The growth of International Football -1905

Switzerland


1905

12.2.05   France 1-0 Switzerland (Parc des Princes, Paris) 
25.2.05   England 1-1 Ireland   (Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough)

  6.3.05   Wales 3-1 Scotland (Racecourse Ground, Wrexham)

18.3.05   Scotland 4-0 Ireland (Celtic Park, Glasgow)

27.3.05   England 3-1 Wales (Anfield, Liverpool)

  1.4.05   England 1-0 Scotland (The Crystal Palace, London)

  8.4.05   Ireland 2-2 Wales (Solitude, Belfast)

  9.4.05   Hungary 0-0 Austria   (Millenáris, Budapest)

30.4.05   Belgium 1-4 Netherlands  (Beerschot AC-Platz,  Antwerp)

  7.5.05   Belgium 7-0 France   (Vivier d'Oie, Brussels)   

14.5.05   Netherlands 4-0 Belgium   (Schuttersveld, Rotterdam)

15.8.05   Argentina 0-0 Uruguay   (Campo de la Sociedad Sportiva Arg. Buenos Aires) 

Netherlands

The continental football scene expanded as FIFA members Switzerland and Netherlands played their inaugural matches. England joined FIFA in April.
The first international trophies were introduced, Netherlands and Belgium played for the Coupe Vanden Abeele and Argentina and Uruguay contested the Copa Lipton. The Copa Lipton match ended goalless; extra time was played but this was abandoned after 24 minutes due to nightfall. The records show Uruguay as being the winners, as they were awarded the trophy as the visitors!

Sunderland v Aston Villa, 1895

Sunderland 4 Aston Villa 4, January 2nd 1895, Newcastle Rd, Sunderland.

Painted by Thomas M.M. Hemy (1852-1931)

Forest FC 1863

                                                                                                                                                       

Forest FC predated Association Football. Formed in 1859 by a group of former public schoolboys under the direction of CW Alcock, they played in a variety of codes.
They played near Epping Forest, hence the name. In 1863 the Forest Club was among the founder members of The Football Association (the FA) and adopted the rules set down by that body, although they continued to play occasional matches under other sets of rules against clubs not affiliated to the FA.
The club changed its name to Wanderers in 1864.
The picture above is the earliest Association team photograph that I have come across.

The growth of International Football - 1904

France (Union des Sociétés Françaises des Sports Athlétiques)

1904

29.2.04       Wales   2-2   England       (Racecourse Ground, Wrexham)

12.3.04      Ireland   1-3   England       (Solitude, Belfast)

12.3.04   Scotland   1-1   Wales          (Dens Park, Dundee)

21.3.04       Wales   0-1   Ireland         (Farrar Rd.,Bangor)

26.3.04      Ireland   1-1   Scotland      (Dalymount Park, Dublin) 

  9.4.04   Scotland   0-1   England        (Celtic Park,Glasgow)
  1.5.04    Belgium   3- 3  France          (Vivier d'Oie, Brussels)
  2.6.04    Hungary  3-0   Austria          (Millenáris Budapest)
9.10.04      Austria  5 -4  Hungary        (Cricketer-Platz, Vienna)

A significant year as the football associations of  Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands met in Paris along with Union des Sociétés Françaises des Sports Athlétiques to form The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) .

FIFA proposed an international tournament to be held in Switzerland in 1906, but this never came to fruition. 
Member nations Belgium and France joined the international football family, Austria and Hungary continued their local rivalry. 

Cuthbert Ottaway (England, 1872 -1874)

His beautiful science exhibited how a ball ought to be taken through a host of foes.

Cuthbert Ottaway was the first ever England captain, in the game against Scotland on 30th November 1872. He also led England to a 2-1 defeat at Partick in the third international on 7th March 1874. These were his only 2 caps.
Ottaway, who was an accomplished cricketer and all round sportsman represented  Old Etonians, Oxford University, Crystal Palace and Marlow.
He played in three successive FA Cup finals from 1873 to 1875, losing 1-2 with Oxford University against Wanderers in 1873, winning 2-0 with Oxford University against Royal Engineers a year later, and then representing Old Etonians against Royal Engineers in 1875. Ottaway sustained an ankle injury in the first half of the drawn 1875 final. He left the field and was not fit for the replay.  In fact there is no evidence that he ever played senior football again after this match.
He died in 1878, aged 27.

Uruguay League 1900

C.U.R.C.C.

1900 

1. C.U.R.C.C.                  6   6  0  0  36- 2  12 
2. Albion                      6   4  0  2  22- 6   8 
3. Uruguay Athletic            6   1  0  5   3-25   2 
4. Deutscher                   6   1  0  5   3-31   2 

 

The first Uruguayan league was contested in 1900 between four Montevideo based sides.

C.U.R.C.C. came out on top with a 100% record and a goal difference of plus 34.

Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club - was established in 1891 (football first being played in 1892) by workers of the eponymous British owned railway company. 72 of the original 118 members were British. In 1913 CU.R.C.C., having severed their links with the railway company, changed their name to that of the suburb where they were based- Penarol.

Estadio Gran Parque Central - Deutscher v C.U.R.C.C., 1900

Albion- William Leslie Poole, the father of Uruguayan football, was the founder of The English High school in Montevideo. In 1891 his students, led by the splendidly named 18 year old,  Henry Candid Lichtenberger, founded a club that they called Football Association, intended to be exclusively for Uruguayan born players. Their earliest games were against Poole's own club, Montevideo Cricket, who stuffed them. The youngsters changed the name of their club to Albion in honour of the English origins of the Association game.

Uruguay Athletic - founded in the suburb of Punta Carretas in1898. Their 3rd place (of 4) in 1900 was their joint best ever. Folding in 1903 they chalked up an unenviable:
Played: 36,Won: 9,Drawn: 2, Lost : 25, For: 26, Against: 91.

 Deutscher- unsurprisingly founded by the German community in Montevideo, they were active from 1896 to 1909.

National Colours circa.1900

The national colours of the four home nations* are iconic, symbols central to our sense of national identity that resonate far beyond the touchlines of the football field. If however, we were to go back to 1900, we might be surprised at what we saw...

England's kit has hardly changed. They have consistently played in white since their very first match in 1872, and the three lions crest of the Football Association was emblazoned on the jerseys even then. White knickers were worn until March 1882 when  navy blue came in. Players generally wore their club stockings.
When James Forrest of Blackburn Rovers became the first openly professional player to represent England in 1886 he was required to wear a different coloured jersey to his amateur team mates (possibly on the insistence of the vehemently amateur Scottish FA).



Scotland wore Royal blue in the first ever international as this was , at the time , the colours of Queen's Park (who provided the entire Scotland team). They had flirtations with primrose and pink, the Rosebery colours (1881, 1900-01, 1905-09),  and navy and white hoops (1882). A change was necessary when their blue clashed with Ireland's (see below)  and they wore either white or black and white hoops (akin to the later Queen's Park strip). Players wore their club stockings.





Wales didn't play in red regularly until after 1900. There is no record of the colour of their jerseys for their first international match in 1876**, and in fact evidence is scarce for much of the 1876-1901 period, although Wales generally wore white or green and white halves.
In the game with England in February 1881 both sides wore white shirts with Wales wearing sashes, and in 1883 they wore crimson for the same fixture.
Players wore their club stockings right up until the 1930's.




The biggest surprise of all - Ireland played in blue- St Patrick's Blue. And this persisted up until after the rift of 1921 (although post WW1 the blue was darker) when the Free State (Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland began to field separate teams. Free State wore green for the 1924 Olympics, and Northern Ireland stuck with blue until 1931. 
Prior to this Ireland only wore green (but sometimes white) when they clashed with Scotland's blue. 




* Ireland represented the entire island until 1921.
** my personal theory is that the Welsh FA, being only a month old at this time and probably short of cash, that Wales might not even have had uniform kit for the match, and played in the colours of Druids. I have no evidence to support this flight of fancy.

Turkey-The Istanbul Sunday League

HMS Imogene FC 1904-05

 Cadi-keuy FC 1905-06

Cadi-keuy FC 1906-07

 

 Moda FC 1907-1908

Galatasaray SK 1908-09

Galatasaray SK 1909-10

 

Galatasaray SK 1910-11

 Fenerbahçe SK 1911-12

 

 Fenerbahçe SK 1913-14

The Istanbul Sunday League was started in 1904 and was the first football league in Turkey. With Turks legally barred from playing football, foreign influence, particularly British and Greek, was great. In fact, the first ever winners of the Istanbul Sunday League were HMS Imogene FC, drawn from the crew of a British naval vessel. By 1906 more familiar names were appearing: Galatasaray won 3 titles in a row up to 1911, followed by the first triumph of their arch rivals Fenerbahçe. 

The growth of International Football - 1903

Uruguay and Argentina

1903

  14.2.03        England   4-0   Ireland       (Molineux,Wolverhampton)
    2.3.03        England   2-1   Wales        (Fratton Park, Portsmouth)
    9.3.03          Wales    0-1   Scotland    (Cardiff Arms Park)
  21.3.03      Scotland    0-2   Ireland       (Celtic Park, Glasgow)
  28.3.03         Ireland    2-0  Wales         (Solitude, Belfast)
    4.4.03        England   1-2   Scotland     (Bramall Lane,Sheffield)
  11.6.03       Hungary   3-2   Austria        (Margitszigeti,Budapest)
  13.9.03     Argentina   2-3   Uruguay      (Campo de la Sociedad Hípica,Buenos Aires)
11.10.03         Austria   4-2   Hungary      (WAC-Platz,Vienna)

No additions to the international scene in 1903, but future greats Hungary and Uruguay both recorded their first ever victories.

Rafael Moreno - Pichichi

Pichichi

Moreno and his wife painted by Aurelio Arteta.

Spain at the 1920 Olympics

He was just 1.54m and wore a white cap on the pitch. He died aged 29 and his name lives on...

Pichichi- The Little Duck- not the most imposing nickname, but Rafael Moreno's record was more than impressive. 

In ten seasons for Athletic Bilbao between 1911 and 1921 Pichichi scored 200 goals in 170 appearances. Spain only entered onto the international stage in 1920, so he was restricted to 5 appearances before his death, from typhus, in 1922.

When La Liga was contested for the first time in 1929 the newspaper Marca instituted a trophy for the season's leading goalscorer, which they named Pichichi in Moreno's memory. The first recipient of the trophy was 'Paco' Bienzobas of Real Sociedad.

The growth of International Football - 1902

 Austria

1902

  22.2.02    Wales 0-3 Ireland             (Ninian Park, Cardiff)
    1.3.02    Ireland 1-5 Scotland         (Grosvenor Park, Belfast)
    3.3.02    Wales 0-0 England           (Racecourse Ground, Wrexham)
  15.3.02    Scotland 5-1 Wales          (Cappielow Park, Greenock)
  22.3.02    Ireland 0-1 England          (Balmoral Showgrounds, Belfast)
    5.4.02    Scotland A-A  England     (Ibrox, Glasgow) [abandoned at 1-1 due to Ibrox disaster]
    3.5.02    England 2-2 Scotland        (Villa Park Birmingham)
  20.7.02    Uruguay 0-6 Argentina     (Paso del Molino,Montevideo)
12.10.02    Austria 5-0 Hungary         (WAC-Platz,Vienna)


1902 saw the first international match to be played outside the British Isles as Uruguay and Argentina commenced their epic rivalry.  Continental Europe also arrived on the international scene as Austria squashed Hungary in Vienna. The protagonists were, at the time, part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire, and the match was originally intended as being simply Vienna versus Budapest, but the Austrian and Hungarian FAs have upgraded the fixture to full international status, with FIFA approval.