Edinburgh

Edinburgh occupies a significant place in the pre-history of football, The Foot-Ball Club being active from 1824-1841. In the Association era, however, it was the west of Scotland that set the pace- the oldest clubs being Queen's Park (1867) and Kilmarnock (1869). The 8 clubs who formed the Scottish Football Association and the further 8 who joined them in the inaugural Scottish Cup (1873–74) were all from the west.

In order to spread the popularity of the game The Scottish FA arranged an exhibition match at Edinburgh. The game was played at Edinburgh Royal High School FP football ground (a Rugby ground) on  December 27th 1873. 

Morning Post - 20.12.73

Among those who witnessed this exhibition, the first time Association (the Queen's Park variant) had been played in the capital, were members of the Heart of Midlothian club. Originally a dancing club, the members had been playing a form of football in 1873 but now decided to adopt the Association rules. In 1875 the club became members of the Scottish Football Association and were founder members of the Edinburgh Football Association.

Tom Purdie, founder member and first captain.

1873

 We have previously alluded to the position of the Queen's Park club as a de facto governing body within Scottish football.

It comes as no surprise, then, to find that when steps were taken to actually form a Scottish Football Association that Queen's Park were the originators of the scheme. 

It all began with a proposal for a knock out competition along the lines of the FA Cup. On February 8th 1873 the committee of Queen's Park instructed the secretary, Archibald Rae to write to all Scottish clubs proposing a cup competition.

The resulting meeting on 13th March, 1873, was attended by representatives of  the following clubs (along, of course, with Queen's Park themselves):

 Clydesdale

Founded 1872, dissolved 1881, based in Kinning Park in south Glasgow (later home to Rangers).

Vale of Leven

Founded 1872, dissolved 1929, from Alexandria in West Dunbartonshire (to the west of Glasgow).In 1876 they became the first club to defeat Queen's Park ever! One of the first teams to seriously challenge the dominance of Queen's Park. Won the cup in 1877, 1878 and 1879.

Rovers FC

1873-78. Played at The Queen's Park , a public park in which Queen's Park had originally played. Rovers expressed an interest in the venture, but are not listed as founding members of the SFA.

Dumbreck

1871-79, based at Glasgow's Ibroxhill.

3rd Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers

Founded in 1872, the Cathkin Park club survived until 1967. Their military connections were by then a distant memory. Cup winners in 1889 and 1905.

Eastern
Active from 1873-85 Eastern were another 'public park' team based in Glasgow.

Granville 
1872-78. This was Granville's only entry into The Scottish Cup. 3 of the players in Scotland's first international XI were members of the club (as well as being members of Queen's Park).

The resolution passed on March 13th was:

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.

The first elected officials were: 

President: Archibald Campbell (Clydesdale) 

Hon. treasurer: Mr. William Ker (Queen's Park)

Hon.secretary: Archibald Rae (Queen's Park) 

Committee:James Turnbull (Dumbreck), Don. McFarlane (Vale of Leven), Eben Hendry (Clydesdale), W. E. Dick (Third Lanark), John Mackay (Granville), James McIntyre (Eastern), Robert Gardner (Queen's Park), and William Gibb (Clydesdale).

 A special mention is due to :

Kilmarnock

One of the oldest clubs in Scotland, founded in 1869, Kilmarnock were technically not founder members. They did, however, send a letter to the meeting giving their support to the proposals . They had to wait a while for their cup successes, which came in 1920, 1929, and 1997.

These 9 clubs were joined by the following 7 for the first round of the the first edition of the Scottish FA Cup in October 1873.

Alexandra  Athletic
1873-84- based in the East End of Glasgow.

Callander
1872-74- a short lived Glasgow club who were Rangers' first ever opponents.

Dumbarton
1872- present. Currently in the second tier of Scottish football. Appeared in 6 Cup Finals in the 19th century , winning in 1883.

Renton
1872-1922.  The Dunbartonshire club were one of the big names in 19th century game.  Played in 5 Cup Finals in the 19th Century, winning in 1885 and 1888. They were World Champions in 1888.

Blythswood
1872-79. From Kelvinside in Glasgow.

Southern
1872-75. Scratched from their only ever Scottish FA Cup match.

Western
1873-78. Another Glasgow suburban team.

Scotland abroad!

Were the Scottish FA conservative?
There's a strong case for Scotland having been the strongest team in World football for much of the period before 1930. And yet they were slow to take any interest in continental opposition.  When one considers the influence that Scottish football and footballers had on the development of the game on the continent (particularly central Europe) you can't help thinking that people in Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Germany would have packed out any ground where the Scots appeared had they gone to Europe.
Scottish clubs, of course, were another matter: There were club tours by
Queen's Park to Denmark in 1898; Celtic and Glasgow Rangers to Vienna and Prague in 1904; Aberdeen to Prague and Poland 1911; Heart of Midlothian to Denmark in 1912; Third Lanark to Portugal in 1914 (Third also toured North and South America in the 1920s)
Select Scottish Juniors played Brann Bergen (Norway) in 1920.


But the national team played 143 internationals without meeting anyone other than England, Wales or Ireland (admittedly Wales and (Northern) Ireland were even slower to take to continental fixtures, but they would never have held the mass appeal that Scottish football enjoyed).

The delayed entry onto a broader stage could be attributed in part to the political climate in the post 1914-19 era, which was not conducive to the 'Home Nations' playing in Europe. This was due to the firm stance that they took on sporting relations with their recent enemies.

Scotland had become affiliated to FIFA in 1910 ( five years after England). In 1919 the four 'home' associations withdrew from FIFA. There is a  modern version of events that this was to do with amateurism, whereas in fact it was in order to sever sporting contacts with teams from the countries that had comprised The Central Powers during the 1914-18 war ( Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia).

The rigor with which the home FAs pursued this policy can be seen in the fact that it extended to not playing against teams who had links with these nations ( see - British Football's Post-War Ostracism of The Defeated Powers in Scoring for Britain: International Football and International Politics, 1900-1939  by Peter J. Beck).

The Home Associations did not renew their affiliations to FIFA until 1946, but in the interim Great Britain had competed in an Olympic tournament (1920- despite the protests of the USA that as England was not a member of FIFA they should not be allowed to enter theOlympic football tournament) and both England and Scotland played full internationals against a number of nations who had been part of the Central Powers. In 1930 England visited Berlin and Vienna , and were in Prague and Budapest 4 years later. Also Belgium and France readily played matches against the non FIFA England during the decade in which FIFA threatened sanctions against teams playing the non FIFA Soviet Union.

But this is a digression. what I originally intended to write about was Scotland abroad. The tour of 1929. 

26.05.1929 Norway 3 Scotland 7  (Bergen)

Imrie was  actually the scorer.
 01.06.1929 Germany 1 Scotland 1      (Berlin)

04.06.1929 Holland 0 Scotland 2   (Amsterdam)

 Scotland selected an inexperienced squad for the tour, including 9 uncapped players in the party of 14.
There were 3 survivors from April's 1-0 win over England. All three of these players (Crapnell, Nibloe and Cheyne) had been debutants in the England game.
Squad: 
Sandy McLaren* (St Johnstone) 
Jimmy Crapnell (Airdrieonians)
Joe Nibloe (Kilmarnock)
 Dougie Gray (Rangers) 
Willie Imrie* (St Johnstone) 
Hugh Morton* (Kilmarnock) 
Allan Craig* (Motherwell)
 Tully Craig [c] (Rangers)
  Jimmy Nisbet* (Ayr United) 
Alex Cheyne (Aberdeen)
 David McCrae* (St Mirren) 
Bobby Rankin* (St Mirren) 
Jimmy Fleming* (Rangers) 
Bobby Howe* (Hamilton Academical) 
 *9 men made their debuts on this trip.

McLaren and Imrie- St Johnstone legends...  

Sandy McLaren remains the youngest goalkeeper to play for Scotland, as he made his debut aged 18 years and 152 days. Willie Imrie remains the only St Johnstone player to score for Scotland.