My grandpa was a Falkirk Bairn

Written as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge. A second “Sports” story.

On the 8th of December 1877 a game of Association Football was played in Falkirk, Scotland.  A Falkirk XI played a team from Kelvinbank, Glasgow in an exhibition match.  The Falkirk team was made up of Falkirk men who were living in Glasgow.  They called themselves the Falkirk Bairns, an old Scots word meaning ‘children’ and long associated with Falkirk residents. 

The Falkirk team was listed as:

P.C.Masterton; Jas Richardson & John McNee; John Thomson & James Finlayson; James Dunn, DR Watson, John Taylor Robert McNee, John Pringle & Wm Parkinson. 

Robert McNee was my grandfather, and John was his older and only brother.  The Bairns did not fare well, losing to Kelvinbank 5-0.  But the Falkirk Football team is known as “The Bairns” to this day.  Whether or not it was the first ever match of Falkirk FC is a matter of dispute. 

Falkirk Football Club were formed in 1876...or 1877 depending on who you believe. Club director in the 1970's Willie MacFarlane states in the club's centenary brochure that when "searching through other old records there is a mention that the nucleus was formed, in fact, in 1876, when a few enthusiastic local youths actually set the ball a-rolling". A series of articles published in the Falkirk Mail newspaper in 1942 contain quotes from the club's secretary in the 1880's, Robert Bishop, who contended that the club was formed in 1877. The club also held its Silver Anniversary Dinner in March 1902 which would also suggest a formation of 1877. (https://bettermeddle.org.uk/museum/story1.php)

Whatever, my granpa was there.