Hawick Royal Albert F.C.
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| Full name | Hawick Royal Albert Football Club |
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| Nickname(s) | The Royalists, The Albert |
| Founded | 1947 |
| Ground | Albert Park, Hawick |
| Capacity | 1,500 (500 seated) |
| Chairman | Jim Borthwick |
| Manager | Kevin Milne |
| League | Lowland League |
| 2015–16 | East of Scotland League, 5th (promoted) |
| Website | www |
Hawick Royal Albert Football Club are a Scottish football club who play home matches in the town of Hawick but who train in, and source all of their players from, the Lothians. The club were founded in 1947 and competes in the Lowland Football League.
Before the East of Scotland League was split into two divisions, Hawick Royal Albert won it three times and finished runners-up once. The club reached the final of the Scottish Qualifying Cup South on three occasions, winning it twice, before it was abolished in 2007. Hawick Royal Albert now qualifies automatically for the Scottish Cup as a member of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), its best result reaching the second round on five occasions. The club plays its home matches at Albert Park in Hawick and is managed by Dean Shanks.
Hawick Royal Albert were formed in 1947 after breaking away from Hawick Railway F.C., who were founded a year earlier. The club name is derived from another Scottish football club, Royal Albert, who are based in Larkhall, where William Bunton, the co-founder of the Hawick club was from. The other co-founder was Harry Weir.Royal Albert was a ship, which the original club is named after. Hawick Royal Albert first competed in the Border Amateur League, which it won in the 1947–48 season.
The club joined the East of Scotland Football League, a senior non-league competition for the 1953–54 season. In its first year, the club was ranked 11th from fifteen, before the season was declared null and void due to a backlog of outstanding fixtures. Two seasons later, the club finished runner-up behind Eyemouth United. In 1966, the club applied to join Scotland's main national league competition – the Scottish Football League – when it was seeking to increase its membership by one. Hawick Royal Albert applied for election along with Gala Fairydean, but both lost out to Clydebank. Remaining in the East of Scotland League, they won the competition for the first time in the 1966–67 season, and defended the title the following year. As a result of winning the league, the club qualified for the Scottish Cup for the first time as a member of the Scottish Football Association. Its inaugural match in the tournament was in the first preliminary round against rivals Gala Fairydean and ended in a 4–1 victory, before losing to Elgin City in January 1967 in a replay by two goals to nil. This replay match was played at Borough Briggs, the home of Elgin City FC, and it was the first competitive match played under the newly installed Borough Briggs floodlights. The following season they won 8–2 on aggregate against Tarff Rovers in the Scottish Qualifying Cup South final to qualify for the Scottish Cup again. The club went on to win two preliminary round matches to reach the first round proper, losing 3–0 away to St Johnstone in January 1968. The club finished third in the East of Scotland League in 1969–70 and 1972–73, before winning it for the last time in the 1973–74 season.
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