East Fife have surprisingly been a pretty cosmopolitan side through the years, chalking up visits to several European countries, and making impressive showings of themselves at that.

The first of these trips came at the end of the Fife's mega successful 1947/48 season, where a Scandinavian tour was the reward for the players trophy winning exploits.

May 23rd 1948 saw the Fife take on Stockholm and triumph 5-1. A large crowd was very impressed by the whole Fife side. Charlie Fleming opened the scoring, Davie Duncan added the second and Henry Morris made it 3-0 at half time. David Duncan made it four soon after the interval. There's a bit of controversy over who scored the final goal, with some reports crediting Allan Davidson and others claiming Davie Duncan got his hat-trick.

After the game, Fife manager Scot Symon was clearly pleased; "The team played their best style of football - to the delight of the spectators. There is no doubt about the ability of the Swedish players to play football of the highest quality. Indeed their ball play is, at times, eye-opening, with it's speed and manipulation.". We can see how well Swedish football has since come on over the years and these qualities are certainly to the forefront. You just have to watch in awe at the skill of Larsson.

The Fife's second match of their tour saw them moving to Denmark to play Ballklub in Odense on May 26th. Their opponents included three Danish internationalists: Kai Rasmussen, Carl Pederson and Sophus Pedersen. The Fife won 1-0.

East Fife's second game in Denmark, and their final match of their short tour, was against Odense Ballklub on Sunday May 29th. Odense included Sorensen, the top goalscorer in Denmark's First Division for the past two years and a much capped internationalist. This couldn't prevent the Fife from running out 4-2 winners though, in front of 5,000 fans, with goals from Davidson, Morris, Brown and Fleming. After the game, East Fife's Chairman, John McArthur, was presented with a silver plate by the Danish club, whilst the players received ash trays decorated with a picture of Hans Christian Anderson.

And so East Fife's first European experience was complete, and they returned home on the Wednesday with everyone commenting upon how high our standard of play was. Changed days indeed!

It was to be quite a few seasons until the Fife came up against European opposition again though, and when they finally did, it was at Bayview.

The 1962/63 season saw the club entertain Sportsklubbe Brann, winning 7-0, and the following season it was the turn of Bronshoj Boldklub to visit Methil, going home with a 2-1 defeat.

The end of the sixties however signalled the start of East Fife's regular continental visits.

The 1969/70 season had seen the German First Division side Rot Weiss Essen visit Bayview and be soundly thumped 5-0. Later that season saw a visit from Maastricht (them of treaty infamy) and a 1-1 draw. This set up an end of season return tour of Germany and Holland, and once again the Fife gave an excellent account of themselves.

The hardest of the three games they played turned out to be against Rot Weiss Essen, who were clearly out for revenge. Constant German pressure saw them going in for the interval 2-0 up and it would have been a lot more if it hadn't been for some outstanding goalkeeping by Dave Gorman. The Fife fought back through and goals from Colin MacDonald and Robert Cairns saw them scrape a 2-2 draw.

The Fife then headed for Holland and a game with Dutch First Division side Go-Ahead Deventer, which ended up as a goal-less draw. This set them up nicely for their final match- a return against M.V.V. Maastricht. A goal down at half-time, the Fife battled back and goals from Billy McPhee and Peter McQuade saw them take a 2-1 lead, before eventually having to settle for a 2-2 draw.

With that, the players headed home - still unbeaten on the continent!

Everyone connected with the club enjoyed the trip and were keen to go back. The friendships that arose from the tour were cemented, when Go-Ahead Deventer came to Bayview for a pre-season friendly a few months later. 1,200 fans turned up to see John Bernard give East Fife the lead, only for the game to end up as another draw - this time it was 1-1 though.

Another pre-season friendly through was to see the Fife lose their first ever match to European opposition. Eintracht Brunswick were the visitors and they attracted 3,362 fans to watch their 2-1 victory at Bayview in an entertaining match. Eintracht were full of German internationalists, and could have easily won by a dozen goals but they seemed less than interested for a lot of the match, turning it on when they saw fit. It was entertaining stuff none the less though.

Another good relationship for the Fife was formed though and the Fife returned to the continent for a 1971/72 pre-season tour, kicking off with a return game with Eintracht Brunswick and another 2-1 defeat. It was to prove to be a bad tour (results-wise), with the Fife also losing 1-0 to German Holstein Kiel and 3-1 to the Dutch side Aarhus. The tour promoted Fife manager Pat Quinn to comment: " I have always believed that over a season the breaks level themselves out, and after the two games in Germany, on that basis, we must have quite a bit of luck coming our way".

Season 72/73 saw both a pre-season and a post-season tour! Pre-season saw a 2-0 win against Dordrecht in Rotterdam, a 3-2 win against Haarlem in Amsterdam and a 0-0 draw with Ado in Methil. The performance against Ado was particularly pleasing, as only a few days earlier they had beaten English League Champions Derby County. A 4-0 win against Horsens F.S. was slotted in during the season, setting up a post-season return to Denmark and a 5-1 victory, thank to a Doug Dailey hat-trick. A 2-0 over Germans Aarhus followed, then a 4-3 defeat in a thriller against Hamburg. Not bad going that season!

For the next season, the Fife decided to settle for just a two game tour of Holland - but it was to prove to be an eventful one. The games produced a 4-0 defeat by Ado and a 3-2 win against Telstar, where the general feeling was that they were "apprehensive" in the first match and "excellent" in the second.

The real fun was to follow though, as the Fife walked out of their luxury hotel in Bloemendal and into a smaller hotel nearby, after a series of niggling minor complaints from the hotel management. It was alleged that other guests in the hotel were complaining about the noise, about players coming in late and about them going from the showers to their rooms with only towels wrapped round them! I mean, heaven forbid, they might have enjoyed themselves on the trip after all! Some people can just be right moans when they're on holiday!

A rematch with Telstar at Bayview later in the season saw a 3-1 defeat.

A brief German and Dutch tour prior to the 1980/81 season, saw 1-0 defeats against an Army Garrison XI and Preussen Munster followed by a 3-1 victory against a 4th Royal Tank Regiment XI in Germany before heading over to Holland where they won 2-0 against SV Heek.

Swedish side Asmuntorp paid a visit to Bayview in 1985 and were soundly whipped 5-0.

A pre-season visit to Greece in 1987, saw two games and two victories to add to our European conquests, with a 3-1 win against Aigaleo and a 2-1 triumph against Poseidon, who I take it were a whole team and not just one person, which, if it was the latter, was a pretty good effort and ranks up there with Keith.

The last European team to grace Bayview Park, and the last European team that the Fife have played, were Icelandic side Akranes, who recorded a 3-1 victory in April 1998.

Who knows where and when the next European adventure will be? Trips to Holland, Germany and Scandinavia are a little bit better than Durham, Peterlee and Wick! So here's hoping for the day that we get to see the mighty Fife grace the playing fields of the Nou Camp or San Siro or anywhere really that would give us an exciting European pre-season tour and tales to tell!