The Scotland football team has travelled 3000 miles across the Atlantic to begin their World Cup campaign in Boston, Massachusetts.
But what if we were to tell you that for their first two group games there, they might have a sneaky home advantage?
Dr Ross Walker, a lecturer in sport management at the University of Stirling, couldn’t quite believe it when the draw was made that Steve Clarke’s side would be playing against Haiti and Morocco in a place he discovered through his research had more connections to Scotland than most might think.
Through his research on the origins of basketball in March 2025, he discovered that the inventor of the sport Dr James Naismith – who had been thought to have been Canadian given he was born in Almonte – was in fact a Scot.
And about 80 to 90 miles away from where Scotland will play their first two World Cup games, Naismith founded the sport in 1891 at Springfield College, Massachusetts.
Almonte at the time was a British colony and Canadian citizenship was not legalised until 1947, eight years after Naismith’s death in 1939.
Scots emigrated all over the world during the 1800s in search of a better life and Naismith’s parents were no different. His dad – who was from Glasgow – and mum went over to British North America in the 1830s and Naismith ended up having a life that was really no different to those living back in Scotland.
“During this time, what all the Scots did is they took home comforts with them, and one of the key ones was sport,” Walker told The National.
“What they did when they went over as part of trying to help assimilate into new cultures and new areas, they would find themselves re-engaging with these sports, creating clubs and societies which all revolved around sport.”
Naismith was brought up in a transplanted Scottish community of immigrants. He spoke with a Scottish accent, he sang Robert Burns songs and songs about Scottish nationalism in his church – much like the Scotland team will do in Boston when they sing Flower of Scotland.
Naismith even gifted his wife a book by Burns with the inscription: “Tae the bonniest lass”.
And he was introduced by his Scottish family to a game called duck-on-the-rock – which his dad used to play in Glasgow – that he would later use alongside association football as a basis for basketball.
Naismith eventually moved to Montreal to study to become a Presbyterian minister and later moved on to Massachusetts where he went to work and teach at the international base of the YMCA at Springfield College.
It was there he was tasked with founding a new sport that could be played in the winter months, leading to his invention of the now global phenomenon of basketball.
The Scottish presence in the broader state of Massachusetts is also evident in places such as Aberdeen, Atholl, Highland Park and Bridgewater – where you will find the River Tweed.
Places such as Ludlow, Springfield and Worcester all experienced an influx of Scottish Presbyterian settlers in the 1800s and had a higher proportion of the Scottish immigrant base than most other states. These settlers left a lasting mark, as seen through Scottish festivals and Highland Games which still take place across the state today.
“I’ve been going to Scotland games since the 1990s and [before the draw] people were asking me where I wanted Scotland to play and I said I either hoped it would be in a city I haven’t been to before or I hope it’s somewhere that’s connected to my research,” Walker said.
“Then it just so happened Scotland got two games [in Boston] – the closest stadium to Scottish sporting culture and sporting excellence in America."
Walker highlighted how football in the US first emerged and was found in the late 19th and early 20th century in places like Holyoke, Massachusetts, as a game for British Protestants.
Immigration from Scotland is cited as a critical catalyst for the game’s early presence in North America.
Walker hopes that even though Scotland will be playing so far from home in their first World Cup for 28 years, the strong Scottish history of Boston and Massachusetts will make them feel at home, especially with fans struggling to get hold of a tiny number of tickets being sold at extortionate prices.
Walker said: “I was sitting reading about all the disappointed fans about the tickets and it’s terrible, but a silver lining in that is knowing a lot of other people who will be going actually do have a deep connection to Scotland that now they can finally be a part of.
“Don’t get me wrong, I wish the Tartan Army were getting more tickets, but there will be a lot of people who through this process will be able to reconnect with their heritage and culture in the same way that James Naismith did 130 years ago.
“It’s a nice piece of continuity.”
Since publishing his research, Walker – who played basketball for 15 years and represented Scotland – has rightly called for the “American-centric” history of basketball to be re-evaluated given Scotland influenced its creation through Naismith.
Walker’s research went worldwide and he spent an entire night speaking on different news stations in the US about his findings.
“It’s kind of followed me everywhere – I was in Hawaii in July and I was wearing a basketball top, and someone asked me if that was my team and I said ‘no, I just like the top’,” he said.
“He then heard my accent and said, ‘let me tell you something about Scotland and basketball, apparently the guy who invented it was Scottish’.
“I said it was coincidental he was telling me that when I had found that out.”
Walker’s research – entitled James Naismith: The creation of basketball and the Scottish connection – was published in the journal Sport in History and you can read it here.
