History
06 Mar 2007

RIVERSIDE FOOTBALL CLUB

Established 1988

Riverside Boys Club was established in 1988 with the aim of helping local boys to have the chance to develop and to become professional footballers as supposed to the all-familiar agenda of trophy winning at all costs.

A brief history follows of the club since its formation in 1988

Bob Primrose and Ian Mason formed the venture, which over the past 19 years has been truthful to the way they wanted the Club to be run, but rewarding both to the players and coaches of the Club.

Season 1989-90 saw the Under 13`s team go through the season undefeated winning their League and two Cups, of that squad four boys went on to professional clubs. The most notable of these boys was Steven Boyack who joined Rangers and Hearts and is still playing with Stirling Albion.

Preparation for the seasons ahead has seen teams playing in many pre—season tournaments and tours made possible through fund-raising events and sponsorship throughout the season. The most notable being invited to The Great North Tyneside International Youth Football Tournament where we played Clubs such as Wallsend Boys Club (of which Alan Shearer was a player), Bolton Boys Club (Manchester United nursery team). On one occasion we won The Mayors Cup for the most sporting team in the tournament. In 2004 our Under 14`s travelled to Southport to play in their Easter Tournament.

Other tours included visits to Liverpool where we visited Goodison Park (Everton FC) and played local reams and to Coventry where we visited Villa Park (Aston Villa FC) and also played local boys clubs and a local league representative team. The last tour was to the Blackpool International Youth Tournament where we reached our age group semi-final.

In 1999 our Under 16 team won there League Championship losing only one game over the entire campaign.

Over the year’s players from our club have progressed to semi-professional and professional teams and are still playing in the Scottish Leagues, the most recent is Art Neilson who has signed full professional forms with Glasgow Rangers.

In 1996 it was decided that we should only play eleven – aside football from the age of 12 and to that end Riverside Soccer Sevens School was formed to let boys from 6 to 11 years play in small sided games. We started with around 20 boys aged from 8 to 10 years but this has now risen to over 100 boys aged from 6 – 12 year old. The progress has been very encouraging with our present Under 16`s team being made up with boys who have come through the Soccer School and next season it is hope that our Under 12`s Soccer School team will enter the local boys football league. The progress in the Soccer School has resulted in the past two years boys being signed by Stirling Albion FC and they now playing in the SPL Development League.

We now have a total of 21 qualified coaches looking after the boys at various age groups; we hope to progress further in the next few years by taking the boys to possibly Under 19 & Under 21 levels. Also if possible look at the formation of a girls team within the Soccer School. We also hope to encourage our coaches to look to gaining further qualifications and have more parents help with the teams.

In 2002 the Soccer School and Boys Club were taken under the banner of Riverside Football Club. This is to allow us to progress further with our plans for the future with Riverside Football Club being the body that will try to leaise with Local Authorities and professional bodies to bring in funding and to obtain much needed facilities for the club.

In 2003 the Riverside Soccer School & Boys Club names were dropped and all ages now come under the Riverside Football Club banner.

In 2005 the club secured the lease of the Haws Park at Bridge of Allan and we now have got a permanent home for games, training and events.

In 2006 our Under 16`s went to the Blackpool 2006 Cup Competition and played very well against teams from all over the UK, remaining unbeaten throughout the tournament, but unfortunately lost out on penalties in the Final. The Under 14’s Blues won the Forth Valley league cup beating our club’s Reds in the final. The Under 15’s also won the Forth Valley league cup for their age group.

At present the Club has now teams at 9`s, 10`s, 11`s, 12`s, 13`s, 14`s, 15`s, 16`s & 17`s competing in the Forth Valley Development Leagues with 2 teams playing Fun-Fours, 7 teams playing Seven A-side and 7 teams playing 11 A-side formats and a Junior Section for players under the age of 9, this account to around 210 players throughout the various age groups.

During the past twelve months the Riverside Football Club has been awarded Charter Club status by Stirling Sports Council, Scottish Youth Football Association Community Club status and has just received the Scottish Football Association’s Quality Mark Award at Standard level.

Members of Scottish Youth Football Association, Forth Valley Football Development Association and Stirling Sports Council.