Bon Accord were newbies, having only been in existence for a year. They reportedly arrived for the match without even having a proper kit.
The scoreline could have been even worse. As the Scottish Athletic Journal reported at the time: “The leather was landed between the posts 41 times, but five of the times were disallowed.”
Referee Dave Stormont later claimed he’d actually disallowed seven goals. Arbroath goalkeeper Jim Milne Sr didn’t touch the ball once, and spent some of the game sheltering from rain under a spectator’s umbrella.
Arbroath were 15–0 up by half-time, and scored another 21 goals in the second half, perhaps as Bon Accord let their heads drop. Teenage striker John Petrie hit 13 goals in the game – a record that he now shares with Archie Thompson, who scored the same number when Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 in a qualifying match for the 2002 World Cup.
But despite scoring 55 goals in that season’s Scottish Cup, Arbroath didn’t win it, going out in the fourth round.