Scottish Professional Football League. In 2017, East Kilbride beat Buckie Thistle with an aggregate score of 4-3 in order to advance to the League Two play-offs against last-place Cowdenbeath. The first leg, which took place at East Kilbride’s home ground of K-Park, ended with no score. The second leg ended 1-1 after extra time, forcing a penalty shootout to decide which would compete in the SPFL the following season. The shootout proved heart-breaking for East Kilbride, who lost 5-3.

The club’s second chance at promotion to the SPFL came following their latest league championship (2018/19), though the Kilby lost to the Highland League champions, Cove Rangers with an aggregate score of 5-1 (Cove went on to gain promotion to the SPFL with a 7-0 aggregate victory over Berwick Rangers).

The club’s current badge is attempting to do a lot. It draws its colours from the 1871 club’s colours of gold and dark blue and employs a number of local symbols. The use of the oystercatcher, the cross and the colour red represent St Brigid of Kildare, after whom ‘Kilbride’ is named. The current badge also features the date of the original club’s founding as well as the Latin motto, a priori, meaning ‘from the earlier’, which is yet another reference to the original club.

While I appreciate the symbolism of the current badge, I feel it tries to do too much in its current form. In order to comply with an ancient heraldic Scottish law, my redesigned badge takes the form of a roundel. The central image is an oystercatcher atop a football. The outer circle includes the club’s name, the Latin motto and the years of the founding of the original and current East Kilbride FC.

For the home kit redesign, I have gone with the traditional East Kilbride harlequin-style shirt of gold and dark blue and for the away kit I have made use of the current away colour scheme of red and white, though instead of opting for harlequin-style featured in the current away kit, I have gone with bold, thick hoops.

ReBrand: Dalbeattie Star FC

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The name Dalbeattie Star Football Club was used as early as 1900 for a team in the Kirkcudbrightshire town which played a number of local friendlies, but it was not until 1905 that Dalbeattie Star began to play competitive fixtures. In 1906, it was decided that the club would compete as a senior side and in August 1907, Dalbeattie Star were admitted into the SFA.

Sporadic local success came to the club until the cessation of football with the outbreak of the First World War. When competition resumed in 1919, the club’s committee decided to pursue professional football, though this proved to be a financial disaster. Even in the midst of financial hardship, the club experienced a number of local honours, winning the South of Scotland League title in 1924/25 and then again for five consecutive seasons from 1920/30 to 1933/34. The following season, the club withdrew from competition for a year and struggled up until the Second World War. In 1948, Dalbeattie Star ceased all operations.

Nearly three decades later, in 1976, the club was resurrected and regained a place in the South of Scotland League. An assortment of local achievements and qualifications in the early rounds of the Scottish Cup would follow. In 2001, Dalbeattie Star became part of the East of Scotland League before rejoining the South of Scotland League for the 2009/10 season. In total, Dalbeattie Star topped the South of Scotland League eleven times before entering the newly-formed Lowland League for the 2013/14 season.

Presumably, the current club badge has been in use for some time. Although the quality of the badge is lacking, it depicts a double-headed eagle taken from the Dalbeattie coat of arms, which itself is taken from the coat of arms of the Maxwell Earls of Nithsdale. For my redesign, I decided to make use of the double-headed eagle and the star, all within a shield. I’ve also added a red background in the hope of making the badge more striking.

For the home kit, I went with the club’s traditional colour scheme and design, namely, the vertical black and red stripes.

ReBrand: Cumbernauld Colts FC

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Cumbernauld Colts Football Club was established as a youth football club (hence, the use of ‘Colts’) in 1969.

During these early years, the club developed several players who went on to success in senior football, including Scottish internationals Derek Whyte (who went on to play for Celtic, Middlesbrough, Aberdeen and Partick Thistle) and Jackie McNamara (who went on to play for Dunfermline Athletic, Celtic, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Aberdeen, Falkirk and Partick Thistle).

In the 1990s, several of the club’s teams disbanded and during the 1998/99 season, the final Colts club folded. The following season, the club was relaunched and continued to grow, gaining full membership into the Scottish Football Association and admittance into the Lowland Football League in 2015. Since that time, the Colts came in runners-up in the 2016/17 Scottish Football Association South Region Challenge Cup in and won the 2017/18 Lowland League Cup.

I find the club’s current badge to be a bit dated and it reminds me of an amateur American football club logo. For the redesign, I decided to opt for simplicity by illustrating a more anatomically correct silhouette of a horse within two ‘C’s.

The home kit employs the club’s traditional yellow and blue with a 1970s feel, while the away kit is dark grey, accented with a large silhouette.

ReBrand: Civil Service Strollers FC

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Civil Service Strollers Football Club was established as Edinburgh Civil Service Football Club in 1908. The club was based at Stenhouse Stadium until moving to Pinkhill Stadium in Corstorphine in the 1920s. In 1957, the club moved to the Edinburgh Area Civil Service Sports Association in Muirhouse, where they continue to play today.

In 2000, the club began to develop youth football sides, at which point the ‘Civil Service Stollers’ name first came into use. Before being admitted into the Lowland Football League in 2016, the Strollers experienced sporadic success in the East of Scotland Football League, but their greatest achievement came in the 2017/18 season, when they won the Scottish Football Association South Challenge Cup with a 2-1 victory after extra time over BSC Glasgow.

For the badge redesign, I sought to incorporate the club’s current symbols of a football and an inkwell and quill. The football redesign is more reflective of the club’s date of founding. I have also replaced the typeface with a serif-type and placed the lot within a roundel.

The home kit calls back to the 1970s, when the Strollers experienced some minor success in the East of Scotland Football League.

ReBrand: BSC Glasgow FC

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In 2004, Broomhill Sports Club was founded in Glasgow. A decade later, BSC Glasgow Football Club was established and since the 2014/15 season, the club has been competing in the Lowland Football League. During this first season, BSC Glasgow won the SFA South Region Challenge Cup, a tournament featuring some 69 non-league clubs in the south of Scotland. The club reached the final of the Challenge Cup for a second time in 2018, though they lost to Civil Service Strollers after extra time.

Having shared Lochburn Park, Glasgow with junior side Maryhill FC during their first two seasons, for the 2016/17 season, BSC Glasgow entered into an agreement with Alloa Athletic to make use of Alloa’s home ground of Recreation Park in Alloa with the long-term goal of developing their own ground in Glasgow in the future.

For the badge redesign, I opted to do away with the large white negative space at the centre of the current badge and replace it with a football. I also employed a more stylised ‘BSC’.

The home kit is inspired by the 2018/19 kit while the away kit replaces the yellow with a darker blue.

ReBrand: Wick Academy FC

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Wick Academy Football Club was established in 1893. The club’s name comes from the former Pulteneytown Academy (which closed in 2016) in Wick. The club’s link to the actual academy was tenuous and was only maintained when John Davidson, a teacher at Pultneytown Academy, was elected the first club captain (Davidson was listed as ‘leader’ in the minute of this first meeting).

It appears that Wick Academy, or the Scorries, as they are known, did not play competitive football until the formation of the Wick League in 1896. In 1911, the Scorries became members of the Scottish Football Association and continued to play in various regional leagues, most notably, the North Caledonian Football League, where they were crowned champions on five occasions between 1979 and 1987.

In 1994, the Scorries were admitted into the Highland Football League. For their first fourteen seasons in the Highland League, the club was never able to break into the top half of the table. Something of a breakthrough happened in the 2008/09 season, when the Scorries achieved ten successive league wins, finishing the season in the fifth position. Over the next few seasons, the Scorries slipped back down the table, but in the 2011/12 season, better fortunes would return. The Scorries climbed back into the top ten, finishing eighth and qualified for the 2012/13 Scottish Challenge Cup. Unfortunately, they would go on to exit in the first round after a respectable 2-4 home defeat to league-side Raith Rovers. This early exit did not prevent the club from achieving their highest-ever league finish, ending the season third in the table, only two points behind Formartine United and four points behind Highland League champions, Cove Rangers.

The current Wick Academy badge is simple and strong. The ship is derived from the Wick coat of arms and the open book is representative of the academy (I assume the whole design is derived from the crest of Pulteneytown Academy, but I cannot claim this with certainty). For my redesign, I incorporated the existing elements of the badge, but retooled them for a bolder look.

The home kit features Wick Academy’s traditional vertical black and white stripes. The colours of the hoops of the away kit are derived from the flag of Wick’s historic county of Caithness, which was adopted in 2016.

ReBrand: Turriff United FC

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Turriff United Football Club was established as a junior side in 1954. Along with Formartine United and Strathspey Thistle, Turra were admitted to the Highland Football League in 2009.

Turra’s senior honours consist of three Aberdeenshire Shields (2010/11, 2012/13 and 2014/15) and at the end of the 2014/15 Highland League season, the club finished second top. Turra also made it to the fourth round of the Scottish Cup in 2012/13, losing to league-side Greenock Morton in an away replay at Cappielow Park in December 2012. In 2016, Turra took part in the Scottish Challenge Cup. During their campaign, the club overcame the St Johnstone U20s as well as league-side Montrose, before losing at home to Hibernian in the third round.

For the badge redesign, I used a minimalistic ‘TU’ monogram, featuring a cow’s head in the ‘T’. This, alongside the wheat which forms the outer circlet, are featured in the town’s coat of arms. The cow’s head also represents the legendary ‘Turra Coo’.

The story of the Turra Coo dates back to the 1910s, when the Liberal government unveiled the National Insurance Act 1911, compelling employers make national insurance contributions. In Turriff, local farmers felt that they were at a disadvantage and protests were held. A farmer called Robert Paterson refused to make these contributions and was fined £15 and arrears. Paterson paid the £15, but continued to refuse to pay the national insurance arrears. Local sheriff George Keith was ordered to seize property amounting to £7 from Paterson’s farm. Keith selected a white Ayrshire-Shorthorn cross dairy cow. This cow was to be auctioned off in order to raise the funds to pay off Paterson’s arrears, but on the intended day of the auction, a large protest erupted with locals decorating the cow with ribbons and painting the words ‘Lendrum to Leeks’ (Lendrum being the location of Paterson’s farm and leeks being a reference to Chancellor David Lloyd George’s Welsh origin) on the cow’s side. Due to the unrest, the sale of the cow did not proceed at that time.

Subsequently, Paterson and seven others were taken to Aberdeen to be put on trial for disorderly conduct, though all were acquitted. The Turra Coo was later sold in Aberdeen, but the community of Turriff rallied together to buy back the coo and return it to Paterson. The return of the cow in 1914 proved to be a major public event in Turriff, with some 3000 people gathering to celebrate. Since that time, the Turra Coo has become a local icon, with a roadside monument dedicated at Lendrum in 1971 and a sculpture in the town centre, unveiled in 2010. In 2014, Turriff United introduced a mascot based on the Turra Coo.

ReBrand: Strathspey Thistle FC

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Strathspey Thistle Football Club was established as a junior side in 1993. The name was chosen so as to reflect the club’s belonging to the Strathspey community and not only to Grantown-on-Spey, where the club is based. During their sixteen-year spell as a junior side, the Strathy Jags won several honours, though never topped the table.

In 2009, the club became a senior side and gained admittance into the Highland Football League. Since that time, the Strathy Jags have been unable to break out of the bottom three in the league table, but being among the most recent club to join the league (alongside Formartine United and Turriff United), it is still ‘early days’.

The current badge is simple and requires no explanation. For my redesign, I incorporated elements of the current badge, bringing the club’s name into the heart of a stylised thistle image.

The home shirt below is based on an early Thistle home shirt by Umbro.

ReBrand: Rothes FC

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Rothes Football Club was established in 1938 and joined the Highland Football League that same year. At the time, Rothes was home to five whisky distilleries, four of which remain in operation today. Local laird and whisky magnate, Douglas Mackessack, was an instrumental benefactor in these early years and the club’s home ground, Mackessack Park, is named in his honour.

The club boasts relatively few honours, with the 1958/59 proving to be their most successful to date. It was during this season that the Speysiders won both the Highland League as well as their first of two North of Scotland Cups. Despite their relative lack of success over the years, Rothes have endeared themselves to the ‘Highland League family’. When facing potential liquidation in the summer of 2015 due to an unpaid tax bill, the club chairman was approached by a number of other Highland League clubs who expressed their desire to help with Rothes’ financial difficulties. Ultimately, Rothes survived their financial scare thanks to help from local fans, including a significant contribution from local businessman Richard Forsyth.

In the autumn of 2015, following the resignation of much of the club’s board of directors, the Speysiders were able to make headlines in a more affirming manner, by fielding the league’s oldest-ever players, Derek Thomson, 51, and Gordon Younie, 55, during their league match against Wick Academy.

In redesigning the Rothes FC badge, I began by considering the local history. The current badge features a whisky barrel, reflecting the town’s relationship with the whisky industry. The club’s name and year of foundation being included within the shield are a violation of ancient Scottish heraldic law. For my redesign, I depicted the coat of arms of Rothes, which, traditionally, is represented by a blue field with a silver bend and three red buckles. I adopted the tangerine, black and white colour scheme in my depiction and included two barrels as supports.

The club adopted their tangerine shirts from Dundee United after the Terrors sold their old Tannadice Park floodlights to their Highland League brethren. For my kit redesigns, I decided to stick with the club’s current colour schemes, presented in a relatively minimalist fashion as a contrast to the relatively elaborate badge redesign.

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design & illustration

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ReBrand: East Stirlingshire FC

ReBrand: East Kilbride FC

ReBrand: Dalbeattie Star FC

ReBrand: Cumbernauld Colts FC

ReBrand: Civil Service Strollers FC

ReBrand: BSC Glasgow FC

ReBrand: Wick Academy FC

ReBrand: Turriff United FC

ReBrand: Strathspey Thistle FC

ReBrand: Rothes FC