Gala Fairydean Rovers Football Club are a Scottish

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

club based in the town of

Galashiels Galashiels (; sco, Gallae, gd, An Geal Àth) is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive ...

in the Scottish Borders. The club competes in the , after joining from the East of Scotland Football League in 2013. At the same time the club changed its name to Gala Fairydean Rovers, following a merger between Gala Fairydean and Gala Rovers. The club plays its home matches at

Netherdale Netherdale is a sports complex in Galashiels, Scottish Borders, consisting of two adjacent stadiums used for rugby union and football. The rugby ground is the home of Gala RFC and was formerly used by the professional Border Reivers team. It host ...

.Information – Gala Fairydean
, East of Scotland Football Association. Retrieved 1 April 2013.Netherdale
''footballgroundmap.com''. Retrieved 30 March 2013. Gala Fairydean won the East of Scotland Football League eight times and finished runners-up on seven occasions. The club reached 15 Scottish Qualifying Cup South finals, winning it 11 times, before the competition was abolished in 2007. Gala Fairydean Rovers qualify automatically for the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Scottish Football Association (SFA). The best performance by the club was reaching the third round, done on five occasions.Football Results Summary for Gala Fairydean
''londonhearts.com''. London Hearts Supporters' Club. Retrieved 1 April 2013.Gala Fairydean
''www.fchd.info''. Football Club History Database. Retrieved 1 April 2013. Gala Rovers won the Border Amateur Football League 13 times.

History

Gala Fairydean Rovers was first formed in 1894. In 1907 the club was separated into two teams, known as ''Gala Fairydean'' and ''Gala Rovers''. The first Gala Rovers was the

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

of Gala Fairydean. Both clubs ceased operations in 1914 due to the outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the consequent loss of male population in Galashiels. Gala Fairydean resumed in 1919, after the war had ended, and was a founder member of the East of Scotland Football League in 1923. Gala Rovers were only reformed in 1947 and joined the Border Amateur League. Although the two clubs were separate, they were closely linked through operations such as a joint lottery. Although Gala Fairydean were a semi-professional club and needed funds to pay players, Gala Rovers were amateur and could save some of the funds generated. This helped to fund construction of the 1960s main stand at

. Gala Fairydean applied to join the Scottish Football League in 1966, 1994, 2000 and 2002, but were unsuccessful on each occasion. The two clubs merged to form Gala Fairydean Rovers in 2013. The club was admitted into the new

Lowland Football League The Scottish Lowland Football League (SLFL, commonly known as the Lowland League) is a senior football league based in central and southern Scotland. The league sits at level 5 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the ...

in 2013.

Stadium

Gala Fairydean first played its home matches at Eastlands Park in Galashiels between 1909 and 1913, before moving to Mossilee for a spell until the 1920s. The club moved back to Eastlands, and stayed until 1929, when Netherdale was opened. Netherdale has been the club's home since 1929 and is located in the south-east of

. The ground's main spectator stand was designed by architect

Peter Womersley Peter Womersley (24 June 1923 – 1993) was a British architect, best known for his work in the modernist style. He lived in the Scottish Borders, where a number of his buildings are located, although he worked on projects throughout the UK. Inf ...

, alongside engineers

Ove Arup Sir Ove Nyquist Arup, CBE, MICE, MIStructE, FCIOB (16 April 1895 – 5 February 1988) was an English engineer who founded Arup Group Limited, a multinational corporation that offers engineering, design, planning, project management, an ...

and built between 1963 and 1965. The stand has a capacity for 750 spectators and the ground as a whole up to 4,000. The

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

ed concrete structure is protected as a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The club bought 300 seats from Newcastle United's

St James' Park St James' Park is a football stadium in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the home of Premier League club Newcastle United F.C. With a seating capacity of 52,305 seats, it is the eighth largest football stadium in England. St James' Pa ...

stadium when it was refurbished, but were replaced in 2006 by wooden benches.Gala Fairydean – Ground
, Vale of Leithen F.C. Retrieved 1 April 2013.

Current squad

As of 13 January 2023

On loan

Season-by-season record

Lowland League

† Season curtailed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Honours

League

*Eastern League:East of Scotland Football League – Final tables 1923-date
, Scottish Football Historical Archive. Retrieved 1 April 2013. **Winners (1): 1921–22 *

East of Scotland League The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior 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 Lowland Football League. Fo ...

(1923 to 1987) and East of Scotland Premier Division (after 1987): **Winners (8): 1960–61, 1961–62, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1968–69, 1988–89, 1990–91 **''Runners-up (7)'': 1925–26, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1983–84, 1985–86, 1994–95, 1995–96 * East of Scotland First Division (after 1987): **''Runners-up (1)'': 1999–00

Cup

* Scottish Qualifying Cup South:Scotland – List of Qualifying Cup Finals
''rsssf.com''.

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around th ...

. 15 December 2004. Retrieved 1 April 2013. **Winners (11): 1961, 1965, 1966, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991 **''Runners-up (4):'' 1981, 1988, 1992, 1996 *King Cup: **Winners (11): 1911–12, 1912–13, 1914–15, 1929–30, 1946–47, 1960–61, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1968–69, 1971–72, 1988–89 *East of Scotland Qualifying Cup: **Winners (10): 1926–27, 1946–47, 1961–62, 1965–66, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91, 1994–95 *East of Scotland (City) Cup: **Winners (3): 1960–61, 1987–88, 2021–22 *East of Scotland League Cup: **Winners (2): 1968–69, 1993–94

Gala Rovers AFC

BAFA honours

* Winners (13): 1951, 1953, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1978, 1987, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2013 B Division * Winners (1): 1995 South Cup * Winners (4):1954, 1963, 1964, 2007 Border Cup * Winners (6): 1963, 1968, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2003 Beveridge Cup * Winners (6): 1954, 1967, 1978, 1996, 2003, 2013 Wright Cup * Winners (4):1963, 1966, 1985, 1995 Walls Cup * Winners (1): 1995 Waddel Cup * Winners (3): 1988, 2001, 2003 Dudley Cup * Winners (4): 1949, 1950, 1953, 2013

References

;General
Dean Unveil Dream TeamFairydean legend Notman slams Youth CoachingRow over Gala player Gass explodesLatest Gala Fairydean Committee unveiled

External links

Official websiteGala Fairydean
at

Soccerbase ''Racing Post'' is a British daily horse racing, greyhound racing and sports betting publisher which is published in print and digital formats. It is printed in tabloid format from Monday to Sunday. , it has an average daily circulation of 60 ...

{{Lowland League Association football clubs established in 2013 Football clubs in Scotland 2013 establishments in Scotland East of Scotland Football League teams Lowland Football League teams Galashiels Football clubs in the Scottish Borders