TOMORROW sees the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), the world’s second oldest such association and a major contributor to the sport, at least in its earliest years.
Today and next week, I am going to write about early Scottish football and the SFA in its first few decades. I leave it to the clever people on the sports desk to make a contemporary judgement on an organisation that is often criticised but without which football in this country just could not function.
Football of one sort of another has been around in Scotland for centuries. As played in several countries, early football was really a form of handball and played by entire communities such as Florence in Italy where “calcio” was a notably violent version.
To see what those games looked like, you should visit Jedburgh where the annual Ba’ Game is played between the men and boys from the Upper part of the town – the Uppies – against their opponents from the Lower part – the Doonies. It’s a huge encounter with hundreds of participants and resembles a giant rugby maul. Ba’ Games of one kind or another were played across Scotland with Kirkwall in Orkney being one notable venue.
Scotland’s early football games were popular – so much so that King James I had the Scottish Parliament criminalise the game with the Football Act of 1424 which decreed that anyone playing football could face a fine of four pence.
There were several more laws against football in the 15th century, and an anonymous poem from that era satirically reviews the beautiful game: Bruised muscles and broken bones Discordant strife and futile blows Lamed in old age, then crippled withal These are the beauties of football.
By 1497, the game had royal approval, as King James IV is recorded as having purchased footballs, though whether they were for him to play with is not recorded.
The oldest serving football in the world is Scottish. It dates from around 1540 and was found in the roof structures of the Queen’s Chamber during its restoration in 1981.
Mary, Queen of Scots liked football, as she did golf and other sports. During her escape to England in 1568, at Carlisle Castle, she watched her Scottish men schoolgive a footballing lesson to the English – not the last time that would happen. Sir Francis Knollys wrote: “20 of her retinue played at football before her for two hours very strongly, nimbly, and skilfully.”
The world’s first named football club was Scottish. The Edinburgh-based “Foot-Ball Club” is recorded as being in existence in 1824, and they had their own written laws of the game.
It was laws and rules which saw the greatest debates in England where public schools and community clubs had their own versions which disagreed on even the number of players in a team. Cambridge University brought out its own published laws and many schools and clubs agreed to play to these rules.
In 1863, solicitor Ebenezer Morley, who had founded Barnes FC, the year before, rounded up 12 clubs based in and around London to a meeting in the Freemason’s Tavern on October 26. They founded the Football Association and two months later published their laws, roughly based on the Cambridge Rules, which became the foundation document of the sport of association football, quickly dubbed soccer from the word association – those clubs who wanted to keep handling in the game went off to found rugby.
In Scotland at that time, loose groupings of players were playing ad hoc friendly matches with rules often agreed by the teams before the kick-off. The English FA did an excellent job of promoting their version of the laws, and in 1867, a group of young men from the southside of Glasgow formed themselves into Queen’s Park, named for the place they first played. From the outset, they played according to English FA laws, and the first formal match in Scotland was played in 1868 between Queen’s Park and another new Glasgow club, Thistle.
As there was no SFA, Queen’s Park joined the Football Association and took part in the FA Cup for several years, acquitting themselves well and reaching the final twice.
In 1870, the world’s first international match took place when England played Scotland in London. It is not recognised as an official game because all the players for Scotland were based in London, their numbers including two MPs, William Henry Gladstone, son of the great prime minister, and John Malcolm, who was MP for Boston in Lincolnshire.
The biggest impetus for the creation of the SFA came on St Andrew’s Day, 1872, when an England team picked from the FA’s member clubs came to Glasgow to play Scotland in what is now recognised by world governing body Fifa as the world’s first official international. Played at the West of Scotland Cricket Club’s ground in Partick, the goalless draw was praised as a resounding success due no doubt to the crowd of 4000 who paid a shilling each.
Queen’s Park supplied all 11 players for Scotland and the club was instrumental in the formation of the SFA with the English FA’s laws to be adopted.
They invited several clubs to Dewar’s Hotel in Glasgow on March 13, 1873, 150 years ago tomorrow. Those clubs who attended were Queen’s Park, Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers, Clydesdale, Dumbreck, Eastern, Granville, and Vale of Leven with Kilmarnock FC counted among the founder members as they sent a letter of support.
The following motion was passed: “The clubs here represented form themselves into an association for the promotion of football according to the rules of The Football Association and that the clubs connected with this association subscribe for a challenge cup to be played for annually, the committee to propose the laws of the competition.”
Hawick-born Archibald Campbell of Clydesdale was elected first president and Archibald Rae of Queen’s Park the first secretary. Next week, I’ll show how the Scottish Cup developed and how the SFA led football to become the country’s national game.
