Albion Rovers
| Albion Rovers | ||||
| Basic data | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surname | Albion Rovers Football Club | |||
| Seat | Coatbridge , Scotland | |||
| founding | 1882 | |||
| Website | albionroversfc.co.uk | |||
| First soccer team | ||||
| Head coach |
 John Brogan
|
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| Venue | Clifton Hill Stadium , Coatbridge | |||
| Places | 1249 | |||
| league | Scottish League Two | |||
| 2019/20 | 9th place Scottish League Two | |||
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The Albion Rovers (officially: Albion Rovers Football Club ) - also known as The Wee Rovers or The Vers - are a Scottish football club from Coatbridge , in North Lanarkshire .
The club currently plays in Scottish League One , the third highest division in Scotland. Current coach is Jim Chapman, a former player of the club from the 1980s . The club plays its home games at Cliftonhill Stadium (or "Cliftonhill" for short), which had opened on Christmas Day in 1919 (in the opening game, the club lost 2-0 to FC St. Mirren ).
history
The club was founded as a merger of the two clubs called "Albion" and "Rovers" in 1882 and finally joined the Scottish Football League ("SFL") in 1903 , of which the Rovers have been a member since then to this day. The team plays in yellow jerseys with red stripes, which the club has been wearing since 1961, having previously preferred the colors sky blue, white and black.
The greatest success to this day is the entry into the final of the Scottish Cup in 1920, in which the team lost 3-2 to FC Kilmarnock in front of 95,600 spectators in Hampden Park, despite two leaders. In the semifinals, the club had previously defeated the Glasgow Rangers after three games . With the defeat, the Rovers were next to FC Dumbarton - who had lost in the final to the Rangers in 1897 - the only club that could reach the final in the cup and at the same time ranked last in the championship in the SFL. In the following year, the Rovers again faced the Rangers in the semi-finals and lost 4-1 in this new edition.
In the championship, the Rovers played mostly either in the second division and after the First World War from 1919 to 1923 in the elite league , where the club, however, mostly stayed in the lower half of the table. With the second division championship in the 1933/34 season - and the associated return to the top Scottish league - the first sporting rise in the club's history was achieved. There the team was initially able to hold on to the outbreak of World War II - through relegation in the 1936/37 season, which could be "corrected" in the following season by the runner-up and re-promotion - until the outbreak of World War II , albeit in most cases just above the relegation places.
After the resumption of play in the 1946/47 season, the Rovers were only classified in the second division due to the reduction in the first division from 20 to 16 teams. Although the team was able to return to the first class in the second year through the renewed runner-up, the direct relegation followed in the 1948/49 season with only eight points from 30 games. After that, the club could no longer cultivate seriously higher ambitions in the second division and had relegation as bottom of the table in 1953 only to the fact that no team had to relegate from the second division.
Until the mid- 1970s , the Rovers operated in this second division, until then a restructuring - and the associated reduction in the second division from 20 to 14 teams - ensured that the club despite a mediocre twelfth place in the 1974 season / 75 had to leave the league down. This third division should take over the name “Scottish Second Division” of the previous second division, which was itself called “Scottish League Division One”, due to the additional introduction of the “Scottish Premier Division” as the top division. Even in the third division, the club could not play for promotion for a long time and often took one of the lower places. It was not until 1989 that the Rovers were able to secure the return to the second division with the third division championship, but this should only represent a one-year interlude, as due to the penultimate place in the 1989/90 season, the relegation was the result. That the promotion was only a short glimmer of hope was now proven in the first half of the 1990s and the club rose after two last places with a penultimate place in the 1993/94 season in the newly created fourth division Scottish Football League Third Division off. After the 2014/15 championship, he was promoted to the third- tier Scottish League One .
The Albion Rovers' most famous players include the later coach of Celtic Glasgow and the Scottish national team Jock Stein , as well as Bernie Slaven , Peter Dickson , Jock White (the club's only national player while he was active at the club), Tony Green and Jim Brown .
Others
- In Newport , Welsh , a club was founded - presumably by supporters of Scottish descent - which also bears the name "Albion Rovers". There are also clubs in Australia and Ireland that bear this name.
- The supporters of the club prefer the term "Rovers" instead of the term "Albion" for short.
- The Rovers are currently planning a comprehensive renovation of their stadium and intend to sell parts of the property in order to use them for office space. The aim is to build a new grandstand and possibly a field made of artificial turf .
successes
- Scottish Cup : Participants in the 1920's final
- Second division champions: 1934
- Third division champions: 1989
Club records
- Record win: 12-0 against Airdriehill (Scottish Cup: September 3, 1887)
- Record defeat: 1:11 against Partick Thistle ( Scottish League Cup : August 11, 1993)
- Record attendance in a home game: 27,381 against the Glasgow Rangers (Scottish Cup: February 8, 1936)
- Record goalscorer: John Renwick (41 in the 1932/33 season)
