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Club History
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(Extracted
from the book 'The History of Whitehill Welfare' by
A.C. Smith)
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Pre 1953 |
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The
earliest records of Whitehill Welfare indicate that the team
first appeared in season 1905/06 under the name 'Rosewell
Rosedale FC', replacing the defunct Rosedale Rovers, and
playing in the Midlothian Juvenile League. The highlight of
this team's life, it appears, was to reach the Scottish
Juvenile Cup Final, and an incident in August 1939 where the
police investigated an attack on the Rosewell goalkeeper,
accused of letting the side down during a 10-2 defeat!
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1953
- 1979 |
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Although
Rosedale continued operating until 1957, it was in
1953 that Whitehill Welfare FC was formed, the
founding fathers being a group of employees from
the now defunct Whitehill Colliery, Rosewell. In
the early years, Whitehill were the chopping block
for the more fancied clubs. Although reaching the
Scottish Juvenile Cup semi-final in 1959, they did
not really come to the fore until 1964 when they
won every trophy in the Mid and East Lothian
Section Juvenile League.
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1979
- Present |
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By
1979 there were only six Juvenile clubs left in
Whitehill's league, and so the Welfare decided it
was time for it too to go Senior. This resulted in
the team joining the East of Scotland League in
August 1979, a league which they were to top at
the end of their first four seasons. Indeed,
Whitehill have won the league championship no less
than ten times since joining. Membership of the
Scottish Football Association also has the
advantage of allowing the club the opportunity to
win through to the first round of the Scottish
Cup. In this competition, Whitehill Welfare have
knocked out Albion Rovers (1986/87), earned
replays against 3 league sides, and seen perhaps
the team's finest hour, meeting Glasgow Celtic on
28 January 1996. This match resulted in a very
respectable 3-0 defeat, having held Celtic to 0-0
for 39 minutes, and coming very close at one point
to equalising.
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