Kilwinning
Rangers or The Buffs
as they are more affectionately known,
were formed in 1899 as a Juvenile football club,
playing at Blacklands Park,
which they shared with the then senior side of
Eglinton Seniors.
They
officially became a Junior football club on the
26th of July 1902.
The name Buffs was first
recorded on the 21st of September
1900 when the local paper, the
Irvine Herald, recorded that the so-called
Buffs had had an emphatic
victory over Kilmarnock Belgrove.
The
name Buffs has had folklore
of its own and to this day there is no definitive
version of how the name came about! but there are a few
well told theories. One is that a soldier played for
the team who was a member of the
1st East Kents, 3rd regiment of the line an army
regiment who were nicknamed The
Buffs. The second being that the name was used at
that time to describe anything that was “smashing”, but
the third and most likely theory is that the team played
at that time in a dull yellow, or Buff strip.
1904:
“Champions of Ayrshire” two
years after joining the junior ranks .
1909:
They were the first Ayrshire team to win the coveted
Scottish Junior Cup
defeating Strathclyde on
the 22nd of May, at Rugby Park,
Kilmarnock. The team consisted of an all Ayrshire
side, and in fact nine of the team came from the town of
Kilwinning itself, a rare set of circumstances nowadays!
1999:
The Scottish Junior Cup
returns to Kilwinning after 90 years.
The
Centenary year was in fact like a fairy tale for the
club. Not only did they return the Scottish Cup, but
also they won the next highest trophy, the
West of Scotland Cup,
the North Ayrshire League Trophy
and three other cups making a total of six trophies on
their famous date! This makes the
Buffs the only team in the history of the game to
achieve this honour.
The
team now plays at the infamous
Abbey Park situated above the river Garnock, and
can proudly boast that they were the first, and last
Ayrshire Club to win the Scottish
Junior Cup in the twentieth century!
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