Montrose

Montrose grew out of a fishing and market town on the Angus coast, and it was the town itself that named the club: the crow-stepped gable ends lining the old streets gave Montrose supporters their nickname, the Gable Endies, long before the club had much else to point to. It was formed in 1879, making it one of the older sides in the Scottish game, and for most of its history it has stayed exactly where that origin suggests — in the lower divisions, closer to the town than to the top of the table.

The one break from that pattern came in the mid-1980s. Montrose won the First Division title in 1984/85 under Alex Smith and went up into the Premier Division for the 1985/86 season, the only time the club has played in Scotland's top flight. Smith left soon after for Aberdeen, where he won the Scottish Cup in 1990, and at Links Park that single promotion season is still the one the club gets measured against.

Stewart Petrie, who had played for Dundee United and Raith Rovers, took charge later and spent much of the 2010s pushing Montrose toward the promotion play-offs, without getting them back among the game's higher tiers.

Home games are still played at Links Park, a ground holding a little over 4,000, and on matchday the royal blue and amber of the Gable Endies is about the only colour the town shows.