Kilbirnie Ladeside Football Club are a Scottish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club, from

Kilbirnie Kilbirnie ( Gaelic: ''Cill Bhraonaigh'') is a small town of 7,280 (as of 2001) inhabitants situated in the Garnock Valley area of North Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. It is around southwest of Glasgow and approximately from Paisle ...

North Ayrshire North Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Àir a Tuath, ) is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. The council area borders Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to the northeast, and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east and so ...

. Based at

Valefield Park Kilbirnie Ladeside Football Club are a Scottish football (soccer), football club, from Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire. Based at Valefield Park, they currently play in the West of Scotland Football League. Their main rivals are Beith Juniors F.C., Be ...

, they currently play in the

West of Scotland Football League The West of Scotland Football League (WoSFL) is a senior football league based in the west of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–10 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowland Football League. Founded in 202 ...

. Their main rivals are Beith Juniors. The club nickname, ''The Blasties'', derives from a

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

poem, ''The Inventory'', written in 1786.

West of Scotland League

In 2020, Kilbirnie moved from the

SJFA The Scottish Junior Football Association (SJFA) is an affiliated national association of the Scottish Football Association and is the governing body for the junior grade of football (soccer), football in Scotland. The term "junior" refers to the ...

, to join the pyramid system in Scottish football as one of the inaugural members of the

. On 10 October 2020, the club announced they would not be participating in the inaugural season of the West of Scotland League due to concerns relating to the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic, citing the inability of fans to be able to attend games as a huge issue for the club.

Valefield Park

Valefield Park is home to Kilbirnie Ladeside. The average attendance is around two hundred (varying for cup games).

History

The Blasties (the nickname of Kilbirnie Ladeside) original home of Ladeside Park on Mill Road was partly built on by the army during World War II and the club relocated to Valefield, the home of Glengarnock Vale, another local side. Vale did not re-appear after the war and Valefield Park became Ladeside's permanent ground. The name 'Ladeside' derives from the

lade Lade may refer to: People * Brendon Lade (born 1976), an Australian rules footballer * Sir John Lade (1759–1838), a baronet and Regency horse-breeder * Heinrich Eduard von Lade (1817–1904), a German banker and amateur astronomer * The Jarls o ...

that runs near the ground from the old

Nether Mill Nether Mill or the Nethermiln of Kilbirnie was originally the Barony of Kilbirnie corn mill and later became a meal mill as well, located in the Parish of Kilbirnie, near Kilbirnie Loch, North Ayrshire, south-west Scotland. The present ruins dat ...

at Knoxsville Road near the Miller's Knowe.

Structure

Although the ground is small it can comfortably hold up to six hundred spectators. On the north-west side there are two main stands which were both constructed at the start of the new millennium. The ground has around four main turnstiles, two of which are located on Kirkland Road. There is a small snack bar offering a wide range of hot and cold food and a licensed bar located on the south east corner welcoming both home and away support. Kilbirnieladesidestand

Current squad

As of 28 September 2020

Club staff

Honours

Scottish Junior Cup The Scottish Junior Cup is an annual football competition organised by the Scottish Junior Football Association. The competition has been held every year since the inception of the SJFA in 1886 and, as of the 2022–23 edition, 108 teams compete ...

* Winners: 1951–52, 1976–77 * Runners-up: 1986–87

Other honours

* West of Scotland Cup winners: 2007–08 *

Scottish Junior League The Scottish Junior Football League (SJL) was a Scottish football competition that, through various incarnations, existed from 1892 to 1947. It was based in the west of Scotland and largely consisted of Junior clubs that were not considered goo ...

winners: 1903–04 * Ayrshire League champions: 1975–76 * Western League champions: 1947–48, 1949–50, 1951–52, 1967–68 * Ayrshire Cup: 1912–13, 1923–24, 1947–48, 1949–50, 1971–72, 1974–75, 1975–76, 1986–87 * Western/Ayrshire League Cup winners: 1923–24, 1931–32, 1938–39, 1988–89, 1994–95, 2009–10, 2016–17

Notable former players

* George Stevenson,

Motherwell Motherwell ( sco, Mitherwall, gd, Tobar na Màthar) is a town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Historically in the parish of Dalziel and part of Lanarks ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. *

Ernie McGarr Ernest "Ernie" McGarr (born 9 March 1944) is a Scottish former professional footballer, who played as a goalkeeper for several clubs in the Scottish Football League and was capped twice for the Scotland national side. Playing career McGarr si ...

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

and Scotland.Dark Blue Dons - Ernie McGarr
''afc.co.uk'', 13 February 2007, Retrieved 24 June 2011

References

External links

Official site

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{{Authority control Football clubs in Scotland Scottish Junior Football Association clubs Association football clubs established in 1901 Football in North Ayrshire 1901 establishments in Scotland West of Scotland Football League teams Garnock Valley Kilbirnie Ladeside F.C.