Kilwinning Rangers or The Buffs as they are more affectionately known, were formed in 1899 as a Juvenile football club, playing at Blacklands Park, which they shared with the then senior side of Eglinton Seniors.

They officially became a Junior football club on the 26th of July 1902.  
The name Buffs was first recorded on the 21st of September 1900 when the local paper, the Irvine Herald, recorded that the so-called Buffs had had an emphatic victory over Kilmarnock Belgrove.

The name Buffs has had folklore of its own and to this day there is no definitive version of how the name came about! but there are a few well told theories.  One is that a soldier played for the team who was a member of the 1st East Kents, 3rd regiment of the line an army regiment who were nicknamed The Buffs. The second being that the name was used at that time to describe anything that was “smashing”, but the third and most likely theory is that the team played at that time in a dull yellow, or Buff strip.
  
1904: “Champions of Ayrshire” two years after joining the junior ranks .

1909: They were the first Ayrshire team to win the coveted Scottish Junior Cup defeating Strathclyde on the 22nd of May, at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock. The team consisted of an all Ayrshire side, and in fact nine of the team came from the town of Kilwinning itself, a rare set of circumstances nowadays!
  
1999: The Scottish Junior Cup returns to Kilwinning after 90 years.
  
The Centenary year was in fact like a fairy tale for the club. Not only did they return the Scottish Cup, but also they won the next highest trophy, the West of Scotland Cup, the North Ayrshire League Trophy and three other cups making a total of six trophies on their famous date! This makes the Buffs the only team in the history of the game to achieve this honour.

The team now plays at the infamous Abbey Park situated above the river Garnock, and can proudly boast that they were the first, and last Ayrshire Club to win the Scottish Junior Cup in the twentieth century!