News & Events | The Truly Horrific History of DAFC
The Trust is proud to present the Truly Horrific History of DAFC.
The booklet covers eight themes which between them tell the story thus far of the Pars from 1885 to the present.
In each case there are links at the bottom of each page to further information on the internet which you might want to consult.
Click below to open an interactive version of the document, or download the PDF using the links below.
To download the PDF right click on the page you want and select Save. The entire PDF can also be downloaded as a single document:
- Part 1: How the folk of Dunfermline got some leisure time and spent it on a new football team
- Part 2: How the demon drink took out the Athletic keeper
- Part 3: How the First World War came to Dunfermline Athetic
- Part 4: How Dunfermline Athletic survived the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s
- Part 5: How Dunfermline Athletic advanced through World War Two
- Part 6: Success at last for the Pars
- Part 7: How Dunfermline Athletic and the Beatles conquered Europe at the same time
- Part 8: The latest chapter! How Dunfermline came to be owned by hundreds of ordinary people
- Download the whole PDF (21Mb)
The story behind the Horrific History
As part of the DAFC Schools Engagement Programme, Dave Dawson, Wullie Oliphant and Gennaro Giudice, all retired teachers, present a range of courses for primary school children covering such topics as health and well-being, numeracy and literacy and employability, all in line with the Scottish Government`s Curriculum for Excellence.
Everything is based around Dunfermline Athletic, and they get a considerable amount of help in interacting with the schools of West Fife from the players and staff at the club. One thing that they didn`t have, up to now, was a prop to explain the history of Dunfermline Athletic in a way that would grab the attention of children between the ages of eight and fourteen.
Working in conjunction with the Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust, and local primary staff who contributed their curricular expertise, this gap has now been filled by `The Truly Horrific History of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club`. This is an eight-part irreverent history of the football club, written for children. It has hyper-links built into it such that the children can look at the document on-line and then use the links to access further resources on the given topic.
For example, Part 1 explains how increasing leisure time led to the foundation of the Club in 1885, as a breakaway from Dunfermline Cricket Club. By clicking on the hyper-link at the bottom of this page, you are taken to the BBC Schools page on `Leisure in Victorian Britain`, with lots of information, games, quizzes and further links for interested children to explore.
The history was written by Heritage Trustee, Donald Adamson, who said `It was a lot of fun to create, and we hope that this will help children to use the history of Dunfermline Athletic to explore wider themes such as popular culture, the World Wars, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the temperance movement, and supporter ownership in sport. We were very fortunate to have the design skills and acute sense of humour of Michael Thomas, who created the design and layout for the work."
Dave Dawson launched `The Truly Horrific History of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club` at East End Park on Wednesday 4 November to an audience of West Fife teachers, in conjunction with the Pars Foundation, who work with significant and growing numbers of West Fife children outside school hours, and the Dunfermline Athletic Heritage Trust.
Dave said "It is great to be part of a football club which values its links with schools and children, in the community from which it sprung. This is just another piece of evidence that Dunfermline Athletic is a community club, and stands for good things on and off the pitch. `The Truly Horrific History` is available on-line and we are also sending out some hard copies to the schools in our network."
Ross McArthur, Managing Director of Dunfermline Athletic, hosted the launch and said "It is great to see the warmth of relationship which is developing between the local schools and Dunfermline Athletic. This is a valuable aid, and a fun one at that, to further deepen our links, and provide something specifically for the younger supporters."
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