| Full name | 3rd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers Football Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Nickname | the Volunteers | |
| Founded | 1874 | |
| Dissolved | 1879 | |
| Ground | East Meadows | |
| Secretary | Francis G. Watt | |
| Captain | A. W. Lamont | |
3rd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers Football Club was afootball club from the city ofEdinburgh. The club was the first winner of theEast of Scotland Shield, under its original title of the Edinburgh Association Cup, but had ceased playing by 1880.
The club was formed out of the 3rd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers, a company in theVolunteer movement of theBritish Army. The Volunteers included sporting activities within their purview and newspapers often carried reports of such activities. The growth of football in Scotland, especially thanks toQueen's Park F.C., and the success of army teams in England such as theRoyal Engineers A.F.C., encouraged regiments to form football clubs as part of the physical regimen.
The 3rd E.R.V. regiment was augmented in 1867 with the addition of a regiment raised byJohn Hope, who had founded theFoot-Ball Club of Edinburgh in 1824.[1] It was therefore logical that the Volunteers would form a football side, and it did so in 1874, adopting theFootball Association laws.[2]
At the time there was one other club in the city, namely theEdinburgh Thistle club.[3] Unlike Thistle, the Volunteers entered theScottish Cup in1874–75, losing toHelensburgh 3–0 in the first round, the tie being played at neutral ground in Glasgow.[4] The earliest recorded match for the Volunteers had been at Craigmount grounds inGrange the previous week, a defeat tothe Rovers club of Glasgow.[5]
The club was one of the four founding members of theEdinburgh Football Association, formed in September 1875, with the Thistle,Heart of Midlothian F.C., andHanover.[6] All except Hanover entered the Scottish Cup in1875–76. At the time, the earliest rounds were played on a regional basis, and Hearts and the Volunteers were drawn to play each other, the winners to face Thistle in the second round of fixtures.[7] The Scottish FA's scheme did not come to fruition as the Volunteers and Hearts drew 0–0 twice, so were both put through into the second round; the Hearts were sent to playDrumpellier F.C. and 3rd E.R.V. played Thistle, winning 1–0 in a tie replayed after the original game was abandoned through rain.[8] In the third round (the final 14) the club lost 4–0 at Rovers, the final goal being an own goal, with a Volunteer heading home a Peden corner.[9]
The same season saw thefirst Edinburgh Football Association cup, the first regional knockout tournament in Scotland. All four members of the Edinburgh FA entered. The Volunteers beat Hanover in its semi-final tie and swept Thistle aside in the final 6–0.[10][11] Notably, theHibernian club, as an "Irish" club, was not included in the Edinburgh Association, because of opposition from the staunchlyProtestant Hope.[12]
Towards the end of the 1875–76 season, the club saw a split, with at least seven of its key players forming the new clubEdinburgh Swifts,[13] including club secretary (and half-back) Frank Watt.[14] It is not clear why there was a split, but two relevant factors may be the Volunteers' refusal to play the Hibernian, and a wish to accept players who were not members of the Volunteer force, which the Swifts proceeded to do. Certainly Watt had agitated for including Hibernian within the football fraternity.[15]
The effect on the club was devastating. It lost in the first round of the Scottish Cup in1876–77 toSt Clement's F.C. ofDundee, a club making its competition debut, at neutral ground inKirkcaldy;[16] and, after an acrimonious semi-final win in the Edinburgh Cup against a ten-man Swifts, which had to be re-played after the original match had been played on a pitch that had been marked out to the wrong dimensions,[17] the Volunteers did not turn up to Meadows for the final against Thistle, "much to the disappointment of a large concourse of spectators".[18]
The club lost to the Swifts in the first round of the1877–78 Scottish Cup, 2–1 in a replay; the Volunteers protested that they had claimed a goal for a shot that clipped the tape, the referee ruling that the ball had then gone over,[19] but the protest was dismissed. The Volunteers did not enter the Edinburgh Cup, by which time Hibernian had joined the Edinburgh Association and ended up reaching the final.
In1878–79 the 3rd E.R.V. again eschewed the Edinburgh Cup, focussing on the Scottish, and after beatingBrunswick F.C. in the first round at Powburn,[20] was drawn to play Hibernian. After 30 minutes, with the Volunteers 3–0 down, and down to 9 men, as Hume had left the pitch "coughing blood" and Shaw had been lamed, the club forfeited the tie.[21]
The club did enter the Scottish Cup the following season but scratched; indeed the Hibernian tie is the last recorded match for the club. Although it has since been claimed that the Volunteers effectively becameSt Bernard's F.C., the Saints had existed (originally as arugby union club) since at least 1876,[22] and only one Volunteer (Dunn) appears to have played for St Bernard's; most of the key players either did not play for any of the major Edinburgh sides, or had already joined the Swifts.
The club played in blue and white hooped shirts and stockings, with white knickerbockers and (originally) blue caps.[23]
The club originally gave its ground as being at theEast Meadows.[24] It also played key matches at Craigmount. Before the start of the 1877–78 season, the club secured "one of the best grounds in the district" at Powburn.[25]
