This article details the history of football in Scotland.
Early history (pre 1867)
The football origins in Scotland are uncertain. Early forms of it were played in EnglandMorris Marples, A History of Football, Secker and Warburg, London, 1954, p. 38 and France. Games of "football" were played in Scotland in the Middle Ages, but medieval football bears little resemblance to association football (soccer). The ball could be carried by hand, and teams were sometimes of dozens of players or more, with scrummaging involved. Some of these games are still played, notably in Kirkwall and Jedburgh – see Ba game.
The earliest reference to "fute-ball" in Scotland was in 1424 when King James I outlawed it in the Football Act 1424. Subsequent kings issued similar decrees, suggesting that the bans were unsuccessful. Certainly James VI of Scotland was well aware of the violent nature of football, writing in his 1599 Basilikon Doron, to debar from commendable exercise "all rough and violent exercises, as the foot-ball, meeter for laming than making able the users thereof".Julius R. Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 2001), p. 169.Magoun, F.P. (1931) "Scottish Popular Football, 1424–1815." The American Historical Review There were also times when royalty played the games themselves, with the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer in 1497 mentioning the purchase of footballs for James IV. There is also a tradition that King James V visited Jedburgh to play in the ball game there, although there is no evidence of this happening.
Violence in early Scottish football games was certainly an important reason for these royal decrees and further evidence comes from sixteenth century Scottish literature, for example in the following poems.
Between 1501 and 1512 Gavin Douglas states:
"This broken shin that swells and will not be relieved, Take it to him; he broke it at ball, And tell him it will be his reward. Take the whole of this bruised arm to him"
Sir Richard Maitland expresses his pleasure in a late sixteenth century poem at being too old for the rough game:
Quhen zoung men cummis fra the gren, Playand at the futball had bein, with broken spauld, I thank my god I want ein, I am so auld".
In modern English can be translated as:
When young men come from the green Had been playing football With broken shoulder, I thank my God that I lack eyesight: I am so old
The violence of early football in Scotland is also described vividly by another anonymous sixteenth century description, "The Beauties of Foot-ball":
Brissit, brawnis and broken banis, Stryf, discorde and waistie wanis, Cruikit in eild syn halt withall, Thir are the bewties of the fute ball".
This in modern English is translated as:
Bruised muscles and broken bones Strife, Discord, and futile blows Lamed in old age, then crippled withal These are the beauties of football"
It was not just the Scottish monarchy and local municipalities that passed laws on the playing of football. In Perth, apprentices progressing to become master craftsmen in the sixteenth century traditionally had to pay for a banquet and hold a football match.Michael Pearce, 'A French Furniture Maker and the 'Courtly Style' in Sixteenth Century Scotland', Regional Furniture, XXXII (2018), p. 127. In 1546 the Company of Hammermen (i.e. smiths) of Perth issued a decree that "neither servants nor apprentices" should play football "under penalty of a pound of wax" to be given to their altar in the church.Marples, M. 1954. A History of Football, Secker and Warburg, London Presumably this was a measure to prevent work absences and injuries. There are other accounts of employers trying to ban football in Scotland over the following centuries.
Early Scottish football sometimes erupted into violence, including the use of firearms. At Lochtoun in 1606 during a "fute-ball" match some players "fell in contentioun and controversie, ilk anie with otheris, and schot and dilaschit pistolettis and hacquebuttis" It was clearly a passionate and dangerous pastime. Football in the sixteenth century is also documented as being a pretext for raids across the border against the English.
In an attempt to control such violent outbursts, and for religious reasons, football came under Puritan attack in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It became an offence to play on a Sunday, with the youth of Aberdeen, for example, accused in 1607 of conducting themselves profanely on the Sabbath: "drinking, playing football... and roving from parish to parish"[Marples, Morris. A History of Football, Secker and Warburg, London 1954] Further references to this offence come at the end of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth. In 1656 the Scottish Parliament passed an act outlawing all boisterous games on the Lord's day. Nevertheless, the Puritan attack on football was not as severe in Scotland as it was in England and continued to be played enthusiastically.
There is evidence that schoolboys played a ball game in Aberdeen in 1633 (some references cite 1636) which is notable some consider that it mentions passing the ball. The word "pass" is derived from "huc percute" (strike it here) and later "repercute pilam" (strike the ball again) in the original Latin. The original word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race. There is a reference to "get hold of the ball before [another player] does" (Praeripe illi pilam si possis agere) suggesting that handling of the ball was allowed. The original 1930 translation states "Throw yourself against him" (Age, objice te illi). It is clear that the game was rough and that tackles were allowed, included "charging" and pushing/holding of opposing players ("drive that man back" in the original translation, "repelle eum" in original Latin). It has been suggested that this game bears similarities to rugby football.
Violence continued to be a regular complaint about Scottish football games for many centuries. Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth wrote to his wife in March 1648 that their son "hurt himself so evill at football in Polwart upon Sunday that he was not able to sturre". In Jedburgh the ball game was outlawed by the town council in 1704 because "sometimes both old and young near lost their lives thereby". As a result, it was decided to "discharge the game now and all time coming". However, even in 1706, local trades at Jedburgh were cooperating trying to suppress the game, as shown by the Fleshers' Corporation's fining of some members for "rastling at the football". Similarly at Duns in 1724 a complaint reads: "football... did always end and determine in the effusion of blood among the inhabitants". Toward the end of the eighteenth century the poet Skinner noted in his poems some of the injuries sustained playing foortball in Monymusk: "Has ne’er in Monymusk been seen Sae mony weel-beft skins; Of a' the ba'-men there was nane But had twa bleedy shins"
Sir Walter Scott described football as "his favourite border sport". He too, however, talks about the rough nature of nineteenth century Scottish football in "the Lay": "In riot, revelry, and rout, Pursued the football, play". Scott also states that in the "foot-ball...The victory is contested with the utmost fury, and very serious accidents have sometimes taken place in the struggle".
Scottish football continued to be a very violent affair well into the nineteenth century. For, example the game in Hawick was described in 1825 as "a species of war or fighting". In 1826 the game was banned in Kirkwall as it was disturbing the peace. From this time until the late 1860s there is a lull in references to football in Scotland, suggested that banning of the game had at last proved successful. As a result of the level of violence often seen in early Scottish football games, a lot of traditional ball games were modified or died out in the nineteenth century. Examples still exist today, however, of traditional Scottish football, in particular the Ba game (although many of these have been revived in the modern time).
The earliest evidence of the use of codified rules of any type of football in Scotland came in 1851 when rugby football was adopted by the Edinburgh Academy, in order to be able to play with other schools. The Edinburgh Academical Football Club, is the oldest football club of any code in Scotland (rugby football).
A "Foot Ball Club" was founded in Edinburgh in 1824http://www2.umist.ac.uk/sport/SPORTS%20HISTORY/BSSH/The%20Sports%20Historian/TSH%2021-1/21 After being recently reformed, it now plays association football in the Edinburgh & District Sunday Amateur Association.
Early modern history (1867–1900)
Scotland was one of the earliest modern footballing nations. The game started to become popular in the country following the development in London in 1863 of the first ever rules of association football, established by The Football Association. Scottish football clubs started to be formed towards the end of the 1860s and 1870s, some in Glasgow introduced to a rudimentary version of the pursuit by men from Callander in Perthshire,The man who owned ‘the first football in Glasgow’ - a hidden history of the 1860s, Andy Mitchell, Scottish Sport History, 4 July 2021 this having its roots in traditional Handsel Monday holiday mass-participation games (which also led to the formation of some rugby clubs as efforts were made to formalise the rules of these chaotic events).Perthshire Rugby celebrates 150 years since 1st game, Perthshire RFC, 10 January 2019 Queen's Park was Scotland's first football club, founded in 1867. It is the oldest existing football club outside England.
In the late 1860s football rules in Scotland still allowed the ball to be handled by all the outfield players, as well as the goalkeeper, whereas in England only the keeper was permitted to handle the ball and then only in his own area.Scottish League formed, BBC - A Sporting Nation According to the Scotsman newspaper of 2 December 1872, at that time there were only about ten football clubs in Scotland.
Even as late as 1870, football was an unfamiliar sport in Scotland. In that year, C.W. Alcock received no response to his challenges issued in Scottish newspapers, including the Glasgow Herald, for homegrown contenders to face an English eleven. One response to Alcock's challenges illustrates that football was eclipsed in Scotland by other codes: "Mr Alcock's challenge to meet a Scotch eleven on the borders sounds very well and is doubtless well meant. But it may not be generally well known that Mr Alcock is a very leading supporter of what is called the "association game"... devotees of the "association" rules will find no foemen worthy of their steel in Scotland".H.M. The Scotsman newspaper, 1 December 1870, page 12
Between 1870 and 1872, a series of six matches between representatives of England and Scotland took place at The Oval, London. Robert Smith of Queen's Park played in the international matches against England of 19 November 1870,The Scotsman Newspaper, 21 November 1870, page 7 25 February 1871The Scotsman Newspaper 27 February 1871 and 18 November 1871.Bell's Life in London and Sporting chronicle on Sat 18 November 1871 The Queen's Park football club players R. Smith and J. Smith were named amongst 16 selected players in the publicity for the February 1872 match,Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, Saturday 17 February 1872 and the reason for their absence is not clear. These early matches were organised under the auspices of the Football Association, but are not currently recognised by FIFA (founded 1904) as official internationals, although the Scotsman newspaper certainly identified them as "international in character" (the Scotsman's italics).The Scotsman newspaper, 21 November 1870, page 7