Bathgate Football Club was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club based at Mill Park in

Bathgate Bathgate ( or , ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston, Scotland, Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway (Scotland), M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Linlithgow, Livingston, and West Calder. A number of villages fall under ...

, Scotland. The club was a member of the

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) is a defunct league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4&nbs ...

from 1921 until 1929.

History

The club was formed in 1893, as the result of a merger of Bathgate Rovers F.C. and Bathgate Athletic F.C., the latter club having split out of the former club at the start of the 1892–93 season, and as a result crippling both clubs. Rovers, who played at Boghead Park, allowed its lease over to expire at the end of the 1892–93 season. Consequently, a meeting was held at the Bathgate Institute, with a view to forming a new club for the town, and it was agreed to set up a fresh club, under the name Bathgate, which would endeavour (successfully) to re-gain use of Boghead, and which was made up of Rovers and Athletic players. The new club joined the Central Football League and other minor leagues, and moved to

Mill Park Mill Park is a small suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 18 km north-east of Melbourne's Melbourne city centre, central business district, located within the City of Whittlesea Local government areas of Victoria ...

in 1902. Bathgate returned to the Central League in 1919 and were one of several clubs incorporated into the

Division Two in 1921. The club initially performed well in Division Two, coming close to promotion in 1923–24. Bathgate soon found themselves dogged by financial problems, however. In 1924, junior club Larkhall Thistle brought a case against Bathgate for poaching their players, as the junior clubs resented the fact senior clubs could take their players without adequate compensation.Crampsey, p78 Finances were further damaged by the severe downturn in gates during the 1926 miners strike. All of the West Lothian league clubs were made unsustainable by the decline of the local

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

and shale oil industries.Crampsey, p83 Bathgate resigned from the league in March 1929. The club continued in the

East of Scotland Football League The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior association football, football league based in the east and south-east of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–9 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowlan ...

, playing their final fixture on 16 April 1932. The club was formally dissolved in October 1938. Bathgate has since been represented in junior football by Bathgate Thistle.

Colours

*1893–1904 Red & white striped shirts, white shorts. *1904–1938 Maroon shirts, white shorts.

League record

Bathgate did not complete the 1928–29 season and their results were expunged from the records.

Players

* :Bathgate F.C. players

References

External links

Bathgate
Historical Kits {{Scottish Football League Defunct football clubs in Scotland Association football clubs established in 1893 Association football clubs disestablished in 1938 Football in West Lothian Scottish Football League teams 1893 establishments in Scotland 1938 disestablishments in Scotland