Dunfermline Athletic (The PARS) were formed in The Old Inn.

Dunfermline Athletic Football Club was formed in The Old Inn on the 2^nd June 1885.  Dunfermline Cricket Club had, up until that point, had a football division as part of the club.  However, ongoing “debates” between the two rival factions meant that the footballers decided to break away and form their own club on that evening within the walls of The Old Inn.

The Cricket Club decided in the 1885 AGM that the constitution of the football club should be altered to say “no one be admitted a member of the football club unless he be a member of the cricket club.”  This was not acceptable to the footballers in the club and an advert was placed in the Dunfermline Journal on Saturday 30^th May that a special meeting be take place in The Old Inn on Tuesday 2^nd June.

The committee was formed that evening over a few ales in The Old Inn, East End Park was acquired and that first meeting in pub grew quickly with members signing up within days.  125 Years later The Pars are still at East End Park and Pars fans now go to The Old Inn before and after the matches, surrounded by memorabilia from the glory years of the 1960s.

(exceprt by kind courtesy of Jason Barber)