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Edinburgh Academical Football Club

rugby union club of Edinburgh, Scotland

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ1284702 ↗
Source-derived summary

Edinburgh Academical Football Club, also known as Edinburgh Accies, is a rugby union club in Edinburgh, Scotland. The club is currently a member of the Scottish National League Division One, the 2nd tier of Scottish club rugby. Its home ground is Raeburn Place, in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. The team is coached by Charlie Shiel, Jamie Sole, and Simon Berghan.

The club regularly fields three teams and is also involved with Broughton and Trinity Accies in the Edinburgh BATs initiative, a community amateur sports club providing youth rugby across northern Edinburgh.

History

The club was formed in 1857 and is the oldest surviving football club of any code in Scotland, and the second oldest rugby union club in continuous existence in the world, behind Dublin University Football Club (founded 1854). They were one of the founding members of the Scottish Rugby Union.

In the 1873–74 season, they played ten matches, and won all of them.

In season 2007–08, the club's 1st XV finished second in Premiership Division 2, thereby securing promotion to the Premiership Division 1. That same season they experienced a successful Scottish Cup run, reaching the final with victories over Premiership 1 teams Currie, Hawick and Boroughmuir.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Edinburgh Academical Football Club” as rugby union club of Edinburgh, Scotland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Edinburgh, Academical and Football.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1857, 1854, 1873, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1857. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Edinburgh, Academical and Football providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Edinburgh Academical Football Club”, the useful work is to connect “rugby union club of Edinburgh, Scotland” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1284702. VIAF identifies the subject as 132930657. The Library of Congress control number is no2009202045. Authority coordinates are 55.960, -3.214. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1857, 1854, 1873 and 2007.

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.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Edinburgh Academical Football Club”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Edinburgh Academical Football Club primary sources, Edinburgh Academical Football Club archive and Edinburgh research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Edinburgh Academical Football Club” 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.