Raith Rovers
Also written as Raith.
The club
Raith Rovers were founded in 1883 and have played at Stark's Park in Kirkcaldy, on the Fife coast, since 1891. The ground is now all-seater with a capacity of 8,867. The club are known simply as "The Rovers" and play in dark blue tops with light blue detailing, white shorts and dark blue socks. The current manager is Dougie Imrie, appointed in November 2025 from Greenock Morton.
This is not Bristol Rovers of the English Football League, nor Shamrock Rovers of the League of Ireland, both of whom also appear in this corpus. Raith Rovers are a Scottish club and play in the Scottish Championship, the country's second tier.
Recent seasons
Rovers won League One in 2019/20 and have been a Championship side ever since. They finished third in 2020/21, fifth in 2021/22 and seventh in 2022/23. Their best campaign of the run was 2023/24, when they were Championship runners-up behind Dundee United and reached the Premiership promotion play-off final, losing 2-1 at home to Ross County on 23 May 2024 and 4-0 in Dingwall three days later, 6-1 on aggregate. They were fifth again in 2024/25 with 53 points, and fifth in 2025/26 with 45 points from 36 games, 12 wins, 9 draws and 15 defeats. That last season was stranger than the final position suggests: after going a goal down to Airdrieonians on 21 March 2026 Rovers were, for a spell, joint bottom of the live table, then turned that match around to win 3-1 and took four wins from five to climb back into play-off contention.
Honours and landmarks
The Scottish League Cup of 1994/95 is the club's one major national trophy. Rovers have won the Scottish Challenge Cup four times, in 2013/14, 2019/20 (shared with Inverness Caledonian Thistle after the pandemic curtailed the competition), 2021/22 and again in 2025/26. League titles: First Division in 1992/93 and 1994/95; Second Division in 1907/08, 1909/10, 1937/38, 1948/49, 2002/03 and 2008/09; and League One in 2019/20. They were Scottish Cup runners-up in 1912/13 and League Cup runners-up in 1948/49. Their best-ever league finish is third, in Division One in 1921/22.
Record attendance at Stark's Park is 31,306, for a Scottish Cup second round tie against Heart of Midlothian on 7 February 1953. The 1937/38 team set a British record that has never been beaten, 142 goals scored in a 34-game Division Two season, an average of more than four a game; Norrie Heywood scored 47 of them, with Gilmour on 35, Whitelaw on 26 and Joyner on 21. Willie McNaught holds the club's appearance record, 657 games between 1941 and 1962, and was also club captain. Gordon Dalziel is remembered as the club's record goalscorer of the modern era, with figures in the sources read here ranging from 154 to 202 depending on which competitions are counted, across his playing spell from 1987 to 1994. The club's record transfer fee received is £900,000, paid by Bolton Wanderers for defender Steve McAnespie in September 1995, in the aftermath of the League Cup win.
Notable scorelines
Record victory: 10-1 against Coldstream in the Scottish Cup on 13 February 1954. Record defeat: 2-11 against Greenock Morton in Division Two on 18 March 1936. The club's defining result is the 1994 Scottish League Cup final at Ibrox Stadium on 27 November 1994, in front of 45,384 and refereed by Jim McCluskey. Managed by Jimmy Nicholl, Raith led through Stevie Crawford in the 19th minute, were pegged back by Andy Walker on 32 minutes, went behind to Charlie Nicholas in the 84th minute and equalised through captain Gordon Dalziel in the 86th to force extra time at 2-2. Raith won the resulting penalty shootout 6-5; Paul McStay's was the only miss for Celtic, and David Narey was named man of the match. In the 2014 Challenge Cup final a John Baird goal beat Rangers 1-0. More recently, Rovers won the 2026 Challenge Cup (branded the KDM Evolution Trophy) 4-1 against Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Firhill on 5 April 2026, Innes Cameron and Dylan Easton both scoring twice. Rovers had already beaten Inverness 5-1 in the League Cup group stage in July 2025, Easton scoring a hat-trick.
European record
The League Cup win took Rovers into the UEFA Cup for the only time in the club's history. In the second round in October 1995 they were drawn against Bayern Munich, then managed by Giovanni Trapattoni and featuring Jurgen Klinsmann. Because Stark's Park did not meet UEFA's ground requirements, Raith's home leg was played at Hibernian's Easter Road, where Bayern won 2-0 with two Klinsmann goals. In the return at Munich's Olympiastadion on 31 October 1995, in front of around 27,000, Danny Lennon's 43rd-minute free kick put Raith 1-0 up and, briefly, ahead in the tie; Bayern replied in the second half through Klinsmann and Markus Babbel to win 2-1 on the night and 4-1 on aggregate. Bayern Munich went on to win that season's UEFA Cup.
Quotes
Manager Jimmy Nicholl recalled the half-time interval of the Munich leg, when word reached the Raith dressing room of Bayern's own dressing-down next door: "It turned into a farce because I just said 'listen, look at this, Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness are upstairs giving the Bayern boys a rollicking and they're mentioning you name by name'." Danny Lennon, on the mindset behind his goal, said: "I said to myself 'right, come on, make something happen'," and on the occasion itself: "The opportunity to go and grace a football pitch with the likes of the mighty Bayern Munich is every young boy's dream when you're eight, nine or ten years of age."
Head-to-head notes
Raith publish all-time head-to-head records on their own match pages. Against Stenhousemuir it is Raith 39 wins, Stenhousemuir 19, 17 draws. Against Ayr United, Raith 64, Ayr 61, 52 draws. Against Arbroath, Raith 51, Arbroath 36, 24 draws. Against Queen's Park, Raith 56, Queen's Park 38, 29 draws. Against Dunfermline Athletic, Dunfermline lead 55-51 with 31 draws. Against Greenock Morton, the record published in February 2026 was Morton 69, Raith 60, 42 draws, before that day's goalless draw at Cappielow. Against Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Inverness lead 24-11 with 8 draws, though Rovers won the meeting that mattered most, the 2026 cup final. Partick Thistle have not won a league match at Stark's Park in 13 attempts, their last league win there coming in 2011. Raith and Stenhousemuir last shared a division in 2018/19, when Rovers took 10 points from the four meetings. No published all-time record was found for Livingston, who spent last season in the Premiership.
SETTLED FROM THE CLUB ITSELF, 2026-08-28. Two separately written dossiers of this club disagreed about the Fife derby record, one giving Dunfermline 52 wins to Raith's 50 with 32 draws and the other 55-51-31, so the number was withheld. Raith Rovers publish the tally on their own match previews, and the preview for the 28 August 2026 fixture at East End Park, published 27 August, gives it as Dunfermline Athletic 57 wins, Raith Rovers 51, 31 draws (https://www.raithrovers.net/dunfermline-athletic-v-raith-rovers-match-preview/).
That series is internally consistent, which is why it is the one to trust: an earlier club preview for a home derby gave Raith 50, Dunfermline 54, 31 draws, and the four meetings of the season in between -- won, the club says, by the home side every time, three of them at East End Park -- take it exactly to 57-51-31. Neither dossier figure reconciles to it, so both were wrong rather than merely stale.
Right now (2026/27)
Dougie Imrie remains manager, having won the Challenge Cup in his first half-season in charge. Midfielder Charlie Telfer joined on 5 June 2026 on a two-year deal from Airdrieonians. Winger Arron Lyall followed on 11 June, also two years, reuniting with Imrie, who had signed him at Greenock Morton. Left-back Zak Delaney signed a two-year deal on 29 June, another player following Imrie from Morton. Goalkeeper Luke Armstrong joined on loan from Cardiff City on 30 June for the season. Striker Anton Dowds signed a one-year deal on 21 July after three years at Ayr United. The notable departure was winger Richard Chin, sold to Ross County on 9 June for an undisclosed fee.
In the Premier Sports Cup group stage Rovers beat Elgin City 3-1 at home on 11 July, drew 0-0 at Kilmarnock on 14 July and lost the resulting shootout 4-2, drew 1-1 at Hamilton Academical on 18 July and beat Peterhead 1-0 at home on 21 July; they did not progress, with Kilmarnock going through from the group. In the Championship, Rovers opened at home to Stenhousemuir on 1 August 2026 and by 22 August 2026 sat second in the table after three matches, two wins and a draw, five goals scored and two conceded. They face Dunfermline Athletic away in the Fife derby on Friday 28 August 2026, kick-off 19:30. The all-time head-to-head in that fixture, as published after the sides' most recent meeting in August 2025, stands at 52 wins for Dunfermline, 50 for Raith and 32 draws across all competitions, with Dunfermline's league record alone at 45 wins to Raith's 42 from 116 meetings.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raith_Rovers_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Scottish_League_Cup_final https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fife_derby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Scottish_Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Lennon https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/sport/football/in-focus-the-famous-night-raith-rovers-players-were-name-checked-by-late-german-legend-franz-beckenbauer-4929884 https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/sport/football/danny-lennon-recalls-goal-for-raith-rovers-v-bayern-munich-30-years-ago-i-said-to-myself-right-come-on-make-something-happen-5372447 https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/nostalgia/recalling-when-jurgen-klinsmann-and-co-rocked-up-at-home-of-hibs-3005251 https://www.raithrovers.net/2026-27-championship-fixtures/ https://scottishfootballfixtures.wordpress.com/2026/08/14/friday-august-28-2026/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McAnespie
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.