Royal Albert Football Club are a football club, historically based in the town of Larkhall, Scotland but currently playing in the nearby village of Stonehouse. Formerly a member of the Scottish Football League and the Scottish Junior Football Association, West Region, they now play in the . History The formation of the club dates back to 1878, when two Larkhall pit sides joined together to form one team. These pits were owned by a Capt. Johns and he named the team after his boat the Royal Albert. The club spent over fifty years in Senior football, and qualified for the Scottish Cup on twenty occasions. Their greatest run came in the 1890–91 competition where they reached the fifth round before losing to Celtic in front of a record crowd of 5,000 at their Raploch Park ground. In the same season, centre half John Clelland became the clubs' one and only full Scotland international when he was capped against Ireland in March 1891. Royal Albert also have the distinction of scoring the first ever penalty kick in the history of football, James McLuggage scoring against Airdrieonians in a local cup tie on 6 June 1891 (four days after the rule was introduced by the International Football Association Board). The club competed in various leagues such as the Scottish Football Federation, Scottish Football Alliance, Scottish Football Combination, Scottish Football Union and Western Football League before becoming a founder member of Scottish League Division Three in 1923. After the Third Division was abandoned in 1926, Albert briefly returned to the Scottish Football Alliance and Provincial Football League before being wound up in 1927 and re-forming as a Junior club the following year. The Royal Albert name continued to appear in the Scottish Qualifying Cup until 1936 and they qualified for the tournament on two further occasions, their last game being a 16–0 thrashing by Partick Thistle in January 1931. Royal Albert initially competed in Junior football with some success and twice reached the semi-final of the Scottish Junior Cup in 1930 and 1940 but fared less well in modern times, with the club playing in the bottom tier of the Central Region/District league set-up for 45 consecutive seasons from 1972 until 2018. Albert won the last West of Scotland League Central District Second Division championship title in 2017–18 to qualify for the new SJFA West Region League One and in doing so, lifted