Words: Rory Bryce // @_BryceCube
The city of Perth lies on the northern fringe of Scotland’s Central Belt and is part of the roughly defined ‘Midland’ region. It’s about an hour from Glasgow and Edinburgh and 2 hours to Aberdeen and Inverness. The closest cities are Dundee and Stirling, relatively small in comparison. Perth’s population, at the time of the last census, was around 43,000.
Basically, Perth is pretty small, both in population and size. I’m from the opposite end of the central belt and my regional bias is probably evident, but it’s always seemed just as remote as us despite being a city. In contradiction though, Perth has always been well-connected for the region of Scotland it lies in. You’re pretty much on the periphery of both the Highlands and Lowlands, and Perth lies within the immediate spheres of Stirling and Dundee up the river Tay. I’ve always saw it as a bit of an anomalous city.
It’s maybe no shock then that Perth has been a one-club city for over a hundred years, at least where senior football is concerned. It should be said that Perth has an impressively strong non-league and Junior football scene; Jeanfield Swifts, Kinnoull FC and Letham FC all have long and storied histories. That’s not to mention the plethora of clubs in the wider Perthshire county area which have come and gone.
Like many other Scottish towns and cities however, particularly ones smaller in comparison to major cities or their larger neighbours, Perth has always struggled to sustain two senior football teams. There are many factors which contribute to this, but one of the more prominent ones is that fans often opted not to split support and instead throw their weight behind whichever team was more successful in the early days of football in Scotland. It was certainly dog eat dog.
As such, many of the early powers within Scottish football had fallen away by the time World War I brought football in the UK to a grinding halt. The majority of those clubs didn’t return afterward; those who did didn’t survive past World War II. Even then, this is pretty generous for those clubs. You’d be lucky if many of them made it past the turn of the century. For people in places like Perth, it made it easy for them to pick a team and back them. In some cases, the fact that people had flocked to the most successful club, who at that time would be competing in regional competitions and the Scottish Cup, hastened the demise of other clubs up and down the country, some of which would have been older.
From 1902, this became the case in Perth. Though already popular, St. Johnstone’s existence as the only senior club in Perth at the time consolidated its status as a one-club city.
St. Johnstone fans in the stands during the final game at Muirton Park.
Photo Credit: The Courier
As was the case with many clubs formed in Scotland in the late 1800s, St. Johnstone’s origins lie in a cricket club who were looking for new ways for their members to spend their time and stay fit after the cricket season had come to a close. They spent their time largely kicking a ball around the South Inch, one of Perth’s large greenspaces. The year was 1884; St. Johnstone Football Club was born, and the following year the group of footballers announced that they were splitting from the cricket club. All systems go.
Their first ground was the Recreation Ground, adjacent to the South Inch, and they called this ground home for 40 years or so. However, Perth has a notorious reputation for flooding, and still suffers from flooding in the modern day when the River Tay bursts its banks. The majority of the city centre, including the North and South Inch, sit on a flood plain. The Recreation Ground regularly suffered from flooding and caused no end of problems for the fledgling club, and so in 1924 they built Muirton Park, which would serve as the home of St. Johnstone until 1989 when McDiarmiad Park was built. It’s fair to say that St. Johnstone were Perth’s first football institution, a fact that remains to this day.
Of course, we need to remember that St. Johnstone’s gains were other clubs losses; and the rest of football in the Fair City struggled to keep up. The first club in Perth, Pullar’s Rangers, merged with a conglomerate of other small football clubs and groups in Perth to form Caledonian Rangers, a club with tenuous links to the railway industry. They played on a ground in Dovecotland. The new merger team only lasted 4 years and was struck from the SFA register in 1890. The majority of their success came in the Perthshire Cup. Their Scottish Cup adventures ended in the first round every time.
Erin Rovers had a little more success and lived slightly longer. Also formed in 1884, the club was formed to represent Perth (and wider Perthshire’s) Irish community. Irish migrants settled in the Fair City as they did in other parts of Scotland to seek work, with nearby Dundee also boasting a significant Irish community. Erin Rovers made it to the fourth round of the Scottish Cup in the 1886-87 edition, but lost 5-1 to St. Bernard’s of Edinburgh in what would have been considered a glamour tie at that time. By 1889 the club had fallen off a cliff; membership numbers had dropped to double figures, the team was far weaker than it ever had been, and they had consigned themselves to playing in local charity competitions. Even then they couldn’t escape the St. Johnstone juggernaut - Erin Rovers’ last recorded fixture was a Reid Cup final defeat to the Saints. The score was 7-2. By the time preparation for the 1889-90 season began, the club had been wound up.
St. Johnstone’s current ground, McDiarmiad Park, during construction.
Photo Credit: The Courier
Even at this stage, St. Johnstone were clear of any other club in Perth or Perthshire. Clubs like Caledonian Rangers and Erin Rovers couldn’t compete with this type of success, as their best players would often get poached by the Saints, their fans would flock to support them, and their teams would get frequently battered by them. It was a lose lose. Clubs in rural Perthshire were perhaps given a stay of execution due to their remoteness or the conditions which required their players to stay in their local towns or villages. Some prominent clubs, like Breadalbane from Aberfeldy, still play today albeit at an amateur level. Luncarty FC really fly the flag for those early clubs from Perth which still exist, having being founded in 1886.
Another interesting point to note about Erin Rovers is the reporting on their style of play, which was labelled as being hard and rough. The Dundee Courier went so far as to describe one match in 1887 as a “donnybrook”. This was originally a traditional fair held in Dublin, though the term became slang for a mass brawl or a riot.
In isolation, reports that a football club used ‘hard’ tactics or rough play may seem reasonably innocent or indicative of the teams’ character. It wasn’t in isolation though; it was a pattern. Carfin Shamrock, Lochee Harp, Dundee Hibernian, Motherwell Shamrock, and Hibernian FC, among others, all made local, regional and national news for their ‘rough’ style of play. What’s the one commonality between the clubs? They all represented Irish diaspora communities in Scotland. It’s clear to see that a pattern of anti-Irish racism, particularly against Irish representative football teams, was prominent in printed media at that time. It’s an issue which still plagues Scotland today. Erin Rovers weren’t exempt from that.
Perth’s South Inch, where Erin Rovers had their first ground before moving to St. Catherine’s Park.
Photo Credit: Perth Civic Trust
Caledonian Rangers and Erin Rovers fell away relatively quickly after founding. Supporters in Perth were quickly consolidating around St. Johnstone, but one other club bucked the trend. They also drew crowds and consolidated support after the demise of other Perth clubs, and at one point tried to be Perth’s second club.
Fair City Athletic was Perth’s top club from founding in 1884 until the rise of St. Johnstone, who had caught up with them in terms of supporter base, strength and membership by 1890. Fair City Athletic were long-standing competitors in the Perthshire Cup, often coming to blows with Dunblane FC. They finally won the Perthshire Cup in 1893-94, but it could be argued that this was because St. Johnstone refused to play the final; Fair City Athletic played Vale of Leven instead, beating them 5-2 in what was considered a shock. It should be noted that Vale of Leven were based in Alexandria, a stones throw away from Loch Lomond in West Dunbartonshire. They would have had a considerable distance to travel.
In any case, by this stage Fair City Athletic were becoming something of an afterthought as St. Johnstone began to dominate football in Perth. An old regional tournament called the Northern League snubbed Fair City Athletic in favour of admitting St. Johnstone as a member in 1891. They pottered around various league and cup competitions after the advent of the Scottish Football League in 1890 but never to much fanfare or with much success. One of their greatest victories was a 9-0 drubbing of St. Johnstone in the 1888-89 Perthshire Cup semi-final, however the Saints were fielding a reserve side for the competition at this stage.
Despite this the club trundled on. You could probably argue they would fall into further obscurity and potentially cease to exist anyway, as they followed a similar pattern to many other clubs who fell into regional contest and ceased to exist. Whatever fate had in store for them was quickly hastened however.
In 1899, Fair City Athletic moved to Muirton Bank Park, a significant expense for a regional club with an already dwindling fanbase. Despite their evident financial difficulties, the club commissioned a new grandstand to be built at the ground in September 1900. By the end of the season, the financial situation was so dire that the club had put Muirton Bank Park up for sale. By 1902, Fair City Athletic were gone.
Fair City Athletic Squad Photo celebrating with one of their few trophies.
Photo Credit: The History of Fair City Athletic Football Club by Forrest Robertson
Therefore, by World War I, St. Johnstone were the remaining senior club in Perth and were able to consolidate their support around being the only club in the city. For being a provincial club they’ve done not too bad; in the 2020-21 season they won a League Cup and Scottish Cup double, pretty incredible considering the challenges faced by smaller provincial clubs in Scotland.
What I like most about the Saints and Perth in general is how it wears its heritage. Perth is an ancient city but it doesn’t shy away from the layers of history present in its streets. The same can be said for its football club. The name ‘St. Johnstone’ is an anglicisation of a late medieval nickname of Perth, ‘Saint John’s Toun’, the name of which comes from St. John the Baptist. St. John’s Kirk is one of the most prominent buildings in Perth, and much of Perth’s infrastructure, economy evolved around the cathedral. The Lamb of God, associated with John the Baptist, makes up part of the clubs’ crest, while the two-headed eagle which dominates their badge and identity comes from Perth’s coat of arms.
Perth and St. Johnstone aren’t in-your-face about their heritage though. It’s very subtle, almost passive, in a way which reflects the history within the club and city but which leaves you wanting more and wondering why. The name ‘St. Johnstone’ is enough to prompt further research, but the title of ‘Fair City’ has made its way into the club too. The nickname ‘Fair City’ for Perth comes from a novel published by Sir Walter Scott in 1828 called ‘The Fair Maid of Perth’. St. Johnstone’s main ultras group, frequented by many of the cities youth, are called Fair City Unity, again using the heritage of Perth in a subtle way. It’s honestly brilliant, and we don’t see enough of this stuff in football anymore.
Traces of the club can be found everywhere; a ghost sign exists on tenements at Inchhead Terrace, located across from the South Inch where the Saints once played in their early days as a football club. St. Johnstone is Perth, and as far as football is concerned, Perth is St. Johnstone. It is a club absolutely rooted in the place they are from.
The ghost sign on Inchhead Terrace displaying the club name.
Photo Credit: Matches in Dispatches by Alastair Blair and Brian Doyle