Scotland v. England: 150 years of international football

One hundred and fifty years ago, Glasgow was the scene of the very first official international match in the history of association football. Every player who has pulled on a national team shirt, and every supporter who has watched their nation play, all follow in the footsteps of those select few who were witness to that historic day on 30 November 1872.

In the nineteenth century, the Scottish city of Glasgow, like so many other cities throughout the world, experienced major transformations due to industrialisation. From a town of just 70,000 inhabitants at the turn of the century, it had grown to become a major port and industrial centre with a population of over half a million by 1872. Thomas Sulman’s ‘Bird’s Eye View of Glasgow’, which featured in the 1864 Illustrated London News, gives a fascinating view of the city just prior to the time of the first international. Known as the second city of empire after London, it was famous for its cotton, shipbuilding, and heavy engineering industries visible on the the banks of the River Clyde.

With the growing population, the wealth disparity among Glaswegians also grew bigger and bigger, resulting in overpopulation in certain areas of the city that had long-term consequences. The Gorbals, an area on the south bank of the river Clyde, would turn into an area with one of the poorest living conditions in Europe, peaking in the 1930s. At this time you would also find the three biggest football stadiums in the world there, all capable of holding over 100,000 supporters. These included Ibrox, the home of Rangers, Parkhead, the home of Celtic; and Hampden Park, the home of Queen’s Park and the de facto national stadium.

 

On the Friday morning of 29 November, seven of the England party gathered to take the morning train from London Euston and the remainder caught the evening train, which arrived on the morning of the match. The opening of the Caledonian mainline in 1849 meant that it was possible to travel from London to Glasgow without changing trains, but the journey took twelve and a half hours. Hardly ideal preparation for a football match. The advance party stayed at the Carrick’s Royal Hotel at George Square in the centre of Glasgow and were joined the following morning by the others.

It was no surprise that Queen’s Park provided all the players for the Scottish eleven, as a Scottish football association had yet to be formed. Two trial matches had been held after Archibald Rae, the President of Queen’s Park, announced the plans for the game and appealed for recruits. The initial squad of 17 players included three rugby internationals and the London-based Arthur Kinnaird, but these four were not included in the final selection under the premise that it was Queen’s Park putting their reputation on the line, so they should be the ones playing.

The captain and selector was Robert Gardner, a founder member of Queen’s Park five years earlier. He played the first half in goal before swapping with Robert Smith in the second half and playing up front. Smith and his brother James were actually playing for West Norwood in London at the time, but both were founders of Queen’s Park and retained their membership. Of the 11 Scottish players, Billy Mackinnon went on to become the most successful footballer of the lot. By the end of the 1870s he was the world’s most-capped player with nine matches, and the leading scorer with five goals, all against England. He lived until the ripe age of 90, making him the longest-lived player from the match.

Two shirts that set a precedent for the future
Two players left something tangible for future generations. On display in the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park is the cap JJ Thompson was awarded for appearing in the first three Scottish internationals, while, remarkably, the shirt worn by England’s Arnold Kirke-Smith has survived and is on display at the National Football Museum in Manchester. In his book First Elevens, Andy Mitchell describes how the sister of David Wotherspoon stitched badges of a red lion rampant onto the blue shirts that Queen’s Park wore at the time, colours and a badge that are still worn by Scotland today. As can be seen from Kirke-Smith’s shirt, at a meeting of its committee on 14 November, England adopted white as the colour of their shirts with the national symbol of the three lions as the badge, a tradition that also survives to this day.

England were deprived of the services of their captain, Charles Alcock, as well as Morten Betts, who had scored the winning goal in the first FA Cup Final eight months earlier. Despite being injured, Alcock made the journey to Glasgow and was fit enough to be on the pitch as one of the two umpires, this being the era when the two umpires were on the pitch and the referee sat on the touchline.

For this match, the England captain was Cuthbert Ottaway, described as one of the finest sportsmen of his day. In 2020, to coincide with the 1000th match in England’s history, The Football Association created legacy numbers for every player to have appeared for the team, with Ottaway assigned number nine. At number one is Robert Barker, the goalkeeper. In the second half, just as Gardner did, Barker swapped positions with John Maynard to play with the forwards. Perhaps they felt they were missing out on the fun because the majority of the 22 players on the pitch were forwards. The style of play would have looked very different to the game we are familiar with today. The forwards would have roamed the field in packs, dribbling with the ball until consumed in a scrimmage, much like in rugby. Passing the ball was still in its infancy, though it was a tactic developed to great effect by Scotland in the early years of the game and which would give them the upper hand over England in many of the early internationals.

A ticket for a shilling and a smokey warm-up
The match was well-advertised with tickets selling for a shilling (twelve pence). The ground in Partick had the advantage of being enclosed, meaning that entry could only be obtained by paying. Also in the Scottish Football Museum is a ticket from the game – number 806 – and given there were receipts of £103 it would seem that the attendance was in the region of 2500, with ladies admitted without charge. Of the receipts, the West of Scotland Cricket Club was paid £20 for the hire of the ground and £69 was spent on the after-dinner meal at the Carrick’s Royal Hotel.

So, to the match itself. A photographer had been commissioned to commemorate the event but without any guarantees from the Scottish team that they would purchase prints, he upped and left. Thankfully the Glaswegian artist William Ralston was there, and his illustration of the game was reproduced in The Graphic two weeks later. The England team are depicted warming up in their coats while smoking their pipes and Gardner is seen defending the Scotland goal above the (incomplete) Scottish national motto Nemo Me Impune – no-one provokes me with impunity! Billy Mackinnon is the only named player in the illustration, shown clearing an English attack with a spectacular overhead kick.

14 forwards but no goals scored
The match reports describe the game, often in minute detail, with the ball going from one end to the other. But, despite 14 forwards on the pitch, the game finished goalless. “At once the play became fast and furious” according to The Field, which added “the slippery condition of the ground, was detrimental to the hopes of any very brilliant dribbling on the part of the Englishmen.” Scotland, playing downhill on a pitch with a marked slope seemed to have had the better of the first half and they certainly had the best chance. According to the Glasgow Herald, “Leckie took a shot at goal, which roused the enthusiastic shouts of the spectators, who thought the ball had gone under. Alas, no! It struck the tape, but unfortunately, instead of going under, it rolled over. A close shave; but shaves don’t count.”

England then seemed to have the better of the second half. According to The Sportsman “the Englishmen, now becoming more accustomed to their opponents' play, acted as besiegers, and within a short time the ball was well taken down to the Scotch goal, which was only saved by the judicious keeping of R. Smith. Again another general rush, and once more the Scottish fortress was assailed so closely that, first by A. Kirke-Smith and then by C.J. Chenery, it was kicked absolutely against one of the posts.”

When time was called, no goals had been scored. The Sporting Life noted that “three hearty cheers were given to the English team, a compliment they returned to the Scottish team.” Arrangements were then made for a return match in the Spring of 1873 and an annual game in the Spring every year after. The pattern was set with Wales joining the fixture list in 1876 and then Ireland in 1884. It wasn’t until 40 years after the game in Partick that the rest of the world joined in; Austria, Hungary, Argentina and Uruguay in 1902; and Belgium and France in 1904, a month before the formation of FIFA.

The West of Scotland Cricket Ground is still there, now sitting in the heart of Glasgow as the city expanded around it. Two more internationals were played there but it was another ground that would become the home of Scotland’s national team: Hampden Park. First used in an international in 1878 the ground changed sites twice before ending up where it stands to this day - all within a stone’s throw of each other. The development of Hampden Park’s current location in 1903 gave the Scottish Football Association the largest football stadium in the world at the time.