Football in Germany

In November 1899 the Football Association sent a team to Germany and Austria on the invitation of Walter Bensemann. The tourists, as expected, thrashed the hosts.
Back home The Athletic News anticipated the matches with a rather uncharitable caricature of the portly and eccentrically equipped bon vivants reputed to represent The German Empire.

Internazionale v Juventus, 1910

A scene from one of the Juventus v Internazionale matches in 1910.
The goalposts appear to be far from perpendicular.

Christmas Day 1888

4 Irish teams entered the FA Cup in the 1888-89 season.
The  2nd qualifying round  included 2 all Irish ties, as Linfild beat Ulster 7-1 and Cliftonville beat Belfast YMCA 5-0. 
In the 3rd qualifying round Cliftonville benefited from a walkover at the expense of Liverpool Stanley, whilst  Linfield recorded  a 4-0 home win over Bolton Wanderers in what was considered the biggest FA Cup upset to date.
In the 4th qualifying round the 2 surviving Irish teams were drawn together, and it took 3 matches to separate them.  Following successive 3-3 draws Linfield won the Christmas Day game 7-0.

This is the only time that an FA Cup tie has been played on Christmas Day .

The Belfast News - Letter  26.12.88

Billy Meredith

44,000 were present at Bank Street on Christmas Day 1907 to see Manchester United beat Bury 2-1. United led the table from September and won their first League Championship title by 9 points.
Billy Meredith opened the scoring for United in the Christmas fixture .

Catalunya v France, 1912

This image is from a card issued by Chocolates Amatller of Barcelona. It shows action from the Catalunya v France match played at camp del carrer Indústria on 01.12.12 (the rear of the card dates the match as being played on 01.01.13). Catalunya won 1-0. 
The player referred to in the caption is Gabriel Bau (Futbol Club Espanya).

3 goals in only England appearance

You might think that scoring 3 goals on your first appearance for England would presage a glittering future in international football. Or at least a second cap. Here are 5 men who scored 3 on debut but were never called upon again...

Albert Allen 1888
The Aston Villa inside forward was 21 years old when he made his sole England appearance. He was drafted into the team to travel to Ireland in place of Neville Cobbold.
Allen scored England's 2nd, 3rd and 4th goals in a 5-1 win in the rescheduled match at Ulster Cricket Ground on 07.04.88.
His top class football career was ended by ill health in 1891.

Jack Yates 1889
Yates began his career at Accrington and won the FA Cup with Blackburn Olympic in 1883. At the time he was a cotton weaver (legalized professionalism was 2 years away). Following a return to Accrington Yates joined Burnley in 1888. He was 28 when he was awarded his cap in the match against Ireland at  Anfield on 02.03.89. Yates, playing at outside left, scored  the 2nd, 3rd and 6th goals as England won 6-1.
 England's selection was weakened due to the fact that 4 FA Cup ties were played on this day (featuring Preston North End, The Wednesday, Wolverhampton Wanders, West Bromwich Albion  and  AstonVilla).

Walter Gilliat 1893
Gilliat (who later became a reverend) was an Old Carthusian and Oxford Blue (1892). 
The  23 year old played at inside left for England against Ireland at Wellington Road on 25.02.93. Gilliat was called up the day before the match when Cunliffe Gosling withdrew with an injury. England fielded 7 debutants, including G.O Smith. 
Gilliat scored the first 3 of England's goals (in the 8th,18th and 30th minutes) in a 6-1 win.


John Veitch 1894
Old Westminsters' 24 year old inside left came into the England side that faced Wales at The Racecourse, Wrexham  on 12.03.94. England won 5-1 with Veitch getting the 1st, 3rd and 4th goals. Contemporary reports suggest that the first and second of his goals were of a particularly high quality.

Frank Bradshaw 1908
Vivian Woodward scored 4 goals in England's resounding win over Austria in Vienna on 08.06.08. The Wednesday's 24 year old centre forward Frank Bradshaw bagged 3 in an 11-1 win.

Lietuvos Fizinio Lavinimosi Sąjunga Kaunas

Lietuvos Fizinio Lavinimosi Sąjunga Kaunas v Rygos JKS 08.06.22 in Kaunas. Rygos (Riga YMCA) were 4-0 winners. LFLS are in the dark jerseys.

 Lietuvos Fizinio Lavinimosi Sąjunga Kaunas, known as LFLS, won the first Lithuanian championship in 1922.
They took the title with considerable ease, winning all nine matches and scoring 48 goals in the process.
The club's reserve team finished in 3rd place in the 6 team league.

Burma

Sir George Scott (1851-1935) was a Scottish Colonial Administrator and journalist who spent most of his life in Burma.  In the late 1870s and early 1880s he was a master at St John's College, Rangoon, where he introduced Association football to the locals.

Women's Football

A charming illustration of an international match between England and France.

Kinnaird's own goal

The Hon. Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird (Lord Kinnaird from 1887) has a distinguished FA Cup record.
He appeared in 9 finals (he played for Wanderers and Old Etonians), was on the winning side 3 times, playing as a forward, halfback,  back and goalkeeper. He scored twice in Finals.
He also has the distinction of being the first player to score an own goal in a final.
The incident occurred in the 15th minute or thereabouts of the  Wanderers versus Oxford University Cup Final of 1877.
Some contemporary accounts ( I've read the ones in the London Evening Standard, and Sheffield Independent)  credit the goal to Waddington.

There is plenty of evidence for the own goal:
...a long kick by Waddington drove the ball sharply into the centre of the posts and Kinnaird inadvertently stepped back between the posts with the ball in his hands. An immediate appeal was made to the umpires and after some consultation the verdict was given in favour of Oxford- a decision that seemed to be quite correct and fully confirmed by the spectators in the immediate vicinity of the wanderers goal.
Oxford University Herald 31.03.77

Waddington made a splendid kick clear from the centre of the ground, and Kinnaird misjudging it, to the amazement of the spectators, falling back into his goal, the umpires, after a lengthy consultation, properly awarding a goal to Oxford.
Nottinghamshire Guardian 30.03.77

An oft repeated addendum to this story is that Kinnaird later used his influence to have this goal expunged from the records until it was reinstated 'some 50 years after Kinnaird's death'. 
If that was the case football history books, annuals, newspaper reports etc from the first 70 odd years of the 20th century would show the score as being 2-0 in favour of Wanderers, 
Try as I might I have not been able to find any evidence of the score being recorded as 2-0. 

The 'Swift'

This ball was used in the match between Albion and Belgrano Athletic Club on August 12th 1900. The match, a semi-final of the Tie Cup, was played in Montevideo, Belgrano winning 1-0 in extra time. 

The English made ball sold at auction for $4,817 in 2014.

Free Kicks at Football

Here is a link to this interesting football pamphlet, published in Glasgow in 1882:  http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/jan2004.html