Formation: Berwick Rangers FC   

    In the autumn of 1883 an article entitled “Football” was published in the local press calling for the formation of a football club in Berwick to compensate for the lack of winter sports and pastimes in the borough and to encourage an “aimless youth in leisure, growing soft in spite of themselves.” It gave the merits of both Rugby and Association codes of football but preferred the Rugby game as giving more manly exercise than the other. 

    On New Year’s Day 1884 a football match played under Association rules, was held at the Cricket Ground, Pier Field (above right), which had been granted by the Berwick Cricket Club for the occasion. A team of railway clerks from Newcastle, the North Eastern, met a team hailing from Dunbar, the Tynefield, the players of which were connected with the paper mills then in existence at West Barns. In view of the distance involved the teams decided to meet half way – Berwick. 

    A large crowd gathered to watch and the exhibition of football so impressed the younger generation that soon after they approached the Vicar of Berwick, Charles Baldwin, for the loan of the school on the Parade (below left) for the purpose of holding a meeting to consider the advisability of forming a football club. He readily agreed with the would-be footballers and a meeting was duly called.
 
    The meeting, held on Monday 7th January 1884, turned out to be so successful that office bearers and a committee were elected. Twenty-four young men put their names forward with many more signifying their intention of joining when a suitable ground was found. At a further meeting, held on January 12th, it was announced that the club, who had been gifted black and yellow caps in which to play, would be called the Berwick Rangers Football Club (Association), and the rest, as they say, is history.  

    A full detailed and updated history of the Berwick Rangers Football Club from its formation in 1884 to the present day, complete with match by match details, is currently being researched. It is hoped to publish a book entitled "An International Every Week - a History and Journal of Berwick Rangers Football Cub" in two volumes: 1884 to 1939 and 1946 to date, when the research for those years has been fully completed.

History