History of football in Scotland

The origin of football in Scotland is uncertain. The Highlanders apparently never played such a game (unlike other Celtic regions, such as Cornwall, Wales and Brittany). It has therefore been suggested that football reached Scotland from France or England.[1]

Various games, known as "football" (or variants) were played in Scotland in the Middle Ages. However, despite bearing the same name, medieval football bears/bore little resemblance to Association Football (soccer). The ball was often carried by hand, and the teams were often large or unequal in number, and scrummaging was sometimes involved. Some of these games are still played to this day, notably in Kirkwall and Jedburgh - see Ba game.

The earliest reference to "fute-ball" in Scotland was in 1424 when King James I outlawed the playing of it in the Football Act 1424. This was presumably because of the disruption football was having on military training as well its often violent nature. Subsequent kings issued very similar decrees, suggesting that the bans were unsuccessful. Certainly James VI of Scotland was well aware of the violent nature of football, writing, in his 1599 Basilikon Doron, to debar from commendable exercise "all rough and violent exercises, as the foot-ball, meeter for laming than making able the users thereof".[2][3] There were, however, times when royal prohibitions seem to have been relaxed, if not officially. In 1497 the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer include the purchase of footballs for James IV. It is not known if he ever played the game. There is also a tradition that King James V crossed over from Melrose to Jedburgh to participate in the Jedburgh ball game. There is, however, no documented evidence to corroborate this belief and the earliest contemporary account of the game at Jedburgh comes much later at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Violence in early Scottish football games was certainly an important reason for these royal decrees and further evidence comes from sixteenth century Scottish literature, for example in the following poems.

Between 1501 and 1512 Gavin Douglas states:

"This broken shin that swells and will not be relieved, Take it to him; he broke it at ball, And tell him it will be his reward. Take the whole of this bruised arm to him"

Sir Richard Maitland expresses his pleasure in a late sixteenth century poem at being too old for the rough game:

Quhen zoung men cummis fra the gren,

Playand at the futball had bein,

with broken spauld,

I thank my god I want ein,

I am so auld".[3]

In modern English can be translated as:

When young men come from the green

Had been playing football

With broken shoulder,

I thank my God that I lack eyesight:

I am so old

The violence of early football in Scotland is also described vividly by another anonymous sixteenth-century description, "The Beauties of Foot-ball":

Brissit, brawnis and broken banis,

Stryf, discorde and waistie wanis,

Cruikit in eild syn halt withall,

Thir are the bewties of the fute ball".[3]

This in modern English is translated as:

Bruised muscles and broken bones

Strife, Discord, and futile blows

Lamed in old age, then cripled withal

These are the beauties of football"

It was not just the Scottish monarchy and local municipalities that wished to legislate on the playing of football. In Perth, apprentices progressing to become master craftsmen in the 16th-century traditionally had to pay for a banquet and hold a football match.[4] In 1546 the Company of Hammermen (i.e. smiths) of Perth issued a decree that "neither servants nor apprentices" should play football "under penalty of a pound of wax" to be given to their altar in the church.[5] Presumably this was a measure to prevent work absences and injuries. There are other accounts of employers actively participating in attempts to outlaw football in Scotland during the following centuries.

Early Scottish football sometimes erupted into very extreme violent outbursts, including the use of firearms. At Lochtoun in 1606 during a "fute-ball" match some players "fell in contentioun and controversie, ilk anie with otheris, and schot and dilaschit pistolettis and hacquebuttis"[3] It was clearly a passionate and dangerous pastime. Football in the sixteenth century is also documented as being a pretext for raids across the border against the English.

In an attempt to control such violent outbursts football came under Puritan attack in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and is documented many times as being an offence on a Sunday, presumably because of its disruptive effects on society and likely violent nature. For example, the youth of Aberdeen are accused in 1607 of conducting themselves profanely on the Sabbath: "drinking, playing football... and roving from parish to parish"[6] Further references to the offence in Scotland of playing football on Sunday come at the end of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth. In 1656 the Scottish Parliament passed an act outlawing all boisterous games on the Lord's day. Nevertheless, the puritan attack on football was not as severe in Scotland as in England and in both countries the game undoubtedly continued to be played enthusiastically.

There is evidence for schoolboys playing a football ball game in Aberdeen in 1633 (some references cite 1636) which is notable as an early allusion to what some have considered to be passing the ball. The word "pass" in the most recent translation is derived from "huc percute" (strike it here) and later "repercute pilam" (strike the ball again) in the original Latin. It is not certain that the ball was being struck between members of the same team. The original word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race. There is a reference to "get hold of the ball before [another player] does" (Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere) suggesting that handling of the ball was allowed. One sentence states in the original 1930 translation "Throw yourself against him" (Age, objice te illi). It is clear that the game was rough and tackles allowed included the "charging" and pushing/holding of opposing players ("drive that man back" in the original translation, "repelle eum" in original Latin). It has been suggested that this game bears similarities to rugby football. Contrary to media reports in 2006 there is no reference to forward passing, game rules, marking players or team formation. These reports described it as "an amazing new discovery" but has actually been well documented in football history literature since the early twentieth century and available on the internet since at least 2000.[6]

Violence continued to be a regular complaint about Scottish football games for many centuries. Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth wrote to his wife in March 1648 that their son "hurt himself so evill at football in Polwart upon Sunday that he was not able to sturre". In Jedburgh the ball game was outlawed by the town council in 1704 stating that "sometimes both old and young near lost their lives thereby".[3] As a result, it was decided to "discharge the game now and all time coming". This attempt was initially unsuccessful as in 1706 even local trades at Jedburgh were cooperating to try to suppress the game, as shown by the Fleshers' Corporation's fining of some members for "rastling at the football".[5] Similarly at Duns in 1724 a complaint reads "football... did always end and determine in the effusion of blood among the inhabitants".[3] Toward the end of the eighteenth century the poet Skinner noted in his poems some of the injuries sustained playing foortball in Monymusk: "Has ne’er in Monymusk been seen Sae mony weel-beft skins; Of a' the ba'-men there was nane But had twa bleedy shins"

Sir Walter Scott described football as "his favourite border sport". He too, however, talks about the rough nature of nineteenth century Scottish football in his text the Lay: "In riot, revelry, and rout, Pursued the football, play".[3] Scott also states that in the "foot-ball": "The victory is contested with the utmost fury, and very serious accidents have sometimes taken place in the struggle".

Scottish football continued to be a very violent affair well into the nineteenth century. For, example the game in Hawick was described in 1825 as "a species of war or fighting".[3] In 1826 the game was banned in Kirkwall as it was disturbing the peace. From this time until the late 1860s there is a lull in references to football in Scotland, suggested that banning of the game had at last proved successful. As a result of the level of violence often seen in early Scottish football games, a lot of traditional ball games were modified or died out in the nineteenth century. Examples still exist today, however, of traditional Scottish football, in particular the Ba game (although many of these have been revived in the modern time).

The earliest evidence of the use of codified rules of any type of football in Scotland came in 1851 when rugby football was adopted by the Edinburgh Academy, in order to be able to play with other schools. The Edinburgh Academical Football Club, is the oldest football club of any code in Scotland (rugby football).

A "Foot Ball Club" was founded in Edinburgh in 1824[7] After being recently reformed, it now plays association football in the Edinburgh & District Sunday Amateur Association.

The first official football international, Scotland versus England. Once kept by the Rugby Football Union as an early example of rugby football.

Scotland was one of the earliest modern footballing nations. The game started to become popular in Scotland following the development in London in 1863 of the first ever rules of Association Football, established by The Football Association. Scottish football clubs started to be formed towards the end of the 1860s and 1870s. Queen's Park was Scotland's first football club, founded in 1867.[8] It is the oldest existing football club outside England. In its very early years it played in the English FA Cup, reaching the final twice.

In the late 1860s football rules in Scotland still allowed the ball to be handled by all the outfield players, as well as the goalkeeper, whereas in England only the keeper was permitted to handle the ball and then only in his own area[9] According to the Scotsman newspaper on 2 December 1872 at this time there were only about ten football clubs in Scotland.

Even as late 1870 football was an unusual sport in Scotland. In 1870 CW Alcock's received no response to his challenges for homegrown contenders against an English eleven. These challenges were issued in Scottish newspapers, including the Glasgow Herald. One response to Alcock's challenges illustrates that football was eclipsed in Scotland by other codes: "Mr Alcock's challenge to meet a Scotch eleven on the borders sounds very well and is doubtless well meant. But it may not be generally well known that Mr Alcock is a very leading supporter of what is called the "association game"... devotees of the "association" rules will find no foemen worthy of their steel in Scotland".[10]

Starting in 1870 and 1871 a series of four matches between representatives of England and Scotland took place at The Oval, London. Robert Smith of Queen's Park played in the international matches against England of 19 November 1870[11] and the international matches of 25 February 1871[12] and 18 November 1871.[13] The Queen's Park football club players R. Smith and J. Smith were named amongst 16 selected players in the publicity for the February 1872 match,[14] and the reason for their absence is not clear. These early matches were organised under the auspices of the Football Association, but are not currently recognised by FIFA (founded 1904) as official.

Alcock was categorical that although most players were London based, this was due to lack of response from north of the border:

"I must join issue with your correspondent in some instances. First, I assert that of whatever the Scotch eleven may have been composed the right to play was open to every Scotchman [Alcock's italics] whether his lines were cast North or South of the Tweed and that if in the face of the invitations publicly given through the columns of leading journals of Scotland the representative eleven consisted chiefly of Anglo-Scotians ... the fault lies on the heads of the players of the north, not on the management who sought the services of all alike impartially. To call the team London Scotchmen contributes nothing. The match was, as announced, to all intents and purposes between England and Scotland".[15]

The 1870 and 1871 matches are not currently recognised by FIFA as official, however the Scotsman newspaper certainly identified them as "international [The Scotsman's italics]"[16] The most notable Scottish player of the 1870 and 1871 games was Smith, a player of Queen's Park FC. Alcock continued to pursue players from "north of the Tweed", inviting them in papers such as the Scotsman to contact(for example) A F Kinnaird"[16]. At this time, however, it was unusual for national sides to travel far for matches and even in the 1873 England v Scotland game, the first FIFA recognised match in England, only 3 Scottish players were not from English sides[17] Alcock decided "in order to further the interests of the Association in Scotland, it was decided that during the current season, a team should be sent to Glasgow to play a match v Scotland[18]

The first official (i.e. currently recognised by FIFA) international match would take place between Scotland and England on 30 November 1872. This match was played under the Football Association rules. Over the following decades association football was to become the most popular sport in Scotland. This match is, however, not the origin of the blue Scotland shirt for contemporary reports of the 5 February 1872 rugby international at the Oval clearly show that "the scotch were easily distinguishable by their uniform of blue jerseys.... the jerseys having the thistle embroidered"[19] The thistle had been worn previously in the 1871 rugby international[20]

The match itself illustrated the advantage gained by the Queens Park players "through knowing each others' play[21]" as all came from the same club. Contemporary match reports clearly show dribbling play by both the English and the Scottish sides, for example: "The Scotch now came away with a great rush, Leckie and others dribbling the ball so smartly that the English lines were closely besieged and the ball was soon behind",[21] "Weir now had a splendid run for Scotland into the heart of his opponents' territory.[21]" and "Kerr.. closed the match by the most brilliant run of the day, dribbling the ball past the whole field"[22] Scotland nearly won but a Robert Leckie shot landed on the tape crossbar and the game finished 0-0.[23] Although the Scottish team are acknowledged to have worked better together during the first half, the contemporary account in the Scotsman newspaper acknowledges that in the second half England played similarly: "During the first half of the game the English team did not work so well together, but in the second half they left nothing to be desired in this respect.[21]" There is no specific description of a passing manoeuvre in the lengthy contemporary match reports, although two weeks' later The Graphic reported "[Scotland] seem to be adepts at passing the ball".[22] There is no evidence in the article that the author attended the match, as the reader is clearly pointed to match descriptions in "sporting journals". Similarly, the 5 March 1872 match between Wanderers and Queens park contains no evidence of ball passing[24] This contemporary evidence suggests that the origin of the short passing game lies in the mid-1870s.

In the next international in 1873 Scotland lost away to England in London, but in 1874 Scotland had their first international victory, beating England 4–2 in Glasgow. In 1875, the two nations drew again, but after this there followed a period of Scottish dominance for the following ten years, with only one defeat against the English.

Association football quickly became the most popular sport in Scotland, particularly in Glasgow and the west. The Scottish Cup was established in 1873, making it the second oldest football cup competition in the world. The early editions of the tournament were dominated by Queen's Park and Vale of Leven, with the two teams winning the first nine editions. The Scottish Football Association was formed in 1873 and is the second oldest in the world.

James I's ban on football was finally repealed in 1906 (although ignored long before then).

Competitive football was suspended in Scotland after the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939. Wartime competitions and internationals were played during the Second World War, but official competition did not resume until the 1946–47 season.

Scottish football enjoyed something of a golden age after the Second World War. Attendance numbers boomed during the 1950s and club sides enjoyed success in the newly instigated European competitions. The most obvious example of this came in 1967, when Celtic became the first club non-Latin club to win the European Cup. This success came during a period of domestic dominance for Celtic, who won nine consecutive Scottish league championships between 1966 and 1974. Other sides also enjoyed success, however, as Rangers won the 1972 European Cup Winners' Cup and both Hearts and Hibernian had great domestic success during the 1950s.

The period of dominance by Celtic and declining attendances during the early 1970s resulted in officials considering changes to the Scottish game. Radical reforms were introduced to the league system in 1975, as a 10 team Premier Division was created. This marked a shift from clubs playing each other twice a season to four games a season in the Premier Division, and from two games to three games in the First Division and Second Division. This reform appeared to work initially, as Scottish clubs enjoyed European success during the 1980s. Unusually, the Old Firm dominance of Celtic and Rangers was broken by a New Firm of Aberdeen and Dundee United. Aberdeen won the 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup, defeating Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, and Dundee United reached the 1987 UEFA Cup Final, defeating FC Barcelona en route.

Rangers had endured a barren run during the early 1980s, but reasserted themselves after Graeme Souness was appointed manager in 1986 and was allowed to buy many senior England internationals. Players such as Chris Woods and Terry Butcher were attracted not just by the finances on offer, but also by the fact that Rangers still had access to European competition during a period when English clubs had been banned after the Heysel Stadium disaster. Rangers then entered a period of domestic dominance, winning nine consecutive Scottish League Championships from 1989 to 1997.

As of the beginning of 2000, it could be said that Scottish football is enjoying a resurgent period, with both halves of the Old Firm being involved in European competition after Christmas for the first time in decades - Celtic F.C. reached the 2003 final of the UEFA Cup and have progressed to the last 16 of the Champions League, and Rangers to the 2008 final of the UEFA Cup. The Old Firm rivalry was interrupted in 2012, when the company running Rangers went into liquidation and the club was forced to restart in the fourth tier of Scottish Football. The two clubs then met twice in the Domestic Cup competitions, once in 2015 and once in 2016, during Rangers spell out the top league. The rivalry then resumed again in September 2016 when Rangers were promoted back into the Scottish Premiership.

The 1971 Ibrox disaster, in which 66 supporters were killed on an exit stairway with an old, unsafe design led to Rangers redeveloping their Ibrox Park over the next decade, replacing most of the terracing areas with seated grandstands, based on the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund.[36] It was the first major modernisation of a football stadium in Scotland for decades.

Partick Thistle rebuilt two stands at Firhill Stadium and hosted two other clubs who had been made homeless.

In 1986, Clyde became the first of several senior clubs to leave the stadium where they had played since the early years of the sport (1898 in their case); unusually in Scotland they did not own Shawfield Stadium, and the greyhound racing company which were the owners aimed to sell it for redevelopment (which never came to pass) and the football team was evicted.[37] It was the first in what would be a complicated and protracted series of relocations during the final years of the 20th and the outset of the 21st century. For Clyde, eight years of ground-sharing followed before their new home in Cumbernauld – ten miles from their old base in Rutherglen – was ready in 1994 (even then, it was still owned by the local authority rather than the club).[38]

By that time, the 1989 Hillsborough disaster had taken place, and its subsequent inquiry recommended all-seater stadia at the elite professional level,[39] something the Scottish Football League adopted as a rule, requiring almost all Scottish clubs to either upgrade their ageing stadia or construct new ones to comply with the new legislation (for example, both Easter Road and Tynecastle were entirely rebuilt in stages over the next 20 or so years,[40] with Hearts playing a small number of home matches at the neighbouring Murrayfield rugby stadium in the final phase of work).[41] Celtic spent one season – 1994–95 – away from home at Hampden Park[42] (between the national stadium's own periods of extensive renovation that required several national cup finals and Scotland fixtures to be played at the other large Glasgow venues)[43] which was familiar to many of the players from internationals and cup fixtures; indeed, the last match of their spell at Hampden before returning to a half-completed Celtic Park was the 1995 Scottish Cup Final, which they won. The sums spent by Celtic and others to modernise their stadia in that era was in contrast to Rangers who had carried out their major upgrades some years earlier, and this extra revenue was reflected in the Gers' dominance on the field in those years.[36]

Several middle-order teams such as Partick Thistle endured financial hardship modernising their ground,[44] exacerbated by a requirement of the new Scottish Premier League in 1998 (although it was actually set in place in 1994 with clubs given the intervening years to comply)[45] stipulating that a ground had to have 10,000 seats, far more than the average attendance of all but a handful of its members.[46]

A worse fate befell Airdrieonians who vacated their traditional Broomfield Park in 1994, had to wait four years for their new SPL-compliant Excelsior Stadium to be finished, then were out of business by 2002, unable to repay the cost of its construction. In their final match away to Ayr United, some Airdrie supporters staged a destructive pitch invasion at Somerset Park – the Ayr chairman happened to own the construction company which built Excelsior Stadium and was thus a major creditor of Airdrieonians;[47] however his club had not been burdened with the costly disruption of stadium rebuilding,[48] and nor would any major changes be seen at Somerset Park in the subsequent fifteen years.[49][50] A team continues to play in Airdrie, but at the time of its formation, Airdrie United was technically a rebranding of Clydebank,[51] another club which had vacated its old home and spent six seasons playing in Dumbarton and Greenock, with its attendance numbers dwindling all the while.[52] The Bankies fans formed a phoenix club of more modest character to compete in the Junior leagues.[53]

Almondvale Stadium was built to provide 10,000 seats as required at the time, however attendances rarely exceed half of that total.

Having been landlords to Clyde in the 1980s, Hamilton Academical almost went the way of Airdrieonians when their new stadium took seven years to materialise; it took the intervention of some Glasgow investors (who had previously been at the helm of Clyde)[54] to stabilise the Accies financially, and their youth-focused business model saw the club reach the top tier within a decade.[55]

Falkirk were denied promotion in 2000 (Aberdeen being spared possible relegation in a play-off)[56] and 2003 (Motherwell reprieved)[57] due to the condition of Brockville Park before they sold the town centre site for the construction of a supermarket (as Airdrie and Hamilton had done), sharing with Stenhousemuir for one year while their new stadium on the edge of town was being built. The Bairns were angered when Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who already had a new stadium but not of sufficient size, were allowed to join the SPL for the 2004–05 campaign on a ground-sharing agreement with Aberdeen[58] (100 miles away from their home city), albeit only for six months during expansion work, when Falkirk had been denied such an arrangement with Clyde or Airdrie United the year before.[59] This developments caused further annoyance for Partick Thistle as they were the club relegated from the top division when Inverness made their Aberdeen plan.[46] That summer, a reduction in the required seating capacity from 10,000 to 6,000 came into effect,[60] which benefitted clubs such Inverness,[61] Falkirk (who gained promotion in the first season in their new stadium) and later Hamilton, as smaller new venues were now acceptable without even having all four sides built up (to reach the lower threshold in 2008, Hamilton erected a 'temporary' stand for 700 which was still in place a decade later).

St Mirren Park is the most recent new stadium for a professional club in Scotland, completed in 2009.

Gretna also shared with Motherwell, a distance of 100 miles again, during their single campaign in the SPL in 2007–08; the league indicated that such plans would not be considered again due to the very poor condition of the Fir Park pitch as a result of so many matches being played on it.[62]

At either end of this unsettled period, St Johnstone (in 1989) and St Mirren (2009) both relocated to new grounds with much less upheaval than others mentioned above, due to the fact that the replacements were being constructed before the originals were vacated. This was also true further down the leagues for East Fife (1998) and Dumbarton (2000); however when East Stirlingshire vacated Firs Park in 2008, an intended tenancy of five years at nearby Stenhousemuir became ten years, during which time the club lost their league place, being relegated to the recently introduced Lowland Football League in 2016. In 2018, Shire moved in with Falkirk.[63]

Somerset Park in Ayr is an old stadium with a majority of terracing and less than 2000 seats but would now meet SPFL Premiership entry requirements

Ayr United's impressive form at the outset of the 2018–19 Scottish Championship season led observers to examine the latest SPFL entry requirements due to the possibility of the club achieving promotion while still based at the unmodernised Somerset Park (all other promoted teams' stadia since the advent of the new league body in 2013 had met the previous SPL seating threshold of 6000, therefore little attention was paid to the matter). It was confirmed that the SPFL statutes only required grounds to have 'bronze standard' facilities (500 covered places), meaning Somerset Park would be accepted as a Premiership venue with minimal improvements.[50][64]

The intensity of the Old Firm rivalry is fuelled by the clubs' historical duopoly in Scottish football, with most meetings between them being pivotal in deciding the destiny of a championship or cup, and anything but a title-winning season seen as a major disappointment particularly as it usually means the 'enemy' has won the trophy.

The Old Firm dominance as well as Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian's lesser success is particularly stark when expressed in colour as shown below, with other clubs' entries in red appearing sporadically and briefly other than a sustained period in the 15 years following World War II, the New Firm years of the 1980s, and the 2010s amid Rangers' financial collapse.

Since the Scottish Football League was formed, there have not been any seasons where neither Rangers or Celtic has been at least a cup finalist or league runner-up. In the circumstances it is perhaps more surprising that only once prior to World War II - 1927–28 - did the Old Firm clubs finish 1st and 2nd in the League and meet in the Scottish Cup final, and only once since the war and the establishment of the League Cup have they finished 1st and 2nd and met in both cup finals - this occurred in 1965–66.

Key:

Since foundation of Celtic in 1888[71][72][73]

• History of the Scotland national football team
• Scottish clubs in the FA Cup
• Scotch Professors

Sources

• Bob Crampsey (1990). The First 100 Years. Scottish Football League. ISBN 0-9516433-0-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)