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1939–40 in Scottish football

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ4564667 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1939–40 season was the 67th season of competitive football in Scotland. It would have been the 50th season of the Scottish Football League, but the outbreak of the Second World War on 3 September 1939 caused the suspension of the league after five rounds of games played in Division One, and four rounds in Division Two. The league was not officially competed for until the 1946–47 season, but regional leagues were played during these years.

League competitions

Scottish League Division One

Scottish League Division Two

Emergency League

The Scottish League officially suspended its competition on 13 September 1939 and set up a committee to investigate the possibility of regional league competitions. These were rubber-stamped on 26 September after the Home Secretary had granted permission, they commenced a month later. There were two divisions: eastern and western, each consisting of 16 clubs. This left six of the previous league clubs: Montrose, Brechin City, Forfar Athletic, Leith Athletic, Edinburgh City and East Stirlingshire.

Cowdenbeath resigned halfway through the season; they had played all the other clubs once, and so their record was allowed to stand. The competition was completed by a play-off between the two divisional winners, Rangers and Falkirk. Rangers won 2–1 at Ibrox Park.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1939–40 in Scottish football” as open-knowledge reference entry. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Scottish, football and Open-knowledge.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1939, 1946—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Scottish, football and Open-knowledge providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1939–40 in Scottish football”, the useful work is to connect “open-knowledge reference entry” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4564667. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1939 and 1946.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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  2. Expand the search: follow 1939–40 in Scottish football primary sources, 1939–40 in Scottish football archive and Scottish research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1939–40 in Scottish football” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.