Page 17 - Staff FocusSeptember 2020

Robin scores a winner

with ‘lost clubs’ book

When Robin Holmes of the Education and Learning Unit was anticipating the
arrival of his 50th birthday he decided to think of 50 things he could do to
celebrate it. And along with climbing his first Munro and riding a Segway he
set himself the more challenging task – of writing a book.
That decision set him on a journey that took him to libraries, newspaper files,
towns across Scotland and lasted more than two years. Because Robin Top of league: Robin Holmes with his best seller and, above,
decided to write a book on the forgotten clubs of Scottish League football. the aftermath of the Luftwaffe’s piledriver at King’s Park
The inspiration for it came from chatting with his father-in-law – an were out of business 4 years later.
Airdrieonians fan – about the most famous defunct club, Third Lanark. And One of the directors died and the executors of his
once the spark was lit the fire caught after Robin saw the BBC’s Pointless will demanded the repayment of a loan he had
show in which one of the final questions was to name one of the original given the club. They were forced to sell the only
founding members of the Scottish League. Clearly Celtic, Rangers and Hearts asset they had, their ground which is now part
weren’t pointless answers, but Cambuslang was. “That got me looking into of the King George V playing field in the city where there is a memorial plaque. With
the other founding members, of which six were now defunct,” said Robin. “ no income and no ground the club folded.
More than 40 clubs have featured in the League but are no longer playing there.” “I like the research more than the actual writing,” says Robin. “I particularly love reading
Most of these departures are down to failed re-elections or bankruptcies but there is the old newspaper reports, which evoke a bygone age with their descriptions of
also the odd merger and even the German Luftwaffe have had a hand in the chequered scrimmages (goalmouth scrambles), strangers (the visiting opponents) and custodians
history of the forgotten clubs of which more later… (goalkeepers).” And as well as digging away in libraries, Robin even studied
Robin began researching it in 2017 and as he started to dig, the task got bigger Ordnance Survey maps to find out where old grounds had been and then went
and bigger. “I uncovered more and more stories to tell and it still wasn’t to see what had become of them.
finished by the time COVID-19 struck. The book was published through And what of the devastating blow delivered from the clouds by the Luftwaffe to
Amazon’s KDP service on the 15 May 2020 – at about 400,000 words and more one of the old time clubs? In July 1940 a Nazi plane dropped a couple of bombs
than 800 pages.” A month later it was awarded Best Seller status in its category. on Stirling. One landed on Forthbank, the ground of King’s Park, Stirling’s original
The fascinating stories of past clubs were irresistible to Robin and though the club, destroying part of the grandstand and leaving a crater, 18 feet deep, and 30
discipline needed to complete an 800-page book is tough, he made it to the final feet in diameter in the pitch. When the war ended the club’s board was split.
whistle. Stories like the Scottish Cup winners whose cup eventually ran dry... The majority wanted to wait for war compensation before restarting the club
St Bernard’s were a team from the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh and were the and the pay-out was finally made eight years later. But one of the key directors,
city’s third club to join the League in 1893, after founding members Hearts St Bernard’s strip a coal merchant by the name of Thomas Fergusson, wanted to re-establish
(1890) and Leith Athletic (1891). The club were one of only four defunct teams football as soon as possible and set up the modern day Stirling Albion at
to have won the Scottish Cup, which they did in 1895. Annfield – and the rest is history. For more of Robin’s fascinating stories, Forgotten:
They reached the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup in 1938, as a Second Division team, but Scotland’s Former Football League Clubs is available on Amazon.