Shortlees A.F.C.

Shortlees Amateurs Football Club is a Scottish football club based in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, representing the neighbourhood of Shortlees.

Shortlees
Full nameShortlees Amateurs Football Club
Nickname(s)The Lees
Founded2010[1]
GroundBurnpark Recreation Ground, Kilmarnock[2]
ManagerJim Cunningham[1]
LeagueAyrshire AFA Premier Division

In 2018 they won the Scottish Amateur Cup, granting entry to the following season's senior Scottish Cup for the first time in their history.

Overview

Shortlees are members of the Ayrshire Amateur Football Association and compete in its Premier Division, having been promoted as winners of the First Division in 2016.[3]

They were established as a Sunday league team in 2009 and became more organised the following year, with the organisers (a football coach and the owner of the Murray Bar, the local public house)[4] hoping to emulate the performance of a previous incarnation in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as provide a positive influence in the community. The team soon began moving up through the divisions of the Ayrshire AFA league.[1]

In the Scottish Amateur Cup Final on 20 May 2018 at Hampden Park, they defeated Goldenhill AFC (Scottish Amateur Football League members from Clydebank) by a 2–1 scoreline.[5] Defender Gordon Minor and former Kilmarnock F.C. youth player Joe Gold scored the Shortlees goals.[4] They added the Ayrshire Premier Division title on 4 June 2018, defeating defending champions and arch rivals Hurlford Thistle 5–0 in the decisive fixture, with a crowd estimated at over 1000 in attendance to witness the victory.[6]

As well as gaining promotion, in 2016 Shortlees had won the West of Scotland Cup (considered the most prestigious in the region after the Scottish Cup), and again the opponent they overcame in the final was Goldenhill, by the same scoreline.[1][7]

The club play in black-and-red striped shirts[4] or an all-white away kit. Their crest depicts a skull and crossbones.[1] Their home ground is technically Burnpark Recreation Ground in Shortlees (a council housing estate within the historic parish of Riccarton, which today forms the southern portion of the Kilmarnock urban area), but home fixtures are played at various locations in the locality, including Riccarton Public Park and the artificial surface at Grange Academy.[8]

Scottish Cup

Shortlees entered the 2018–19 Scottish Cup at the Preliminary Round 1 stage on 12 August 2018, away to East of Scotland Football League club Tynecastle.[9] A 2–0 victory in Edinburgh was followed by another away fixture in the next round on 1 September against Bonnyrigg Rose (also East of Scotland League, although the Midlothian club entered as winners of the previous season's Junior East Superleague).[10] A 3–0 victory for Bonnyrigg brought the Shortlees campaign to an end at that stage.[11]

Rivalries

One of Shortlees' main rivals are Hurlford Thistle, who also won the Scottish Amateur Cup in 2012[12] and 2014;[13] however, those were the final years before its winners were invited to enter the senior Scottish Cup. Shortlees are therefore the first such entrants from Ayrshire and its regional league.

References
  1. "West Of Scotland Amateur Cup Final 2016 Programme" (PDF). SAFA. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  2. "Team Directory: Shortlees AFC". AAFA. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  3. "Season Archive: 2015-2016". AAFA. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  4. "In pictures: Shortlees lift the Scottish Amateur Cup for the first time". Daily Record. 23 May 2018. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  5. "Results - RJM Sports Scottish Amateur Cup". SAFA. 20 May 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  6. "Fixtures & Results". AAFA. 4 June 2018. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  7. "Goldenhill AFC suffer heartbreak in final defeat". Greenock Telegraph. 19 May 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  8. "Fixtures and Results: Shortlees AFC". AAFA. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  9. "Scottish Cup: Junior Cup winners Auchinleck Talbot host Banks O'Dee in first preliminary round". BBC Sport. 16 July 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
  10. "William Hill Scottish Cup Preliminary Round One Results 2018-19". Scottish Football Association. 12 August 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  11. "Bonnyrigg Rose 3-0 Shortlees: Rose cruise through to Scottish Cup first round". Midlothian Advertiser. 4 September 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  12. "Hurlford Win The Scottish Cup". AAFA. 25 May 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  13. "Hurlford 3 Colville Park 3 (Hurlford win 4-3 on penalties): Thistle lift the Scottish Amateur Cup". Daily Record. 19 May 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2018.

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