Full name | Northend Thistle Football Club | |
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Ground | Ewe Camp | |
Coordinates | 55°41′54″N 5°16′35″W / 55.6983°N 5.2763°W | |
League | Isle of Arran League | |
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Northend Thistle Football Club are a football club based in Lochranza, Scotland.
They were originally founded as Arran Northend, but reformed in 2002 as Northend Thistle.[1] They participate in the summertime Isle of Arran League, contested by five clubs from Arran that typically play on a Monday evening.[1]
In 2005, Northend Thistle featured on the BBC Radio Scotland programme Let's Do the Show Right Here,[2] and in 2008 on Countryfile. The same year, ESPN Asia ran a feature on the club, focussing on its winless streak extending all the way back to 1992. They were labelled "the worst football team in Europe", and highlights of a 2008 loss against Southend were shown on Soccer Saturday.[1] Northend finally won a game in 2011, their first in 19 years, a 2–1 victory against Brodick.[3] Media interest in the club continued, with BBC Sport Scotland running a feature on Northend in 2018.[4]
In 2005, Northend Thistle moved to the Ewe Camp, a pun from the Nou Camp because the ground is a sheep field when not being played on. Northend also play in the same colours as FC Barcelona.[4]
In the 2020 book British Football's Greatest Grounds by Mike Bayly, the Ewe Camp was voted one of the top grounds to visit in the country.[1][5] Bayly writes:
Ewe Camp is an astonishingly beautiful football setting. Located adjacent to a whisky distillery and surrounded by the sunlit hills of Torr Nead on three sides, it is the very essence of Scotland in miniature.