Vale – ELIJAH WADE ARTEFACTS

Vale of Leithen Football Club began its life as Leithen Vale Football Club in 1891, making it one of the oldest clubs in the Scottish Borders (a region traditionally dominated by rugby). The ‘Leithen Vale’ name was used only for the club’s first two matches (a victory against Gala Harp and a loss to Peebles Hibernian) before the change to Vale of Leithen. It has been suggested that the name change was made in order to bring to mind the successful Dunbartonshire club Vale of Leven FC (the original Vale of Leven was established in 1872 and folded in 1929, winning the Scottish Cup on three consecutive occasions between 1877 and 1879).

The Vale became full members of the Scottish Football Association in 1897 and competed in the Borders Football League at that time. By the 1910s, the Vale was playing in the Eastern Football League and for the 1923/24 season, joined the new East of Scotland Football League. The club would be crowned EoSFL champions the following season, but would not win the league again until 1977/78 (and then again the following season). The club’s final EoSFL championship came in 1986/87.

In 2013, the Vale became founding members of the Lowland Football League alongside Dalbeattie Star, East Kilbride, Edinburgh City, Gala Fairydean Rovers, Gretna 2008, Preston Athletic, Selkirk, Spartans, University of Stirling, Threave Rovers and Whitehill Welfare. The club’s best performance in the Lowland League came in 2013/14, when they finished in the sixth position.

Vale of Leithen’s current badge is one of my favourites in the Lowland League. According to legend, the town of Innerleithen was established in 737 CE by the Irish monk St Ronan (often referred to as St Ronan the Silent or St Ronan of Locronan), who travelled up the River Tweed (of which the Leithen Water is a tributary) in a coracle. St Ronan is the figure depicted in the current badge, with a crosier in his right hand and a lantern in his left, bringing the ‘light’ of the Christian faith to Innerleithen. This resembles the official blazon of Innerleithen.

While I appreciate each of the design features of the current badge, for my redesign, I decided to make several changes. For a start, I determined that the club’s name feels a bit cramped within the circular portion of the badge – St Ronan’s crosier is nearly touching the ‘E’ of ‘VALE’. Inspired by the handsome ‘KEEP FAITH’ banner, I incorporated the same banner above the circular badge. I was resistant this depiction of St Ronan, especially since it does not resemble many other depictions of the saint and that the boat in which he travels is not suggestive of an Irish coracle (the aesthetic of which does not lend itself to minimalistic illustration).

Instead of a depiction of St Ronan in a boat, I decided to go with the sole image of a lantern to represent the saint. The lantern in my redesign is inspired by one found in a JaJa postcard illustration of the Innerleithen coat of arms from the early 1900s. Being that the Vale is one of the oldest clubs in the Borders, I also decided to include the date of the club’s founding.

The colours for the kit redesigns are taken from the Vale’s traditional kit colour schemes.

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Deveronvale Football Club was established in 1938 at the union of two pre-existing clubs, Deveron Valley and Banff Rovers. The club name comes from the River Deveron, which separates the twin fishing towns of Banff and Macduff on the northern Aberdeenshire coast.

The name ‘Deveronvale’ was chosen so as to demonstrate that the club belonged to the communities of both Banff and Macduff. The current badge is a version of the first and only badge worn by the club, first employed in the 1970s. In order to further emphasise this shared ‘ownership’ of the club, the designer, local schoolteacher Chris Murray, decided upon a depiction of a seagull in order to avoid favouring one town over the other.

A year after the union, the club joined the Highland Football League, though it was not until 2003 that they won their first Highland League title. This achievement was repeated three years later. In addition to these two Highland League championships, Vale’s honours include eight Aberdeenshire Cups, two Aberdeenshire Shields and secured their place in the Scottish Cup tournaments of 1951/52 and 2001/02 by winning the Scottish Qualifying Cup (North) during those campaigns.

Designing a new badge for Vale was a challenge. The current badge is both unique to Scotland in its shape (it resembles Liverpool FC’s full badge very closely, especially the badge first included on Liverpool’s 1987/88 kits) and striking in its aesthetics and simplicity. But, although the centrepiece of the current badge is meant to be a seagull, I find it difficult to see – a Native American thunderbird or an eagle comes to my mind more readily.

Ultimately, I chose to reuse the current badge shape. In order to emphasise both the River Deveron and the twin fishing towns of Banff and Macduff, I placed a blue stripe through the middle of the badge, crossed by two fish (salmon). The salmon coming from the left crosses in front of the salmon coming from the right, emphasising that, while Deveronvale belongs to both Banff and Macduff, the town on the western bank of the River Deveron, Banff, has always been home to Deveronvale’s home ground.

The kit redesigns make use of traditional Deveronvale home and away colour schemes.

ELIJAH WADE ARTEFACTS

Tag: Vale

ReBrand: Vale of Leithen FC

ReBrand: Deveronvale FC