Defunct Victorian Clubs - A History

ST. BERNARDS

St Bernards FC was a senior football club, based in Edinburgh from 1878 until 1943. Along with Third Lanark, they are often cited as an example of a professional club who suffered an untimely death. St Bernards were originally the Third Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers, like Third Lanark, a team linked to the Terratorial movement of the Victorian area. They had been inspired to set-up a football team after watching an exhibition match between Queens Park and Clydesdale. Buying a ball at Percival King's Sports Shop in Lothian Street, they formed a club at the British League Of Abstainers' Office in February 1874. Originally the club played at The Meadows along with Heart Of Midlothian and later also Hibernian, before moving to their own ground firstly at Powburn Park in Newington and then to John Hope's Park in Stockbridge, where it's close proximity to Edinburgh Academy's playing fields helped them to gain a following. Unfortunately those in charcge of the Third Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers began to see the club as a distraction and this resulted in the club divorcing itself from the regiment in 1878. James Dunn and George Heathcote rechristened the club 'St Bernard's' after the famous St Bernard's Well sitting on the banks of the Water Of Leith nearby and which formed the badge of the club.