Tayport Football Club are a Scottish
football club from
Tayport
Tayport, also known as Ferry-Port on Craig, is a town and burgh, and parish, in the county of Fife, Scotland, acting as a commuter town for Dundee. The motto of the Burgh is ''Te oportet alte ferri'' ("It is incumbent on you to carry yoursel ...
,
Fife
Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross ...
. Formed in 1947, they play their home games at The Canniepairt. Nicknamed ''the Port'', the club's colours are red, white and black.
They presently play in the
Midlands Football League
The Midlands Football League is a junior football league based in the Tayside area of Scotland. The league sits at level 6 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Highland Football League.
Founded in 2021, the in ...
, ran by
Scottish Junior Football Association
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 ...
and in the 6th tier of the
Scottish football league system
The Scottish football league system is a series of generally connected leagues for Scottish football clubs.
The Scottish system is more complicated than many other national league systems, consisting of several completely separate systems or 'gr ...
.
Although the club is based in Fife, their close geographical location to
Dundee and
Angus
Angus may refer to:
Media
* ''Angus'' (film), a 1995 film
* ''Angus Og'' (comics), in the ''Daily Record''
Places Australia
* Angus, New South Wales
Canada
* Angus, Ontario, a community in Essa, Ontario
* East Angus, Quebec
Scotland
* Angu ...
meant that, when they became a junior club, they chose to join the
Tayside League rather than the
Fife League. They had phenomenal success in the 1990s and early-2000s, winning the league they were competing in every season since 1990–91, bar four times when they managed to finish as runners-up.
History
For over a century the game of football has been a major influence in most communities in Scotland. Tayport, a small former burgh of just under 9,000 inhabitants, situated on
Fife
Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross ...
's most northern extremity on the south bank of the
River Tay
The River Tay ( gd, Tatha, ; probably from the conjectured Brythonic ''Tausa'', possibly meaning 'silent one' or 'strong one' or, simply, 'flowing') is the longest river in Scotland and the seventh-longest in Great Britain. The Tay originates i ...
, is no exception.
From Victorian times, through to the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the town has always had at least one
football club. Information from those days is sketchy, but we do know that Tayport had a Junior club pre-
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 fig ...
, winning the East of Fife Cup in 1905, for example. The Great War in 1914 effectively signalled the demise of Junior football in the town for 75 years.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s there were various amateur clubs in the town, but success was fleeting and there is little recorded history. After the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
and the second half of the 20th century beckoning, The town's football club was Tayport Violet. In 1947 a new club emerged as rivals to Violet when Tayport Amateurs was formed by local lads who had been playing friendlies together as a Senior Boy Scouts team. This was the birth of the club we know today.
These local lads entered the Amateurs team in the Midlands Amateurs’ Alliance League, a league which was essentially for clubs' reserve XIs. Local rivals Violet played in the Midlands' top division. By 1950, the Midlands Amateur Football Association was expanding and in the reorganised leagues, both the Violet and the Amateurs found themselves in Division Two.
Promotion was swift and the two teams finished the season in first and second spots respectively. 1952–53 saw Violet and the Amateurs finish second and third in the First Division behind the champions, YM Anchorage, who incidentally had won every title since 1933. Then, suddenly, Violet were gone. Despite finishing runners-up, it was their last season.
There were contrasting fortunes for the Amateurs during the 1950s and 1960s, but despite experiencing some quite often desperate times, the club managed to survive. That survival was important and a significant factor in the success the club was to enjoy during the latter part of the century. A new, young committee emerged in the late 1960s and the 1970s was a reasonably successful era, with the club establishing itself as a major force in the amateur game.
The club, which had always played its football on the East Common, required more modern accommodation and, at the invitation of Tayport Town Council, in 1975, moved across the factory burn from the East Common to The Canniepairt. This was formerly poor farming land which had been allowed to go to waste but which had recently been used by the Army for its Polex 70 Exercise. Clubrooms were constructed and, like the ground, were subjected to various upgrades in order to provide the accommodation which the club, and indeed, the community, now enjoys.
In 1980, the club which, since 1953 had run an Alliance, or Reserve XI, started a third team – the Fife XI – which was to enjoy 11 successful seasons in the East Fife Amateur Association and for one season, the
Kingdom Caledonian League.
As the club’s standing in the game developed, the committee felt the time was right to take a further step and, in 1990, the club's Junior team was launched and the name of the club became, quite simply, 'Tayport Football Club', a name which could embrace both amateur and junior grades. The enthusiasm for amateur football in the town waned, and through a lack of local players, season 2000–01 was to be the club's last in the Amateurs Leagues.
Since the club joined the
Junior ranks in the
Tayside League, the success which the club has enjoyed has been phenomenal and is unsurpassed in 120 years' history of the Junior game. Virtually every honour the game has to offer has come Tayport's way, culminating in six
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 ...
Final appearances, with three wins – 1996, 2003 and 2005. Six live TV appearances and sustained media spotlight has raised the profile of the previously unknown former harbour and
railway town
A railway town, or railroad town, is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site.
North America
During the construction of the First transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, tempora ...
to a hitherto unknown level.
The team are managed since November 2018 by Stevie Kay.
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: 1995–96, 2002–03, 2004–05
*Runners-up: 1992–93, 1996–97, 2003–04
SJFA East Region Superleague
*Winners: 2002–03, 2005–06
*Runners-Up: 2003–04, 2004–05
SJFA East Region Premier League
*Winners: 2009–10, 2015–16
Other honours
*North & Tayside (NCR) Cup: 1991–92, 1994–95, 1999–00, 2001–02, 2002–03, 2003–04
*
Tayside Premier Division winners: 1991–92, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1998–99, 1999–00, 2000–01, 2001–02
*
Tayside Division One winners: 1990–91
*Currie (Findlay & Co) Cup: 1990–91, 1991–92, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1998–99, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2004–05, 2006–07
*North End Challenge Cup: 2000–01, 2002–03
*DJ Laing Homes League Cup: 1997–98, 2001–02
*Intersport Cup: 1990–91, 1993–94
*Perth Advertiser Cup: 1990–91, 1995–96
*Premier/Division One Winners Herschell Cup: 1990–91, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1995–96, 1998–99, 1999–00, 2000–01, 2001–02
*Cream of the Barley Cup: 1994–95
*Redwood Leisure Cup: 2007–08 (after protest)
References
External links
Official club siteFacebookTwitterOnline archive of Tayport FC Programmes
{{Football in Fife
Football clubs in Scotland
Scottish Junior Football Association clubs
Association football clubs established in 1947
Football clubs in Fife
1947 establishments in Scotland
Tayport