Deveronvale Football Club was established in 1938 at the union of two pre-existing clubs, Deveron Valley and Banff Rovers. The club name comes from the River Deveron, which separates the twin fishing towns of Banff and Macduff on the northern Aberdeenshire coast.

The name ‘Deveronvale’ was chosen so as to demonstrate that the club belonged to the communities of both Banff and Macduff. The current badge is a version of the first and only badge worn by the club, first employed in the 1970s. In order to further emphasise this shared ‘ownership’ of the club, the designer, local schoolteacher Chris Murray, decided upon a depiction of a seagull in order to avoid favouring one town over the other.

A year after the union, the club joined the Highland Football League, though it was not until 2003 that they won their first Highland League title. This achievement was repeated three years later. In addition to these two Highland League championships, Vale’s honours include eight Aberdeenshire Cups, two Aberdeenshire Shields and secured their place in the Scottish Cup tournaments of 1951/52 and 2001/02 by winning the Scottish Qualifying Cup (North) during those campaigns.

Designing a new badge for Vale was a challenge. The current badge is both unique to Scotland in its shape (it resembles Liverpool FC’s full badge very closely, especially the badge first included on Liverpool’s 1987/88 kits) and striking in its aesthetics and simplicity. But, although the centrepiece of the current badge is meant to be a seagull, I find it difficult to see – a Native American thunderbird or an eagle comes to my mind more readily.

Ultimately, I chose to reuse the current badge shape. In order to emphasise both the River Deveron and the twin fishing towns of Banff and Macduff, I placed a blue stripe through the middle of the badge, crossed by two fish (salmon). The salmon coming from the left crosses in front of the salmon coming from the right, emphasising that, while Deveronvale belongs to both Banff and Macduff, the town on the western bank of the River Deveron, Banff, has always been home to Deveronvale’s home ground.

The kit redesigns make use of traditional Deveronvale home and away colour schemes.