Our History

The Dunfermline Gymnastic Club was formed in the 70’s by John and Bessie O’Brien. John was a former Scottish Mens Champion several times over in the 1950’s. The original Club trained at the old Carnegie Centre, Dunfermline.

In 1980 Carnegie closed for refurbishment and the Club re-located to Queen Anne High School with the competition gymnasts training at Lauder Gym in Priory Lane which had been part of the original Queen Anne High School in the New Row. This was not ideal as it involved Coaches rushing about from one venue to another on Club days! Eventually the Club moved all the Recreational gymnasts from Queen Anne down to Lauder and the Club trained there until 1990.

The facilities at Lauder were not the best by today’s standards but we were the first ‘all purpose’ training facility in Fife as the equipment was set out all the time. We did tumble training on a ski run – which some volunteers had constructed out of old ski’s from Hillend Ski Centre but it did the trick – our own sprung floor!! There were many problems with Lauder, mainly the archaic boiler– we had a group of Parents from the 3 Clubs (Spartans, Gazelles and Dunfermline) who worked on a rota to keep the boiler going and the gym warm , another major problem was the leaking roof and often gymnasts would run through their floor routines dodging the buckets!!

All good fun and from this not so perfect venue we produced many excellent gymnasts who competed in the Commonwealth Games, represented Scotland at International competitions, and were members of the British North Zone squad the Scottish National Squads and the East of Scotland District Squads.

In 1982, Eleanor Knight has an idea about creating special gymnastic sessions for 3/4yr old children – the first Pre –School Gymnasts in Fife – called at that time ‘Fun’nastics’,  Eleanor went on to hold classes at several venues across West Fife and beyond before moving into the newly re-furbished Carnegie Centre in 1990. British Gymnastics had produced a coaching course and programme for Pre School Gymnastics and the baton was soon taken up  by the Leisure Centres and now Pre School sessions are available throughout Fife – Eleanor continued providing Pre-School classes in the Club until recently and also became  a Tutor for British Gymnastics. When Dalgety Bay Leisure Centre opened in 1995, Eleanor was invited to put into place the Pre-School progamme that continues there.

In 1992, we added Sports Acrobatics to our Club – we began with 6 gymnasts and before long we had developed a strong and highly competitive section of the Club. However, as the Artistic and Acro sections of the Club expanded space was getting very difficult and about 5 years ago the Sport Acro section decided to form their own individual Club – Acrobay.

In the 1990’s the Club formed a close liaison with the Spartans Boys Club and we merged with them in 1994 to become the Dunfermline Spartans – also at this time our Display team which we had started in the 80’s  to finish off our annual Display  Night for Parents, was going from strength to strength under the guidance of our choreographer Alison Wilson (Knight). We had taken part in the Scottish ‘Gymfest’ festival from the start and the newly amalgamated Club (the Spartans also had a successful boys display team)  applied  to participate as part of the Great Britain team in the 1995 World Gymnaestrada in Berlin – this was a huge success for the Clubs. The display team was now renamed Zodiak Performance Team – the name Zodiak was chosen by the gymnasts – after all our Gymnasts were and still are a ‘bunch of Stars’! The Team again took part in the 1999 Gymnaestrada held in Gothenburg in Sweden but this time as  Zodiak as the Spartans had opted not to take part – also at this time we disbanded and took the name of Dunfermline Zodiak – we retained Dunfermline as that is part of our heritage.

As we moved in the millennium Zodiak continues to grow and flourish producing wonderful gymnasts. Gymnasts who gain places in the National squads structure and who go on to win Championships and trophies for the Club. Although many of the  original coaches have moved on the coaches from the 80’s are still going strong, Eleanor, Alison,  Audrey and Yvonne are still working to keep this Club going and long may they do so!!

Once again the Club has moved and we now are in the wonderful facility of Bruce Street – and another chapter in the history of this Club is beginning………..