Our History

The club is reported to have been established in 1970 by Chris Husband with only one team at Under 10 level - the club was named Troon Thistle and this name has survived to the present day.
This year 2020, Troon Thistle Youth Football Club celebrates its 50th anniversary in Grassroots Football. Throughout 2020 we will hold some events to celebrate this achievement.
During the past 50 years our development of young footballers have seen lots of success with players progressing to the professional game both here in Scotland and other places around the world.

Ex Players

Our most famous ex-player to date has been Steve Nicol who played for Ayr United before starring in the famous Liverpool team of the late 1980's/early 1990's, he won the European Cup, 4 English Premier League titles, 3 FA Cup medals as well as 27 Scotland caps. He is currently a successful coach in USA.
Another ex Troon Thistle player to also represent Liverpool was Donald McMaster..

Other ex Troon Thistle stars have also made it to the World Cup stage such as Fraser Park who turned out for the Turks & Caicos Islands, where he was resident, after answering an internet advert for players
Martin Fraser who was a goalkeeper with the Scottish Youth squad, where he was the only non-pro player.

Many of our ex-players have played the game with professional clubs, both here in Scotland and elsewhere in the world include
Kenny Wilson who starred with Ayr United in the 1980’s.
Neil Collins (ex Tampa Bay Rowdies, Sheffield United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Preston North End, Leeds United) is currently manager of MSL second tier club Tampa Bay Rowdies in USA .
Neil Murray with Glasgow Rangers F.C. and other teams on the Continent.
Craig Sansom (ex Motherwell FC also Kilmarnock FC, Ayr United, Dundee United, Dundee and a number of Scottish and English clubs) Craig is now working as goalkeeping coach in England, including Rochdale FC and Sunderland FC"

Current stars playing at a high level are Alan Hutton, a Scotland International playing club football with Aston Villa (also Glasgow Rangers F.C./ Sunderland F.C/ Tottenham Hotspur F.C./Mallorca F.C)
Jamie Ness with Dundee FC (also Plymouth Argyle, Scunthorpe United, Stoke City FC, Crewe Alexandra FC, Leyton Orient FC and Glasgow Rangers FC)
Thomas O'Ware with Partick Thistle (also Greenock Morton FC)
and Rory McKenzie with Kilmarnock FC (also Brechin City).

Achievements

Our club has successfully competed in various leagues at all age groups and we have in the past been represented at various international tournaments including Amsterdam and Barcelona and UK tournaments including Blackpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Silloth and Southport, the most notable one being the prestigious Gothia Cup in Sweden in 1999 which was attended by 26 different countries and where our club was chosen to represent Scotland.

A significant success was by the U16 team which won the Amsterdam tournament in 2002.

Our greatest triumph was the Scottish Cup win by the U13 team in 1997.