The Queen's Park Shield is 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 ...

tournament for

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

universities A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

and

colleges A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary education, tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding academic degree, degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further educatio ...

History

The shield was donated to the

Scottish Amateur Football Association The Scottish Amateur Football Association (SAFA) is the organising body for amateur football across Scotland. An affiliate of the Scottish Football Association, the SAFA has in turn 50 regional associations affiliated to it and some 67 differe ...

by Queen's Park Football Club of

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

. The Shield was intended to be for competition between teams representing the four

Ancient Universities of Scotland The ancient universities of Scotland () are medieval universities, medieval and renaissance universities that continue to exist in the present day. Together, the four universities are the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, ol ...

–

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourth-largest settleme ...

. The inaugural competition was won by Aberdeen University. The shield itself has a solid silver front with the crests of the four ancient universities surrounding an image of

Hampden Park Hampden Park ( ; Scottish Gaelic: ''Pàirc Hampden'') is a association football, football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland, which is the national stadium of football in Scotland and home of the Scotland national football ...

. A figure wearing a Queen's Park

strip Strip, Strips or Stripping may refer to: Places * Aouzou Strip, a strip of land following the northern border of Chad that had been claimed and occupied by Libya * Caprivi Strip, narrow strip of land extending from the Okavango Region of Nami ...

is on top. This is rare because the image is of Hampden Park before redevelopment. Since the expansion of university numbers in Scotland, the competition has become in effect the elite cup for university football in Scotland. For a time, until the re-organisation of the

British Universities and Colleges Sport British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS; ) is the sports governing body, governing body for higher education sport in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2008, BUCS is responsible for organising 54 inter-university sports in the United King ...

leagues, it constituted the top division of university football in Scotland, but has now reverted to a knock-out cup. In the 2019 Season Edinburgh College made history by becoming the first ever College to win the shield in the 98 years of the competition, defeating the most successful club Edinburgh University 5-4 on penalties.

Past winners

References

{{Reflist Football cup competitions in Scotland 1921 establishments in Scotland Recurring sporting events established in 1921 Student sport in Scotland