1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball The Media in Scotland is a reserved matter. It is run by the London Government. Take Andrew Watson. Scroll back to the 1990s. After almost a decade and with crucial help from my fellow curators at the Scottish Football Museum particularly Tommy Malcolm, I proved that...

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Laws Offside is the thing. IFAB 1886 Scots played a 2 man offside rule. England 3. Jonathan Wilson claims this is what startled the English in 1872. QPFC had a passing game. (Did you know that?) England had ‘head-down charging’. Influence of the amateur Poshies.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball Laws The game rumbled on, in the 1880s, with four international teams. There were still issues (Marindin’s secret offside rules cheating QPFC out of an English Cup). So, back we go for another attempt and hello International Football Association Board! It is 1886.

For the first time we're delighted to meet 19th century Jag DAVID BRUCE, here pictured for Glasgow in 1892. His page is fully developed today to celebrate the find... 👀 👉 thethistlearchive.net/david-bruce

Remembering former CFC player Tommy Miller. It is not known where his final resting place is.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball Laws I am interested in certain types of rules. Not for what they are, but for what they say about the game. Now, most people think the founding of the London/English FA in 1863 gave us the rules. Nah. Hello to the IFC. Do you think there were no rules before 1863?

🆕 Another newly discovered fixture (1912) to the first team database... for the 11th time since 1898, Thistle's season opens on the 15th August, now noted in the press as a bit of a tradition... sorry we missed it, albeit data remains scant... 👀 👉 thethistlearchive.net/match-1912-0...

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball 1872 First International: a Scottish story. In Scotland, things are going nicely. The boys from the north have brought their football to Glasgow. The size of the country meant that communication and football, pre-railways was good. Their Football was Glasgow Football.

JOHN CAMERON is a Jag; a hidden secret from 1883 is revealed! 👀 @andymitchellmedia.bsky.social 👉 www.thethistlearchive.net/john-cameron-i

A recent anniversary event in Limerick ensures that the legacy of the first ever captain of @thehibees.bsky.social is set in stone! @hfcsupporters.bsky.social @hibernianretro.bsky.social @hibstrust.bsky.social @hibsobserver.bsky.social

19th century fitba' 👀 👉 thethistlearchive.net/match-1883-0...

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball 1872 First International: an English story. It is 1871. You’re Charles Alcock. It is like herding cats. No-one is sticking to the rules! The universities are worst. Join the EFA then change the rules! Sheffield and Nottingham are too far away to visit and enforce.

120 years ago, today, the Toffees won their first FA Cup final. A Sandy Young goal from a Jack Sharp cross secured victory. Skipper Jack Sharp lifted the trophy. Our member Kieran Smith wrote Sunday’s EFC programme article about that season & has a book on it due out soon.

1 of 6 #scotsfoundedfootball The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence. The esteemed historian Andy Mitchell made the point to me, recently, that AI is ‘like arguing with Wikipedia, no matter how wrong, it is 'a source’. No-one ever grades these sources. For me they ‘flood the zone’. © Steve Bannon

1 of 6 #scotsfoundedfootball I’ve been reading biogs of footie poshies. So you don’t have to. ‘Alfred Lyttelton: An Account of His Life’ by Edith Lyttelton (1917) His second wife. The one in 'The English Game' - Laura Tennant d. 1886 - a few days after giving birth.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Charles Alcock was nothing if not constant. In dissembling. Note his recollections. He started his nonsense early - in 1874 with ‘Football: Our Winter Game”. Number of pages? 139. Uses of the words Scot/Scotch/Scotland? FIVE. I feel a sense of foreboding.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Anent Alcock’s dissembling. This ex-Harrovian just KNOWS that the southern English amateur founded football. The #EnglishExceptionalism oozes out of him. I do respect him as a clever mind. He spent 30 years rewriting the history of football.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Charles Alcock is a trier. He does not stop digging. He has to push forward with his hypothesis that both Scotland AND Sheffield are the inventors of the Combination Game. Won’t you try this lovely non sequitur? p. 37 ‘The example of the Sheffield players was not lost...

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Some people shudder at my use of the term ‘lies’. So let us look at that word. If I tell you that 2 + 2 = 5, I am mistaken. If you tell me that 2 + 2 = 4, I am educated. If I then continue to say 2 + 2 = 5, I am now lying. I am rejecting objective truths for prejudice.

1 of 6 #scotsfoundedfootball Charles Alcock ’s 1906 book is a mass of contradictions. Charles confuses himself again and again. He has to discuss the Combination Game, but how can he explain it, whilst simultaneously denying the #scotchprofessor and promoting England? Here’s how.

Things are hotting up for next month's 50th anniversary of the 1976 European Cup final at Hampden Park between St Etienne and Bayern Munich. It is the French team - who lost - who are marking the event simply because it was such a crazy adventure for Les Verts. This new book updates the original.

Blackburn Olympic, pictured below, were the first club from the North of England to win the FA Cup. They overcame Old Etonians in the 1883 final. Their victory signalled a changing of the guard where football was concerned. It wasn't just a game for toffs or the elite anymore.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball You can see why my writing is both easy and impossible. The facts are so obvious and easily analysed, yet the history of Football generally does not deal in analysis. All we have our bland assertions: Public Schools invented Football. England is the Home of Football.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball ‘Football: The Association Game’ by Charles Alcock published 1906. The source of many modern lies. Mr Alcock lived in Mendacity Town, Duplicity County, Pennsylvania. Lies part 1 - page 31 the dribbling game/backing up. ‘backing-up existed more in theory than practice.

For the full rundown on the Six Feet Club, which was founded in 1826 for tall men around Edinburgh and included Sir Walter Scott as a member, you can't do better than read Peter Radford's impressive history on the Athlos site: athlos.co.uk/media/wrlpg2...

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball I have a quote from a magisterial book ‘Inverting the Pyramid’ by Jonathan Wilson (2008). Wilson quotes Alcock from the 1870s talking about ‘Backing Up’. This is the tactic of following a dribbler, in case they lose the ball, when it bounces away after a tackle.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Via Sheffield Football, allow me to have a swipe at Charles Alcock. I noticed his sleekitness when I was looking at the idea of taking a mark in ball games. I check Wiki because that is where the general fan looks. Sceptical but... I look at references/footnotes.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Some of you might have noticed that I hope to have at least 4 books out, in 2026. No. 1 is ‘100 Reason...’ tinyurl.com/44hpptep Number 2 will be ‘100 More Reasons...’ That should cover the major talking points I have pushed, in the last 35 years.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Following from yesterday, Tommy Malcolm has another depth charge destroying English ‘history’. (Intro). Sheffield “...saw themselves as the driving force of football south of the border and in light of this assumed snub they issued a challenge to Scotland...”.

If I can make it through I'll be there. Otherwise you can bring it on to our podcast!

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball One cannot mention Sheffield without praise for Tommy Malcom’s ‘Glasgow v Sheffield’. A light tome, with weighty research. Buy it. I will again plunder its riches. First anomaly? There were two sets of rules used in the early contests. Scottish and (Northern) English.

One for @gedboy58.bsky.social some interesting point on Scottish company setting up first professional league outside of the UK in the USA!

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball If you read Friday’s posts - in the late 1860s - the ‘London’ FA was in deep trouble. Not that you would know it, from most general histories of football. Readers are misled into thinking that 1863 was the start. It means Alcock was the smartest operator in England.

Coming up on BBC Radio 4: The Reunion with Kirsty Wark, looking back at Scotland in the 1998 World Cup from all angles. Featuring Paul Lambert, Craig Burley and a variety of others, including me. Broadcast on Easter Day at 10am and then available on iPlayer. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Some more quotes from one of my favourite books: ‘Code Wars’. Things began to run more ‘smoothly’ for the EFA with Oxford University going London Rules in Nov 1871. Maybe here was something with which we could paper over the cracks in English football.

Alec Brady, one of the ‘First Kings of Anfield’, was born 2 April 1865. Having won the league with EFC, the forward moved to Celtic. Celtic Graves Society and EFCHS joined forces to rededicate his grave in 2016. Read more, here: efcheritagesociety.com/13-apr-2016/

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball One of the points I continually stress is that England could not have been the Founders of Football for many reasons, one of which is the cancer of social class separation. ‘The Code Wars’ (p.40) has a quote. Charles Clegg of The Wednesday played for England in 1872.

1 of 5 I had a good time on Saturday discussing history with my two esteemed colleagues Iain Campbell Whittle and Alistair Firth. ICW’s website continues to astound. Let me pick one tiny morsel he shared with me: JJ Lang. Now this #scotchprofessor is normally discussed as an early professional.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1847 Robert Gardner born Glasgow. Scotland’s first team captain 1872. Started as a forward. One of the most important footballers of all time, for his position at QPFC: the club that influenced modern world football. Not THE Founders but crucial, nevertheless.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball As the first English Football region, Sheffield did a fair amount of work around the north of England. They played Leeds FC in ’64. Nottingham FC in ’65 under home rules. Manchester FC under EFA rules ’66. The London FA at Battersea Park, in March ’66. Say what now?!

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1884 Blackburn Rovers 2 QPFC 1 English Cup Final Marindin cheated the Spiders out of a trophy. The game that, I am sure, played a part in the SFA banning their members from entering. Observe the skulduggery of Major Marindin, in that time when Laws were fluid.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1885 Here is a curiosity. English FA Cup Quarter-Final replay QPFC v Nottingham Forest at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh. QPFC played 8 games in that competition before becoming losing finalists 4th April 0-2 to Blackburn Rovers.

#OTD 27 March 1871, Scotland v England in the first rugby international at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh. A few years back I discovered the only known illustration of the match: www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-histo...

tinyurl.com/44hpptep Finally. The first of a good few books on the subject of how #scotsfoundedfootball

Good piece on the Clapton history blog about John Lambie, another example of a Scotch Professor bringing the "combination game" to England. Likely to be of interest to @gedboy58.bsky.social & @andymitchellmedia.bsky.social tonshistory.co.uk/2026/03/18/j...

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1886 Scotland 1 England 1 at the Second Hampden. 4 Dumbarton, 4 QPFC, 1 each Edinburgh Uni, Battlefield, Pollokshields Ath. England: 9 claiming Corinthian membership with Pa Jackson as an umpire. SFA object to James Forrest - professional from Blackburn Rovers.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball Now, let us concentrate on the alleged primacy of the English FA. I will NOT call it the FA. They had 2 provincial clubs: Sheff and Lincoln. Meh. BUT you had teams in the North West who were not yet rid of their ‘rugby’ leanings. BUT the Sheff FA was quite independent.

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1876 West of Scotland Cricket Ground Scotland 4 Wales 0. Scotland’s sixth match ever. First ever for Wales. A creditable performance, then. The attendance is given as 17,000. Others say 12k. Always be suspicious of numbers which end in three zeroes.

#OTD 23 March 1895, first match of the British Ladies Football Club, led by the enigmatic Nettie Honeyball. Want to know more about her? Read on: www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-histo...

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1912 Hampden Park Scotland v England 127,307 World record at the time. So: 43 years before Rangers v Hibs and only 42 years after the world’s First International, we have this stunning attendance. Almost equidistant in time and just before the WW1 cataclysm.