Motherwell

The club

Motherwell were founded on 17 May 1886 and play at Fir Park in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire. The ground holds 13,677. The club are known as the Well, or the Steelmen, after the town's steel industry, and play in claret and amber, a combination almost unique in Scottish senior football.

Recent seasons

Motherwell have been a Premiership club throughout. They finished fifth in 2021/22 with 46 points, seventh in 2022/23 with 50, ninth in 2023/24 with 43 and eighth in 2024/25 with 49. Those are the numbers of a settled mid-table side, and they make 2025/26 look like a departure: under Jens Berthel Askou they finished fourth with 61 points from 38 games, 16 wins, 13 draws and 9 defeats, 59 goals scored and 36 conceded. Only Celtic, Hearts and Rangers finished above them, and only those three conceded fewer. Tawanda Maswanhise scored 17 league goals and 22 in all competitions and collected several player-of-the-month awards. They reached the League Cup semi-final and the fifth round of the Scottish Cup. Fourth place took them into the Conference League second qualifying round.

Honours and landmarks

Motherwell won the Scottish league championship once, in 1931/32, breaking the Old Firm's hold on the title in the interwar period. They have won the Scottish Cup twice, in 1951/52 and 1990/91, and the League Cup once, in 1950/51. Second-tier titles came in 1953/54, 1968/69, 1981/82 and 1984/85. They have won the Lanarkshire Cup 40 times, most recently in 2014. Record attendance is 35,632 against Rangers in a Scottish Cup quarter-final replay on 12 March 1952, and the club note that the true figure was above 37,000 because season ticket holders were not counted at the turnstiles. Bob Ferrier holds the appearance record with 626. Hughie Ferguson is the record scorer with 284 league goals across ten seasons in the 1910s and 1920s. Willie MacFadyen scored 52 league goals in the 1931/32 title season, which remains the Scottish top-flight record for a single campaign. The record fee paid is £500,000 to Everton for John Spencer in 1999. The record fee received was £3.25m from Celtic for David Turnbull in 2020, until the sale of Elijah Just to Swansea City on 22 July 2026, which the club describe as a new record; the fee was not published.

Notable scorelines

Record victory: 12-1 against Dundee United in 1954. Record defeat: 0-8 against Aberdeen in 1979. The 1990/91 Scottish Cup final against Dundee United, won 4-3 after extra time on 18 May 1991, is the match the club is best known for outside Lanarkshire; both clubs were managed by brothers, Tommy and Jim McLean.

Head-to-head notes

Motherwell do not publish all-time head-to-head records, and none were established for their 2026/27 Premiership opponents: Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee, Dundee United, Falkirk, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Kilmarnock, Rangers, St Johnstone and St Mirren. St Johnstone are the only change to the division, promoted as Championship champions on 77 points in place of Livingston. Falkirk, who finished sixth last season, were the previous season's promoted club. Motherwell finished above every one of those eleven except Celtic, Hearts and Rangers in 2025/26.

In the Premier Sports Cup, Motherwell were seeded for the last 16 and drawn away to Stenhousemuir at Ochilview Park on 16 August 2026. Stenhousemuir are newly promoted to the Championship and won Group E unbeaten, taking two shootouts. Olly Whyte, who played 47 games on loan at Ochilview last season, is a Motherwell player.

Right now (2026/27)

Alfred Johansson was appointed head coach on 18 June 2026. He replaced Jens Berthel Askou, who left on 21 May 2026 after one season to become head coach at Toulouse, having taken Motherwell to fourth and into Europe. Askou had himself replaced Michael Wimmer, who left on 23 May 2025.

The summer was busy in both directions. In: defender Martin Moormann from Blau-Weiss Linz and forward Willy Vogt from AC Bellinzona, both on 3 July 2026 for undisclosed fees; defender Jake Girdwood-Reich from St Louis City on 15 July; defender Dylan Williams from Burton Albion on 20 July; goalkeeper Alex Paulsen on loan from AFC Bournemouth on 13 July; midfielder Alex Lowry on loan from Wycombe Wanderers on 25 July; and defender Jamie Knight-Lebel on loan from Bristol City, announced on 31 July. Out: goalkeeper Calum Ward to Queens Park Rangers on 9 July, goalkeeper Aston Oxborough to Dunfermline Athletic on 17 July, midfielder Elliot Watt to Samsunspor on 18 July, and Elijah Just to Swansea City on 22 July for a club record fee.

Pre-season was poor on the scoreboard: 0-4 at AGF on 5 July, 2-3 at home to Carlisle United on 11 July and 3-4 at home to KRC Genk on 17 July. The competitive form has been better. In the Conference League second qualifying round Motherwell beat Havnar Boltfelag 2-0 at Fir Park on 23 July and 3-0 in the Faroe Islands on 30 July, 5-0 on aggregate. The third qualifying round tie is against HJK Helsinki, away on 6 August and at home on 13 August.

The Premiership campaign opens away to Hibernian at Easter Road on Sunday 2 August 2026 at 4.30pm. On 31 July the club confirmed it was appealing a £5,000 SFA fine relating to a social media post following a match against Celtic, and announced planning permission for a two-storey training facility at Dalziel Park.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.