Rocket Post island added to football club's badge

A tiny island used in a 1930s experiment to send mail in small rockets has been added to a football club's badge.

Scarp is an uninhabited island off Harris in the Western Isles.

Sports journalist Hugh Dan Maclennan started a tongue-in-cheek campaign to have it added to Harris FC's badge after another island, Scalpay, was accidently left off an updated design.

In July 1934, German scientist Gerhard Zucker tested his Rocket Post on Scarp, and even had stamps made for the letters. The attempt failed when the rocket crashed.

Harris FC is an amateur football club formed almost 104 years ago and competes in the Lewis and Harris League.

Its badge features Harris and a few neighbouring smaller islands.

A club spokesman said: "Harris has many wonderful islands off its coastline, so we couldn't really include them all."

They added: "This started with the omission of Scalpay, which was a mistake by our printers who updated the badge but forgot to keep Scalpay.

"I did a wee post about this on the page then other people starting weighing in on the page suggesting our islands we should add."

Mr Maclennan, best-known as the "Voice of Shinty" due to his long career commenting on the game, pushed for Scarp's inclusion and the club agreed.

Harris FC said there were lots of reasons for Scarp's inclusion, including its role in Zucker's Rocket Post and the quality of its beaches.

Zucker carried out a further unsuccessful launch in Harris, and then later in England.

The authorities eventually put a stop to the tests due to the potential public health risks posed by the exploding rockets.

Zucker's experiments in Scotland inspired the plot for the 2004 film The Rocket Post starring Shauna Macdonald and Kevin McKidd.