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East Stirlingshire's official date of formation was in 1881, but its origins can be traced to the previous year when a local cricket club called Bainsford Bluebonnets formed a football team under the name Britannia. The team's first recorded match was a friendly against Falkirk's second eleven in December 1880 and resulted in a 7–0 defeat while its first match as East Stirlingshire was against the same opponent in August 1881. The club's nickname is "The Shire", which refers to the Stirlingshire part of the club name. After joining the Scottish Football Association, the club became eligible to compete in the Scottish Cup, Scotland's main association football knock-out competition, eliminated in its first game in 1882. In December 1883, the Stirlingshire Football Association was founded, with membership open to clubs exclusively from the county of Stirlingshire. It resulted in the establishment of a new regional tournament called the Stirlingshire Cup, with the club reaching the final in its first season. East Stirlingshire dominated the tournament in its early years, winning it for a record four years in a row between 1885 and 1889, including an emphatic 9–0 victory against Falkirk in the 1888 final. Two goals came from Lawrence McLachlan who was an influential goalscorer in the club's early successes; scoring more times than any other East Stirlingshire player with 135 known goals.

The latter years of the 19th century was East Stirlingshire's most successful era in the Scottish Cup. In the 1888–89 and 1890–91 tournaments, the club reached the quarter-finals in what was to be the last time for 91 years, losing to Celtic and Hearts respectively. In the 1888–89 tournament, the club recorded its highest win and equalled it in successive rounds with a 10–1 victory against local rivals Stenhousemuir in the first round and an 11–2 win over Vale of Bannock in the second round. It was during this period that four East Stirlingshire players earned international caps for their countries. The first was the Wales national team captain, Humphrey Jones, who earned five caps whilst with the club. Three other players, David Alexander, Archibald Ritchie, and James McKee made appearances for the Scotland national team from 1891 to 1898.

Between 1891 and 1899, the club competed in regional leagues, including winning the Midland Football League and Central Football Combination, before being elected to the second tier of Scotland's main national league competition – the Scottish Football League – in 1900–01, ending its first season ranked 7th from ten. In March 1905, a proposal was raised for the club to merge with neighbours Falkirk with an aim to creating a bigger and more financially stable club, which Falkirk accepted in a vote. However, East Stirlingshire's vote was not in favour and the club rejected the proposal. The years following included finishing bottom of the league in 1905–06, recording only one win from 22 games, contrasting with finishing as high as third in table in 1912–13, narrowly missing out on winning the championship by two points. The club remained in Division Two until 1914–15 when it, and the Scottish Cup, were both suspended due to World War I.

At the end of World War I, the club was re-elected to the old Division Two which was re-established in the 1921–22 season. The year beforehand saw the club move to Firs Park after leaving their old ground of Merchiston Park in 1920. In the same year, a record home attendance of 12,000 was set when the club played eventual champions, Partick Thistle, in the Scottish Cup in February 1921. The club was relegated to the newly created, but short lived, Division Three in 1922–23, earning promotion back to Division Two after one season; setting a record of 23 home games without a loss. A decade later, East Stirlingshire won promotion to Division One, Scotland's top flight, for the first time. En route to promotion, the club spent 32 weeks at the top of Division Two, ending the season equal on 55 points with St Johnstone, with East Stirlingshire winning the championship on a superior goal average. East Stirlingshire spent one season in its first spell in the top flight, ending the year bottom of the league in 20th with seventeen points. Back in Division Two in the 1935–36 season, the club's heaviest league defeat of 12–1 was inflicted by Dundee United in April 1936. In 1938–39, the final season before the league was suspended due to World War II, East Stirlingshire finished second-bottom of the league, ahead of only Edinburgh City, but despite finishing low, Malcolm Morrison became the club's highest league goalscorer in a single season with 36 goals.

The club was excluded from a wartime league in 1939 and was also denied re-entry to the Scottish Football League Division Two at the end of World War II, along with six other small league clubs. As a result, the clubs competed in a newly created Division C along with the reserve teams of some of Scotland's top clubs. In the second season in Division C, East Stirlingshire won the league and was promoted back to Division Two, now renamed "Division B", but finished last after one season in 1948–49, and were relegated back to the "C Division".

After another six seasons competing in "Division C" the club rejoined Division Two in 1955–56 when the " C Division" was abolished and the number of teams in the Scottish Football League was expanded. The club sold many young players to larger clubs, including defender Eddie McCreadie to Chelsea in 1962 who earned 23 international caps for Scotland and is tenth in Chelsea's all-time appearance list with 410. The money earned from the transfer helped attract new players and in the 1962–63 season, the club won promotion to the top flight for a second time, as runners-up in Division Two behind St Johnstone. Like the previous occasion in 1932–33, East Stirlingshire spent one solitary season in the top tier before being relegated.

After relegation from Scotland's top flight, East Stirlingshire was controversially merged with Clydebank Juniors in 1964. The new club was renamed East Stirlingshire Clydebank – often E.S. Clydebank for short – and relocated to Kilbowie Park in Clydebank against fans' wishes. However, the merge lasted only one season, with East Stirlingshire shareholders winning several court cases against it and thus the club reverted to its original legal status and moved back to Falkirk. During the single season as E.S. Clydebank, the club set a record attendance at Kilbowie Park when 14,900 spectators attended a Scottish Cup first round replay against Hibernian in February 1965.

In 1966, Lawrence Binnie became the club's first official manager, prior to his appointment the board of directors took responsibility for management roles. After de-merging with Clydebank Juniors, the club spent ten seasons in Division Two before being moved by league reconstruction to a new Second Division for the 1975–76 season, now the third tier with the creation of the Premier Division at the top of the Scottish Football League. During this period, the club progressed past the group stage of Scottish League Cup for the first time since it was inaugurated in 1947. The year beforehand saw the club appoint its most famous manager, Alex Ferguson, who was at the club during 1974 before moving to St Mirren. In 1979–80, East Stirlingshire won promotion to the First Division, which is the last time the club was promoted in the league. Managed by Billy Lamont, the club finished runners-up by one point to rivals Falkirk in the Second Division. The clubs shared the top two spots in the league for most of the season and entered the final match equal on points, with East Stirlingshire required to better Falkirk's result to win the championship due to an inferior goal difference. However, Falkirk won its match and East Stirlingshire drew and so finished second.

In the 1994–95 season, the Scottish Football League was again restructured and East Stirlingshire was moved to a new Third Division, now the fourth-tier. The club finished its first season in the Third Division ranked fourth from ten and repeated it again in 1997–98. With these exceptions East Stirlingshire generally finished below mid-table, including a final day victory against Arbroath in the 1996–97 season to avoid finishing last. In 2000–01, the club reached the semi-final of a national cup competition for the first time in its history, losing 2–1 to Livingston for a place in the final of the Scottish Challenge Cup.

At the start of the 21st century the club struggled financially, paying players £10-a-week and manager Dennis Newall became the first unpaid manager at senior level in Scottish football. As a result, the club ranked last in the Scottish Football League for five consecutive seasons from 2002–03 to 2006–07, losing 24 consecutive league games in the 2003–04 season, recording only 8 points from two wins and two draws in 36 games. From the 2005–06 season, it was determined if a club finished bottom of the Third Division twice in successive years, it would face the risk of being reduced to associate member status, meaning the loss of voting rights. In East Stirlingshire's case, a league vote was held and concluded in favour of the club retaining full member status with the condition that it did not finish last the following season in 2008. The club won its final game of the season to move off the bottom of the table in a 3–1 win against Montrose, which was also the last game at Firs Park. The following season, retaining full member status, the club moved to Ochilview Park in a ground-share agreement with neighbours Stenhousemuir.

Under manager Jim McInally, the club finished third in successive years to qualify for the promotion play-offs to the Second Division. However, a second-bottom place finish in the 2010–11 season saw McInally sacked and replaced by John Coughlin. The club would subsequently post another two bottom-place finishes in the seasons to follow, which could have again put them in danger of reduction to associate member status, but due to ongoing negotiations about league restructuring for the 2013–14 season, the league opted not to enforce the rule. The negotiations ultimately saw the formation of a new governing body, the Scottish Professional Football League, following the merger of the Scottish Football League and Scottish Premier League. East Stirlingshire joined the Scottish League Two, the successor to the old Third Division. In October 2015, on loan Raith Rovers forward Jonny Court scored the SPFL's 5000th goal (across all four divisions, but not including play-offs), in a 2–0 home win over Elgin City. Having finished bottom of 2015–16 Scottish League Two, East Stirlingshire faced a play-off against Edinburgh City for a place in 2016–17 Scottish League Two. Edinburgh City won 2–1 on aggregate, relegating East Stirlingshire to the Lowland League and ending their 61-year tenure in the Scottish national league set-up.