Hamilton Academical F.C.

After a hard-fought campaign during the 2013–14 Scottish Championship season, Accies finished in second position on the final day of the season following a 10–2 home victory over Morton. Despite the disappointment of missing out on automatic promotion to Dundee, they went on to defeat Falkirk 2–1 on aggregate in the first stage of their Premiership play-off to face top-flight Hibernian over two legs for a place in the 2014–15 Scottish Premiership. Hamilton lost the first leg 2–0 at New Douglas Park, but two away goals in the return leg at Easter Road, including an injury time strike, forced the tie to extra time and penalty-kicks. Hamilton converted all of their spot-kicks and gained promotion back to the top flight.[9] Manager Alex Neil left the club in January 2015, to take up a position at English club Norwich.[10][11]

Hamilton found themselves in another playoff at the end of 2016–17, this time as the Premiership incumbents. A close tie against Championship representatives Dundee United ended in a 1–0 aggregate victory, with Accies youth graduate Greg Docherty scoring the only goal.[12]

In October 2017, an elaborate voice phishing fraud was perpetrated on Hamilton Academical.[13][14] Posing as a fraud investigator for the club's bank (Royal Bank of Scotland), the culprit convinced the club's account handler that funds were at risk from corruption within the company and should be moved temporarily, providing instructions to evade suspicion in the bank's genuine checks when monies began to be transferred.[15] The account handler also spoke to an accomplice via a telephone number provided by the main culprit to 'confirm' the legitimacy of the instructions.[15] With the employee sufficiently deceived, a total of close to £1 million was transferred out of the club's accounts over several transactions, with the fraud being discovered the following day.[14] The incident involved most of the club's working funds, causing the abandonment of a project to improve the youth academy.[13]

In February 2018, having only been able to recover a small percentage of their funds, Hamilton publicly declared that they were preparing to take legal action against the bank for a portion of the loss, believing the bank's security measures to have been inadequate in detecting the fraud (due to the unusual pattern of the transactions and the large sums involved);[14][16] RBS refuted this but stated they were working with the club and the police to identify those responsible.[14][16] The Accies chief executive Colin McGowan later described RBS as "morally bankrupt" after he was informed during discussions to prevent future losses that the bank's system did not allow customers to set daily transfer limits.[17]

• Record victory: 10–2 vs. Cowdenbeath (October 1932)[20] and 10–2 vs. Morton (May 2014)[21][22]

• Biggest transfer purchase: Tomas Cerny from Sigma Olomouc (July 2009; £180,000)[23]
• Biggest transfer sale: James McCarthy to Wigan Athletic (July 2009; £1,200,000)[23]

As of 2 February 2021[24]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 2 DF  ENG Hakeem Odoffin 3 DF  SCO Scott McMann 4 DF  SCO Ben Stirling 5 DF  SCO Brian Easton (captain) 6 DF  SCO Jamie Hamilton 7 FW  SCO Bruce Anderson (on loan from Aberdeen) 8 MF  SCO Scott Martin 9 FW  GRE Marios Ogkmpoe 10 MF  SCO David Templeton 11 MF  SCO Lewis Smith 12 DF  SCO Shaun Want 14 MF  CAN Charlie Trafford 15 MF  SCO Ronan Hughes

No. Pos. Nation Player 16 DF  ENG Aaron Martin 17 DF  NZL George Stanger 18 MF  SCO Reegan Mimnaugh 19 FW  SCO Andrew Winter 20 FW  ZIM David Moyo 21 MF  SCO Kyle Munro 22 GK  SCO Kyle Gourlay 23 GK  SCO Ryan Fulton 24 MF  ENG Nathan Thomas 25 FW  SCO Sean Slaven 27 DF  NIR Lee Hodson (on loan from Gillingham) 32 FW  SCO Callum Smith 34 MF  SCO Ross Callachan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 31 GK  SCO Jamie Smith (on loan at Rossvale) 33 MF  SCO Daryl Meikle (on loan at Blackburn United)

The following is a list of the officially appointed captains of the Hamilton Academical first-team.

Name	Nation	Years	Notes	Ref
Alex Neil	Scotland	2005–2014	Finished captaincy to become player-manager	[28]
Martin Canning	Scotland	2014–2015	Finished captaincy to become player-manager	[29]
Michael McGovern	Northern Ireland	2015–2016	Signed for Norwich City	[30]
Michael Devlin	Scotland	2016–2018	Signed for Aberdeen	[30]
Dougie Imrie	Scotland	2018–2019	Retired in 2019	[31]
Darian MacKinnon	Scotland	2019–2020	Contract expired	[32]
Brian Easton	Scotland	2020–		[33]