Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord (1885): The World-Record Scoreline That Still Stands
Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord, played at Gayfield on Saturday 12 September 1885, is the world-record scoreline in a senior, first-class British football match, and 141 years on it has never been beaten. Arbroath thrashed the Aberdeen club Bon Accord in the opening round of the Scottish Cup, leading 15-0 at half-time and reaching 36-0 by the finish. The 18-year-old centre-forward John Petrie scored 13 of them, still the record individual haul in a senior British match, a Victorian oddity we return to in our On This Day series.
What follows is how one wet afternoon in Angus produced two freak records at the same time, why a goalkeeper spent the game under an umbrella, and how the win survived as the record by the width of a single goal.
Key Facts
- Played on Saturday 12 September 1885 at Gayfield, Arbroath, in the 1885-86 Scottish Cup opening round, kicking off at 3:30pm in front of roughly 600 spectators.
- Arbroath won 36-0, the largest margin in a senior, first-class football match anywhere in the world; they were 15-0 up at the interval and added 21 more after it.
- John Petrie, aged 18, scored 13 of the goals, still a record for one senior British match. Australia’s Archie Thompson equalled the 13 against American Samoa on 11 April 2001.
- The other scorers, per Arbroath’s club records, were Jim Buick with seven, John Robertson and David Crawford six each, and two apiece for Johnny Tackett and Jim Marshall.
- Referee Dave Stormont said years later that he chalked off seven further Arbroath goals for offside he doubted (other accounts say four), so the score could have been heavier.
- On the same afternoon Dundee Harp beat Aberdeen Rovers 35-0, so Arbroath’s world record stood by a single goal.
- By one contemporary report, Arbroath’s goalkeeper Jim Milne Sr never had a save to make and kept dry under a borrowed umbrella, an anecdote the club still repeats.
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The Afternoon Arbroath Scored 36 and Nobody Could Stop Them
How Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord Unfolded at Gayfield
The rain was already sheeting across Gayfield when the tie kicked off at half past three, with about 600 hardy souls watching. Arbroath, a strong side of the Scottish east coast, were 15-0 ahead by the interval, and if that sounds like a team easing off, they were not: another 21 goals arrived in the second half. Bon Accord could not clear their own half, and their defence spent the afternoon retrieving the ball from behind their own goalkeeper. According to Arbroath’s own club history, the final tally was 36-0, the heaviest defeat ever recorded in a senior Scottish match.
The individual damage was done by John Petrie, an 18-year-old centre-forward who finished with 13 goals. Jim Buick weighed in with seven, John Robertson and David Crawford six apiece, and Johnny Tackett and Jim Marshall two each, a breakdown the club still lists player by player. Petrie’s 13 stood alone as the record for a single senior match until 11 April 2001, when Archie Thompson hit 13 of his own for Australia, who beat American Samoa 31-0, as Football Federation Australia later confirmed. Even that only equalled the mark set at a soaked Gayfield in 1885.
The referee, Dave Stormont, told a newspaper decades afterwards that he had disallowed seven more Arbroath goals for offside he was not sure about, admitting the Maroons moved the ball so quickly he could barely judge it (some reports put the figure at four). Either way, 36 was the number that entered the record books, and it has not shifted since.
| Match | Date | Competition | Margin | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord | 12 Sep 1885 | Scottish Cup, first round | 36 | World record, senior first-class match |
| Dundee Harp 35-0 Aberdeen Rovers | 12 Sep 1885 | Scottish Cup, first round | 35 | Same afternoon, one goal short |
| Preston North End 26-0 Hyde | 15 Oct 1887 | FA Cup, first round | 26 | Record in English senior football |
| Australia 31-0 American Samoa | 11 Apr 2001 | World Cup qualifier | 31 | Archie Thompson equalled Petrie’s 13 |
| AS Adema 149-0 SO l’Emyrne | 31 Oct 2002 | Madagascar league | 149 | Deliberate own goals in protest, not a genuine contest |
Who Were Bon Accord, and the Cricket-Club Myth
The story that gets retold most often is that Bon Accord were a cricket club, Orion, sent a Scottish Cup entry by mistake and forced to put out eleven bemused batsmen in their whites. It is a lovely tale, and it is apocryphal. Bon Accord were a genuine Aberdeen football club, formed in 1884, and they had played and won matches before they ever met Arbroath, including a 5-3 victory over Aberdeen Rovers. The confusion with Orion Cricket Club, and the detail about borrowed cricket shirts, appears to have grown in the retelling rather than in the record.
What is not in doubt is how out of their depth they were on the day. Bon Accord used a stand-in goalkeeper, Andrew Lornie, for the second-half deluge, and the gulf in class between an established east-coast side and a young Aberdeen club with no away support and no answer was total. For the losers it remains, as the record books show, the worst defeat suffered in any senior Scottish match, a footballing disaster of the sort we collect in our football disasters archive.
The Same-Day Twist: Dundee Harp’s 35-0
Here is the part even many anoraks miss. Barely twenty miles down the coast on the very same afternoon, Dundee Harp were putting 35 past Aberdeen Rovers in their own Scottish Cup first-round tie. The two results left Arbroath holding the record by the narrowest imaginable margin, a single goal. It is thinner still than it looks. According to accounts of the Harp game, their referee told a club official he had counted 37 goals, only for the official to produce his own list of scorers adding up to 35, and the referee took his word for it. Had that scrap of paper read differently, Dundee Harp, not Arbroath, would be the name in the record books, and Gayfield’s soaked afternoon would be a footnote. That detail is anecdotal, so treat it as colour rather than gospel, but it is the reason the record has an asterisk of luck about it.
The umbrella belongs in the same category of cherished, hard-to-prove detail. A contemporary report has Arbroath’s goalkeeper Jim Milne Sr standing idle in the downpour, so untroubled that someone in the crowd lent him an umbrella and he kept himself dry with it. Whether or not it happened exactly so, it captures the shape of the game better than any scoreline: one goalkeeper picking the ball out of his net three dozen times, the other watching the rain.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord (1885)
What was the score in Arbroath v Bon Accord on 12 September 1885?
Arbroath beat Bon Accord 36-0 at Gayfield on Saturday 12 September 1885. It was a first-round tie in the 1885-86 Scottish Cup, and Arbroath led 15-0 at half-time before adding 21 more goals in the second half. The result remains the world-record scoreline in a senior, first-class football match.
When and where was Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord played?
Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord was played on Saturday 12 September 1885 at Gayfield in Arbroath, on the Angus coast. Kick-off was 3:30pm and the attendance was around 600. It was a Scottish Cup opening-round tie, refereed by Dave Stormont.
Is Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord still a world record?
Yes. Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord is still the record margin in a senior, first-class football match, and it has stood since 1885. AS Adema won 149-0 against SO l’Emyrne in Madagascar in 2002, but that game consisted of deliberate own goals in protest, so it is not counted as a genuine contest.
How many goals did John Petrie score in Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord?
John Petrie scored 13 of Arbroath’s 36 goals against Bon Accord, aged just 18. It is still the record number of goals by one player in a single senior British match. The rest came from Jim Buick with seven, John Robertson and David Crawford six each, and Johnny Tackett and Jim Marshall with two apiece.
Has anyone matched John Petrie’s 13 goals in one match?
Yes, once. Archie Thompson hit 13 for Australia as they thrashed American Samoa 31-0 on 11 April 2001, equalling John Petrie’s tally from 1885. No player has been credited with more than 13 in a recognised senior match, so Petrie and Thompson share the mark.
Were Bon Accord really a cricket club invited by mistake?
No, that is an apocryphal story. Bon Accord were a genuine Aberdeen football club, formed in 1884, who had already played and won matches before facing Arbroath. The popular myth that they were the Orion cricket club, entered by mistake and playing in their whites, grew up long after the game and is not supported by the record.
What was the half-time score in Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord?
Arbroath led 15-0 at half-time against Bon Accord on 12 September 1885. They then scored a further 21 goals after the break to finish 36-0. The second-half onslaught came against a stand-in Bon Accord goalkeeper, Andrew Lornie.
Did the referee disallow goals in Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord?
Yes. Referee Dave Stormont said years later that he had chalked off seven more Arbroath goals for offside he was uncertain about, though some accounts put the figure at four. By his own admission the true margin could have been even larger than 36-0, because Arbroath were moving the ball too quickly for him to judge cleanly.
What happened with Dundee Harp on the same day as Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord?
On the same afternoon, 12 September 1885, Dundee Harp put 35 past Aberdeen Rovers in another Scottish Cup opening-round tie. That left Arbroath, on 36, one goal clear of Harp in the record books. By some accounts the Harp referee thought he had counted 37, but a club official’s list showed 35 and the referee accepted it.
Did the Arbroath goalkeeper really use an umbrella during the match?
According to a contemporary report, Arbroath’s goalkeeper Jim Milne Sr went the whole afternoon without a touch and kept himself dry beneath an umbrella lent by someone in the crowd. The detail is anecdotal and hard to verify at this distance, but the club still repeats it, and it fits a game played entirely in Arbroath’s half.
What is the record scoreline in English football, and how does it compare?
The record margin in English senior football is Preston North End 26-0 Hyde, in the FA Cup first round on 15 October 1887. That is ten goals short of Arbroath’s 36-0, which remains the British and world record for a senior, first-class match. Both were early cup ties between wildly mismatched sides.
Why does Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord still matter?
Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord still matters because it is a record that has survived every professional era since 1885 and, short of a repeat of the mismatched early cup rounds, looks unbeatable. It also carries two of football’s best stories at once: a keeper under an umbrella and a 35-0 win the same day that came within one goal of erasing it. That mix of hard record and human detail is why it endures in the game’s memory.
Arbroath 36-0 Bon Accord (1885)
A soaked Gayfield, a teenager with 13 goals, a goalkeeper keeping dry under a borrowed umbrella and a 35-0 result up the coast that missed the record by one: this is the kind of story football keeps and retells. For more days that rewrote the record books, from Victorian cup ties to modern shocks, keep exploring our On This Day series on The Football Documentary Channel.
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