The club came out of the Orion Cricket Club, and was founded at a club meeting on 3 October 1885, after the last cricket match of the season; J. D. Crow was named captain and James Dunn secretary and treasurer. The club's first known match was a 2–0 defeat to
Bon Accord F.C., in which the Orion club was said to have been "very good for a new club". The club made its
Scottish Cup debut in
1886, and the luck of the first round draw sent the Orionians to the same
Arbroath which had scored 36 against the Bons the previous season. Only 500 turned up to the match, following 5 hours of rain before kick-off, and although Orion kept the score down to 5 at half-time, the heaviness of the pitch and wind told against the Orion players' fitness, and Arbroath scored another 15 in the second half. The clubs met again in the first round in the
1887–88 Scottish Cup, Arbroath this time scoring 18 without reply, the Orion goalkeeper - praised for keeping the score down - declaring it a "grand exhibition game". Orion never beat a non-northern side in the Scottish Cup proper. Its best run came in
1899–1900, when it won through the
Scottish Qualifying Cup and beat
Forres Mechanics in the first round proper, going down to
Kilmarnock in the second. The club's first success came in the
Aberdeenshire Cup in 1890–91; the original
Aberdeen club had won the first three instalments, but, after a controversial quarter-final tie against
Aberdeen Caledonian, the Caley ended up as Orion's final opponent. Orion came from behind to take an easy 4–1 win, although the attendance was affected by Aberdeen playing a "spoiler" friendly against
Arbroath the same day. Orion won two
Northern League championships, in 1897 and 1899. The club also won the Rhodesia Cup in 1898–99 (contested with the other two senior Aberdeen clubs,
Aberdeen and
Victoria United). At the end of the 1901–02 season, the local council wrote to the three main town clubs in relation to the unsafe conditions of their grounds. The financial difficulties led to Aberdeen looking to lease out the Pittodrie ground to
Hibernian, which was facing eviction from
Easter Road, and the shock of the proposal led to local discussions about forming a single Aberdeen club to join the
Scottish Football League, led by Orion's George Alexander. Following discussions between the clubs and the Crescent Cricket Club (which owned Pittodrie), a deal was signed on 10 April 1903 to merge the three clubs under the Aberdeen name. ==Colours==