CLUB HISTORY

Crosslands AFC were formed in the late spring, early summer of 1999 by regulars and locals of the Crosslands Bar, Queen Margaret Drive, Glasgow. (The pub is well known for having been in the classic movie "Trainspotting", please see links to web information in our links section).
We successfully applied to the Glasgow and District Saturday Morning League and entered Division B in the season 1999 - 2000. After a few teething problems on and off the pitch the Club finally got into its stride after Christmas of that season and finished in 12th place of the 14-team division. We improved greatly in season 2000 - 2001 and finished the season in 6th place and we continued our improvement in the following season 2001 - 2002 by just missing out on promotion to Division A and finished in 3rd place. As we speak we are in our 4th season and hoping to make a real challenge for promotion.

Since our foundation in 1999 we have entered both the Scottish Amateur Cup and the West of Scotland Amateur Cup as we look to raise our Club profile and with any luck have a good cup run. As of yet we have not managed to put together a good run as the Standard of play is higher than our Division but we are optimistic that our improved league form will translate into our Cup form and see us get through the early rounds of these prestigious tournaments.

Each season we have had very successful Player Of the Year Award nights (see separate section) to congratulate the players on a hard fought season and recognise those players who have turned in exceptional performances consistently over the season. These award nights take place on the balcony of the Crosslands Bar around the middle of May.

Many of our players and committee members have been with us since our very first season and several other good people have joined our ranks since. We hope that by keeping these guys together and continuing to improve year on year that we will realise our long-term ambitions of playing at the very highest levels of amateur football in Scotland and raising our profile among our fellow clubs.

Season 2003 – 2004

After disappointingly missing out on promotion to the top division of the GDSML and being eliminated in the Referees Shield semi-final at the end of the previous season we, as a club, decided that we had to raise the standard of both our organization and our players.

In the summer of 2004 we applied successfully to the Greater Glasgow Premier AFL. The move to Saturday afternoon football meant that we would be playing against teams of a higher standard consistently and that we would be able to attract better players to the team.

We also sent senior players onto coaching courses and set out to improve our team through better coaching.

After a good start to our first season in GGP division 3, where we won 5 of our first 8 games we had a very poor run-in at the end of the season and finished in the bottom half of the table. We also lost narrowly by 1 goal to well established Ayrshire teams in both the Scottish and West Cups.

The move however was a success as we attracted several new and younger players and found the level much more competitive. We also greatly increased our all round organization and improved our position financially though extra income from successful fundraising and social events.

Season 2004 – 2005

After our experiences of the previous season we greatly improved our pre-season with new coaching and fitness techniques and improved our squad. We also managed to improve our coaching facilities as well as altering the training nights and times. As a result the training and tactical awareness of the players improved greatly and we made a real challenge for promotion despite having a poor start to the season.

We worked very hard, improved ourselves both on and off the park as we greatly improved our squad size, financial position and attitude. We once again had a disappointing time in the cups losing 3 2 to a poor side from Airdrie in the Scottish Cup and losing 5 3 to Dalziel HSFP in the West Cup despite leading 3 2 with 20 minutes to go. We did however, show once again that we can compete with these big clubs but we need to improve our consistency of performance.

In the end we narrowly missed promotion by a couple of points despite only losing 4 league games. We learned the hard way that draws are 2 points lost as we drew 9 games, 7 of which we had been leading in.

At the current time we are about to enter into our seventh season and have great ambitions going forward. In order to provide more playing experience for our younger players and larger squad, as well as provide coaching opportunities for senior members of the playing squad we will have 2 teams for the coming season. One will play on Saturday Mornings in the GDSML and one will continue in the GGP Saturday Afternoon league.