Rise of Bonnyrigg Rose: Why club is surprised at favourite's tag, the journey from ground zero, mining and facing Hibs

Bonnyrigg Rose have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to prepare for life in League 2.

The impressive Premier Sports Cup win over Clyde in midweek in their debut competitive match as an SPFL side will only have encouraged punters to have a flutter.

It’s their own money, of course. But Brendan Parkinson shakes his head. As club treasurer – and holder of many other roles besides – he is accustomed to looking after the pennies. An accountant by trade, he came to Scotland in 1998 on holiday and is still here.

Screenshots of the latest odds, sent to him by friends, have been filling up his phone. He is amused by the assumption the Rosey Posey are going to roll everyone over.

The Bonnyrigg Rose players celebrate promotion to the SPFL after beating Cowdenbeath back in May.

The only significant advantage they will have over the others is knowledge of the undulating pitch at New Dundas Park. Hibs, who they host in the Premier Sports Cup this afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd of 2,400, should beware.

“They have seen Kelty Hearts and Cove Rangers steamroller the league when they’ve come up and said: ‘ooft, there’s Bonnyrigg Rose, they’re next’,” says Parkinson, with reference to the bookies and the eye-catching odds.

They fly in the face of those who fear Bonnyrigg Rose might have been over promoted. If not for a nightmare first half in the Pyramid play-off final from Cowdenbeath, who lost two goals as well as a player, then who knows what might have happened?

Bonnyrigg Rose’s eventual 4-0 aggregate victory has only strengthened the impression of a club on an unstoppable upwards trajectory. But had they failed to prevail against Cowdenbeath they simply would have carried on being what they are – an outstanding community club who stand and fall on their own efforts.

Bonnyrigg faced Hearts in a pre-season friendly - now they take on Hibs in the Premier Sports Cup.

“We are well backed,” says Parkinson. “But we are well backed from a supporter base, we are not well backed from a financial base. We do not have someone in the background with the same means as Kelty Hearts, for example, have got.”

Chairman Charlie Kirkwood nods in agreement. He had a window cleaning business that he passed down to his son and now spends nearly every waking hour at the club. Although he was born and bred in Bonnyrigg and was kitman when the local club won the first of two Scottish Junior Cups in 1966, he followed Celtic for many years. Now he’s all in with the Rose and has been since 2009.

“If Charlie and I had started here with no money, we would have been delighted,” continues Parkinson. “We started with less than zero. It took us three years to get us back to zero, because of what had happened previously.”

There has been investment. To gain an SFA club licence, there had to be. Workmen were busy putting the finishing touches on a new enclosure roof on Friday while the first seats – 100 in total – have been installed.

It’s very different to the days when Kirkwood used to carry the strips in a big brown sack to the laundry woman – “Mrs Skirving, God bless her” – about a mile away. “It was OK when they were dry,” Kirkwood, now 68, recalls. “But if they were wet, you’d have to drag it doon the road.”

The community’s pulse is still evident despite the many challenges. It’s now four decades since the last major miners’ strikes. Visible signs of the industry have faded. “You can thank Mrs Thatcher for that,” says Kirkwood.

“I worked in the mines myself. After the strikes in the 1980s I left. One of the boys I worked beside, he never lost a day. We called him a scab. I went on strike for a year.”

Like elsewhere, a rift developed in the community. It's still evident to this day. "It was terrible in Bonnyrigg for a long, long time,” says Kirkwood. “Picket duty, and things like that. Even now people won’t speak to each other.

“There’s a couple I wouldn’t speak to. But then they never lost a day’s work. I suppose that was a choice. But a lot of people didn’t agree.”

Kirkwood comes from good mining stock although he worked as an apprentice joiner before heading down the pit, like his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him. “My dad came through here from Motherwell,” he says.

“If I was young enough, and the pit opened tomorrow, I would be first in the queue,” he continues. “The camaraderie was just fantastic.”

According to Kirkwood, Bonnyrigg was a thriving town and can be again. "It used to have a picture house, and three or four pubs along the main street,” he says. “And the Regal Ballroom, where we used to go on a Friday and Saturday night.”

Bings have been flattened to accommodate houses. A train station at Eskbank on the new Borders line has helped accessibility. The population is growing.

“New money is coming in,” says Parkinson, who notes he has been sending season ticket books to addresses in the new estates. “People are moving out from Edinburgh because it is cheaper – not cheap, but cheaper. And the bypass is nearby.”

Parkinson hopes to have sold as many as 500 season ticket holders by the time Forfar Athletic first-foot Bonnyrigg Rose for a historic first SPFL clash in just under a fortnight. Under-12s get in free to league games. “This will be the 13th season we have done that,” he says. Doughnuts are proving as popular as half-time pies. Times really are a-changin’.