FC Edinburgh | @AlexHTheMAX
It's gone under the radar a bit but Scottish League Football will have a rebranded club in League One from July in the shape of FC Edinburgh, formerly Edinburgh City FC, who were originally formed as the capital's answer to Queens Park. @AlexHTheMAX explains the name change.
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| The new FC Edinburgh logo recognises the orginal founding year of Edinburgh City. |
Scottish League Football will have a new name, or more truthfully, a name change in their ranks in the 2022/3 season. It comes after a last-minute name change by Edinburgh City as they prepare for their first-ever season in Scotland's third tier.
Chairman Jim Brown told media they felt forced into the move because "we don't own the name Edinburgh City".
He said the local social club had thwarted attempts to switch ownership, "The social club owns the name Edinburgh City Football Club Limited, so we were trading as Edinburgh City Football and Athletic Limited," he earlier told a live broadcast to fans of the promoted club who will play in Scottish League One from July.
"We've asked the social club on numerous occasions if they would let us have the name. We have a letter from the social club saying we can use the name, which is great just now, but going forward we've got no guarantees and the social club have stopped communicating with us now." Brown said that the club's lawyers had been pushing for the name change as a result of promotion.
FC Edinburgh had been chosen as it was a form used by many clubs on mainland Europe and the club believed retaining the capital city's name was "key" for branding purposes.
"We spoke with supporters and it's difficult to keep everybody happy with a name and we had a short timescale to decide," Brown explained.
"We are all proud to be in Edinburgh and will always be an Edinburgh team under our stewardship."
Brown pointed out that it coincides with the club "moving back to our spiritual home" of Meadowbank Stadium, which has been redeveloped.
Edinburgh City first switched to the athletics stadium built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games in 1996 after Meadowbank Thistle's move and name change to Livingston, but they have spent the last three seasons as tenants of Lowland League club Spartans at Ainslie Park
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| Meadowbank Stadium before its redevelopment. |
It was home to Meadowbank Thistle in the Scottish League from 1974 until 1996 when the club relocated to Livingston in West Lothian, and changed its name in line with the move. Edinburgh City replaced Meadowbank Thistle as the club playing football in an athletics stadium built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games.
The original Edinburgh City FC was founded in 1928. The club adopted amateur status, with the aim of becoming the Edinburgh equivalent of Queens Park FC and Edinburgh City joined the Scottish League in 1931. The club played in the Lothian Amateur League during WW2 and were only admitted to the short lived C Division of the Scottish League in 1946.
After three more years of struggle, the club left the Scottish Football League in 1949. It switched to junior status and played in the Edinburgh & District Junior League.The club ceased activity completely in 1955, when the local council refused to renew its lease on its home ground, City Park.
A club called Postal United was founded in 1966 and joined the East of Scotland League. Their best league finish was third in 1985/86, having won the Scottish Qualifying Cup in 1982-83 (the four semi-finalists in the Qualifying Cup from Scottish non league gaining automatic entry to the Scottish Cup 1st or 2nd Round until 2007).
The Edinburgh City Football Club Ltd, which had continued trading as a social club near the Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre since the football club stopped playing, gave their approval in 1986 for Postal United to use the Edinburgh City FC name. The club has participated in the Scottish Cup since the mid-1990s, when it became a full member of the SFA..
The club applied to join the Scottish Football League unsuccessfully in 2002 after Airdrieonians went bankrupt but Gretna won the vote but in 2015 Edinburgh City became the first non league club to win promotion via the new Scottish pyramid system when they came up to League Two from the Lowland League following a play off defeat of the club at the bottom of League Two East Stirlingshire who took Edinburgh City's place in the 5th tier.
It is clear that there are still some purists amongst the support who favour Edinburgh City over FC Edinburgh but now that the social media at the football club has been rebranded it is probably the biggest indication that going forward into the new season the name to look out for is FC Edinburgh.
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| The former crest of Edinburgh City. |
By Alex Horsburgh, written for @TFHB.
(All pictures borrowed and NOT owned in any form by TFHB)
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