Lord Lyon taking football clubs to task over badges

[Jack Daw]

I agree that the law is the law, but if the Lord Lyon's office has been remiss in identifying two violations for over 20 years (in one case 65!), then perhaps the "interpretation" should be dropped.

[tulloch]

Seems to me arms were like a trademark to a titled individual. Useful at a time. In this age when marketing forms so much of our understanding of life, the trademark is the thing.

[Mike_Oettle]

I’m with Lyon Court on this one.
It took no action until a complaint was made. The complaint having been made, it took the matter up with the clubs.
Since the Ayr badge not only adopts a shield format (no matter how badly drawn) and makes use of a royal symbol (St Andrew’s cross), it is twice foul of the law.
I feel it would do well obtaining a grant of arms, but that is for the club to decide.
If it does not want to apply, it will have to find an emblem that is unique to it without resembling a coat of arms or crest, and does not infringe on the rights of the Crown or of established armigers.
It could well use symbols from the heraldry of Ayr itself, put together in a way that does not infringe.
Lyon Court is not waving a big stick, much less an executioner’s axe. It is acting in terms of the law that established it in the 17th century.
At least Scotland has such an institution with legal powers. England has a similar institution, but it is effectively powerless when dealing with people or institutions that do not want to play ball (excuse the pun).
In closing, it is worth noting that the BBC report repeats the same error as a different one that I read online, in calling the club badge/shield a crest.
The journalists should have known better, but perhaps the error was first made by the club, which seems to have felt put upon.

[Joseph McMillan]

a) Actually not "Lord Lyon," but the Procurator Fiscal of Lyon Court, an independent prosecutor, not the judge.

b) The X-Marks-the-Scot logo can't run afoul of Scottish heraldic law because X-Marks-the-Scot is not located in Scotland. The Lyon Acts of 1592 and 1672, which are what the Procurator Fiscal enforces, are not in force anywhere outside Scotland. (I know this news will shock the self-appointed heraldic vigilantes who frequent Scottish games in the United States.)

c) Ayr United's offense is, essentially, using a device in shield form without its being matriculated in Lyon Register. Lyon will generally not grant arms containing St. Andrew's cross except to national institutions, but I seriously doubt that he can prevent its use in a non-armorial form. The acts talk about "armes" and "signes armorial," not logos, etc. They also don't talk about badges, and neither Lyon nor the English kings of arms ever presumed to claim any right to control the use of badges until the early 20th century.

d) I think it's very debatable whether every mark placed on a shield-shaped background is a coat of arms within the meaning of the acts, but the only way to find out is for someone to defend a case and then appeal Lord Lyon's decision to the Inner House of the Court of Session. Same for any attempt to control the unilateral adoption of a clearly non-armorial badge or logo, even with a saltire or thistle on it.

[tripleblessed]

I'm sure our Scottish forebears would have followed the law exactly. Lord knows the scots were not one to rebel against the letter of the law. the words 'they must obey' would probably have been antipathy to the them as they should be to us.

They certainly were at least as fast and loose with many laws as their descendants are in the US today. However, at the relevant time, no one played loose with heraldry. Cultural pressure was maybe even a stronger force than the law itself.