Vale of Avon F.C.

Formation of the Vale of Avon Football Club, Hamilton Advertiser, 3 April 1880

The club was formed on 1 April 1880, at a meeting at the Good Templars' Hall.[1] It was effectively a replacement for the defunct Avondale and eventually rented a ground from the former honorary secretary of Avondale (James Grierson).[2]

The club played at a junior level for its first three seasons, one match with Carluke being ended after 20 minutes because of "the very quarrelsome nature of the Vale team",[3] or, alternatively, because the Carluke team left the field in protest at having a goal disallowed.[4]

It was admitted to the Scottish Football Association in August 1883,[5] in time to enter the 1883–84 Scottish Cup, and drew a bye into the second round, but scratched when paired with Benhar.[6]

The club claimed a successful 1883–84 season with 10 wins, 2 draws, and 1 defeat,[7] the one loss coming in the club's only Lanarkshire Cup entry, 3–1 at Albion Rovers.[8] Despite this ostensible success, the club scratched from the 1884–85 Scottish Cup after being drawn against the much smaller Airdriehill. [9]

The club's somewhat pointless run as a senior team ended in 1885 when it did not renew its Scottish FA membership.[10] It continued once more at a junior level until the 1885–86 season,[11] but before the 1886–87 season could get underway, fell apart amid a welter of recrimination; the club did not convene a meeting to approve the club accounts,[12] and, despite the committee's assertion that the club "is not dead: it merely sleepeth",[13] it never re-started.

The earliest known colours for the club are navy and white jersey and hose, and white knickers.[14] In 1884 it changed to black and white jersey and hose, with blue knickers.[15]

After playing on public fields for a season, the club found a more permanent location in August 1881 on a field owned by a Mr Semple in Westfield.[16] In May 1882[17] the club acquired a lease of Grierson's Holm, half-a-mile from Strathaven railway station.[18]