Berwick Rangers F.C.

Did You Know?

• Berwick Rangers were locked out of Shielfield Park in the 1988–89 season and had to play games elsewhere.
• On 26 August 2012, Rangers FC played their first ever league game in England when they faced Berwick Rangers at Shielfield Park, ending in a 1–1 draw.

History

Berwick Rangers was officially formed on 7 January 1881 after a match between a team of millworkers from Dunbar and a team of railway clerks from Newcastle. Recent research indicates that 1884 is the more likely date of formation. Their first competitive match was against another Berwick team, The Royal Oaks, on 16 February 1884, which Berwick Rangers won one goal to nil. After the First World War, they joined the East of Scotland League.

Attempts to join the North Northumberland League were rebuffed. In 1951 they were admitted to the Scottish Football League C Division (North & East), a third tier made up largely of reserve sides. That division was scrapped in 1955, and Berwick were placed in an enlarged Division B. The club had a nomadic existence before settling at Shielfield Park in 1954. A notable early success was a 3–0 win over Dundee in the Scottish Cup in 1954, a run that reached the quarter-final before losing 4–0 to Rangers.

Ten years later they reached the semi-final of the Scottish League Cup, losing 3–1 to Rangers. Their greatest success came in 1967, when they beat Rangers 1–0 in the Scottish Cup under player-manager Jock Wallace, after a club-record 8–1 win over Vale of Leithen in the first round. That victory led to several Rangers players leaving Ibrox and drew a club-record home attendance of 13,365. They lost 1–0 to Hibernian in the next round.

Status

Berwick Rangers are an unusual case in world football, competing in a different country’s league system than the one their home town belongs to. Berwick-upon-Tweed lies just over two miles south of the Scottish border, yet it is nearer to Edinburgh than to Newcastle upon Tyne and sits at roughly the same latitude as southern Glasgow. The town was once part of Scotland and swapped hands repeatedly before England finally took control in 1482. The club started out in the East of Scotland League, alongside other Borders sides, before moving into the Scottish League. Because Berwick is in England, it was the only Scottish league club required to follow the Taylor report after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.