Draft:Rosebery F.C.

Edinburgh Rosebery Football Club was a minor club based in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were nicknamed The Wee Saints.

It was established in 1880, six years after association football, as we know it today. The Rosebery belonged to the same Stockbridge area on the north side of Edinburgh city as did the more famous St Bernard's Football Club.

Early Years
Rosebery F.C. was one of a number of minor clubs in the area. At the outset pitches to play on in the immediate vacinity were very scarce to find and the club started out about 2 miles away in the East Meadows on the south side. The famous Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian and St Bernard's football clubs all used this facility in their formative years.

The Meadows still exist as a popular recreational park but the sporting activities are now confined to cricket and tennis. It was to become some time before the Rosebery was able to play on its home turf. Other venues had to be found like Gilmore Park in Tollcross and the Queen's Park at Holyrood both slightly further away.

Team Colours
Rosebery played in hooped jerseys of primrose and pink, the horse-racing colours of Lord Rosebery. The 5th Earl died in 1929. He presented a number of cups some to raise money for charitable purposes the best known being the Rosebery Charity Cup played for annually by Hearts, Hibs, St Bernard's and Leith Athletic. It started in the 1882/83 season and lasted until 1944/45.

St Bernard's also wore the famous colours from 1900 to 1903. The Scotland international football team did likewise in 1881, 1882, 1900, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1949. Recently a more modern version was used by the national team as the away strip for the European Qualifying match against Gibraltar in 2014.

Grades of Football
At the outset, Rosebery was a minor club playing in juvenile football. As there was no leagues, in an attempt to attract opposition of a similar calibre as themselves for a game, clubs advertised using terms like 'First Class Juvenile', 'Second Class Juvenile', 'Good Juvenile' and Light juvenile' when seeking games.

Starting in season 1882/83, Rosebery took on higher opposition in the early rounds of the Edinburgh Challenge Cup. It soon became evident that most of the minor clubs, like the Rosebery, were out of their depth and heavy losses were sustained. This was certainly the case when St Bernard's beat Rosebery by no less than 22-0 at Powderhall on Saturday 22 September 1883.

Upturn in fortunes
The 1898/1899 season heralded an upturn in fortunes with the club winning the King and Moir Juvenile Cups. The following season the club moved up a grade, to junior football. This led to greater coverage in the newspapers. For the first time it was possible to identify league matches as well as cup ties. Nowadays national or local football associations are responsible for all the competitions coming under their auspices. In 1900 the situation was quite different with each league and cup competition having separate associations of their own.

Locally the principal trophies were the Simpson Shield, the Renton Cup and the Leith Burghs Cup. Rosebery F.C. took part in the Scottish Junior and the East of Scotland Junior Cups as well. League play consisted of the Edinburgh Junior League and the Northern District League. On average about 10 teams took part in the Edinburgh league with even fewer in the Northern, which usually comprised only Stockbridge clubs such as the North Western, Claremont and Edinburgh Thistle as well as Rosebery.

The Wee Saints
In 1899 St Bernard's discontinued their 2nd XI that had been in existance since the Club's foundation. The first team dropping down to the Second Division and a financial crisis prompted this decision. The reserve team was never to reappear and the Gymnasium became vacant when the Saints were playing away from home. This allowed Rosebery to fill the gap and led to the Saints' supporters adopting them as 'The Wee Saints'.

Lord Rosebery
Lord Rosebery was a spectator at the Edinburgh Junior League match at Inverleith Park on Saturday 2 April 1910 when Rosebery won 2-0 against NB Thistle. His days as Prime Minister had passed but he still had a very heavy schedule of public duties. The same day Scotland beat England 2-0 at Hampden Park, Glasgow in an International match. before an attendance of 106,000.

Ten years earlier Lord Rosebery had attended St Bernard's first ever match in the Second Division following relegation from the top league. It took place at Powderhall against Port Glasgow Athletic on Saturday 1 September 1900 and resulted in a 4-1 win for the Saints. In the next home match St Bernard's wore the Rosebery colours. This arrangement lasted for a few seasons until the laundering of the strips caused the colours to merge.

Revival Post World War I
​​Rosebery stopped playing in 1912 and any hopes of an early revival were quashed by the intervention of the First World War that ended in 1918. It was not until 1921 that the team was reformed and entered the Midlothian League. Match results were not good with losses by far outnumbering wins. The Gymnasium was unavailable for home games because the pitch was rendered unplayable due to military occupation during the War. However St Bernard's were able to obtain the use of New Logie Green and once again the two clubs shared the facility. The season turned out to be a disaster with 21 games being lost by theend of February 1923. The decision to retire from the League came as no surprise. The Club did not continue.

Rosebery Juniors
The Gymnasium ground would have been unused but for the initiative of the ever active St Bernard's Supporters Club in creating a club called Rosebery Juniors to play there in the Midlothian Junior League. The primrose and pink colours were not used but instead the royal blue and white of St Bernard's from whom a strip had been borrowed. Unfortunately after a run of very poor results the team withdrew from the league around Christmas 1940. Season 1941/42 saw the creation of a North Eastern League to cater for some of the clubs left out of the Southern League. St Bernard's were able to join it and resumed playing at the Gymnasium in what was to be their last season.

Rosebury in Amateur Football
An Edinburgh Rosebery team was formed in the summer of 1955 and entered the Amateur Association. The President of the Club was Mr J Reilly, father of the famous Hibernian centre forward Lawrie Reilly, the Club Treasurer Mr J Gilchrist, was Lawrie's uncle. In preparation for the new season a friendly match was played on the 29th July against St Bernard's First Class Juvenile team.

The Scotland International team played France at Hampden Park in April 1949 and won the game 2-0. Lawrie Reilly was a member of that team wearing the Rosebery colours. Early optimism was justified as the team got off to a flying start in their first season winning the League's Division Three and being runners up in three cup competitions. Twelve months later they won the Division Two championship along with the Victory Cup.

Rosebery showed very consistent form maintaining Division One status in the League until their demise in 1972.

For three years from 1957 the club also ran an U17 team in the Edinbugh Under Age Juveniles holding their own in a very competitive league.

Honours
The club's most successful season was 1909/10 when in addition to winning three cups, the team had a prolonged run in the 'Scottish'. Normally, Rosebery seldom made any progress beyond the early rounds but this time was different.

Successive wins against Broxburn, St Andrews, 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, Lassodie Juniors and Dundee North End meant drawn at home in Round 5 against the Glasgow Cracks, Ashfield. However the match did not take place! Instead the team moved straight into Round 6 and a visit to Gorebridge meant elimination at the hands of Arniston Rangers on a 0-1 scoreline. This very unusual situation came about because three teams had received byes in both the fourth and fifth rounds. Ashfield still got their Gymnasium date at the Semi Final stage when a crowd of 3000 saw them beat Arniston Rangers 3-2. In the final they defeated Kilwinning Rangers 3-0.

Players
Players from Rosebery who went on to play professional football.