And when you are done looking at this site for the Scots input on football world-wide, here are two more.
For those who literally want to trace on the ground the local development of Scots and Scottish football in our own and other countries there is the newly available and ever-expanding site of:
The Scots Football Historians' Group
And on Scottish sports history in general but inevitably including fitba', see Andy Mitchell's inestimable:
The story of football, Scottish football in the Americas is a curious one. To both North and much of the South it came at more or less the same time, in the 1880s. There were in both original introductions through immigrant, Diasporan communities and the first ad-hoc games but soon in each sub-continent they were to very take different paths, largely based on class. In South America for a quarter of a century football was, with a few notable exceptions, mainly in exclusive clubs the game of the middle-classes, the merchant, the engineer, the teacher, the manager. In North America “soccer” first took hold in textiles towns amongst weavers, spinners and dyers, remaining for fifty years firmly a sport of the working-man.
From such differing roots it is hardly surprising that on the two parts of the Continent the game has developed at different rates and with different rhythms. In the North it would grow well, not least through industrially-subsidised works-teams. It would catch on, generate crowds but then stumble before regaining equilibrium and once more expanding quickly, perhaps too quickly. It was then to crash, almost be snuffed out and, after half a century in the wilderness, in last thirty years, although still a minority sport, come again, if in a format that is, shall we say, unique. In the South it has gathered pace more slowly through mainly local clubs, uninterrupted over seventy years, at different rates country-by-country, but, no matter where, become an all-consuming passion across all the social classes.
Today South- and North-American teams meet, if not frequently, then periodically at World Cups, for which both, unlike Scotland, now regularly qualify. Ninety years ago for a little over the decade this was also the case. It started in 1924. The
USA and
Uruguay
travelled to Paris to take part in football at the Olympics both for the first time. Two Scots were in the US team, the centre-forward and the right-wing; two and half if we count the goalkeeper, Jimmy Douglas, born on the other side of the Atlantic but with a name, which is Scottish enough for me. Uruguay, the surprise package at least to Europeans, would take the gold medal, with no Scots in its team but using a style of play that was inherited from one Scot in particular.
And on the way to the final the paths of North and South would cross. In the quarters Uruguay would play the United States with the former three up by half-time and already cruising to victory. And there would be a noticeable contract in styles. The USA would use robust, long-ball techniques and The
Pyramid, 2-3-5, inherited from the pre-Great War English approach to the game that had to any extent become implanted not just below the 49th Parallel but above it in
Canada. There between 1908 and 1910 it had been the intervention and influence of ex-patriot Scot,
Tom Robertson, that halted the encroachment of brutal Canadian rules and returned the game to Association rules as decided by the four British Home Nations with the later inclusion of FIFA on the International Football Association Board. Uruguay on the other hand would employ
The Cross, the Scottish, 2-2-1-5 formation with an attacking centre-half directing play and short inter-passing as introduced to Montevideo a decade and half earlier by
Cathcart-born
John Harley.
In 1928 too at the following Olympic Games teams, the Americans and the Uruguayans, were there. Uruguay had been joined from South America by Mexico, Chile and the Argentine. Mexico and Chile would not make it beyond the first round. The USA, again with at least two Scots in the team also fell at the first hurdle, and spectacularly, 11:2 to Argentina with the South Americans already 6:0 up at half-time. In fact in reaching the final Argentina in three matches would score twenty-three goals and concede just five. The Argentines looked immensely strong. Indeed two more goals would be added in two games to decide the final, the first a 1:1 draw, and in the replay a 1:2 loss, with the winner scored in the 73rd minute by Scarone, his Uruguay once more the champions. It is testament to the Harley way that the winners again employed that day that it withstood an Argentine team, which particularly in the second half at 1:1 attacked constantly.
And it was largely on the back of Uruguay twice making the journey to Europe and winning Olympic Gold in Paris and Amsterdam that it was awarded the first
World Cup. There was no qualification. All the nations affiliated to FIFA were invited to compete. The Uruguayan Football Association even sent a letter of invitation to London, despite the British associations not being amongst the affiliates. It was declined by the FA so none of the Home Nations travelled, whether asked or not. In fact only four European nations did. Seven came from South America, including Brazil, where its football also had Scottish origins through the introduction there also of the short-passing game by Paisley's
Archie McLean, plus there were Chile and Argentina, to which were added Mexico and the USA, thirteen countries in all but not Canada. It had resigned for internal reasons from FIFA in 1926 and did not re-join until 1948 so wasn't playing ball, at least not World Cup football.
The 1930 World Cup Final was a game that went off without much incident. And, whilst Uruguay cruised through its semi-final 6-1 against Yugoslavia, although with no difference in the score, the same cannot be said of the semi between Argentina and the USA. The latter without its league's top scorer,
Archie Stark, was nevertheless powerful, on paper playing 2-3-5 but with not just one but two twists. Whilst the US approach was clearly not that of the
Wembley Wizards but of an earlier era the team had Ralph Tracey, a converted forward, neither at half- or centre-back but as a Scottish-style centre-half; more Alex Raisbeck than Tom Bradshaw and several players were around six feet tall and over, which explains their recognised aerial ability. Bert Patenaude, replacing the smaller, lighter, 5ft 10, 10 stone Stark, was a six foot tall centre-forward. Jim Brown was the same height with Billy Gonsalves, at inside-left, said to be 6ft 2ins. Yet they played Old-Style, which was not unexpected given Scots manager Bob Millar's vintage and that he had brought up in the Scottish tradition of the game. It implies too that by that time after a decade of Scottish talent arriving it was the generally accepted approach in the US leagues, understood by all. In essence they employed
The Cross. They passed the ball. In fact they played in a style closely related to that of the Uruguayans, which is hardly surprising since both the manager and even several of the players had been learning their football in almost precisely the same place and time as El Yoni, John Harley.
Argentina, seemingly playing a more conventional 2.3.5, clearly had concerns. In response in front of a crowd of the 73,000 in the Estadio Centenario the South Americans came out hard, brutally even and with a plan to disrupt not just but in particular the half-backs. Centre-half Tracey, in The Cross the team's pivot, had his leg broken very early on, some say in the 10th minute, others in the 12th, still others in the 19th. Andy Auld, at left-half, played most of the game with a rag stuffed in his mouth to stop the bleeding from a bad cut inside. The goalkeeper, Jimmy Douglas, was also taken out and was carrying an injury for much of the game, where there were no substitutes. Yet still the USA was just a goal down at half-time, only understandably tiring and being overrun late in the second-half.
The whole situation begs a question that can, of course, never be answered. What would a Uruguay-USA final have been like? Two teams with styles coming from the same footballing well would have faced each other, one, Uruguay, with perhaps better technique and possibly more cohesive and the USA undoubtedly with greater aerial ability. Which leads us on to the
Argentine Dilemma. Football in Argentina seems to have and to suffer still from a degree of schizophrenia, of which I offer four examples from three eras.
Firstly, there is no doubt that the game arrived in the country off the field through four people, all Scots. In
Rosario there was
Colin Bain Calder. In Buenos Aires it was
Alex Watson Hutton,
Arnot Leslie and
Alex Lamont. Bain Calder and Alex Watson Hutton were largely figureheads around whom clubs formed. The coach/manager was Leslie and the organiser was Lamont. Yet in Argentina today it is only the figureheads, who are recognised.
Secondly, on the field at much the same time it is fact that the first Argentine teams were captained by a son of a Scot and included a number of born-Scots and more sons of Scots, who learned their football some in England and some in Scotland. There was therefore from the beginning input from both sources. Yet these pioneering players are hardly recognised and certainly not lauded as Argentine football indulges in
The Crillo Fallacy, which says that football certainly in Buenos Aires does not seem to begin until a decade later.
Thirdly there is again little doubt that in modern times in Messi Argentina has if not the World's best footballer than its best dribbling, that is Old-Style English-type attacker and I would suggest that in Sergio Aguerro it also has the World's best Old-Style, Scottish-type centre forward; short, stocky, powerful and quick. The problem is that the two do not seem to be able to play together or at least a blend of the two has not been found. Yet it can be. It was when for Scotland, indeed in the Wembley Wizards' game of 1928, Alex Jackson (Messi) played alongside Hughie Gallacher (Aguero). Scotland won 1-5 and the keys were the specifically Scots style of play and Alex James.
Fourthly, in 1928 in the Olympic final Argentina played attacking football. They lost and that was perhaps the reason why two years later they were so brutally defensive but its does epitomise the dilemma, in which Argentine football has found and still finds itself. It has never known whether to twist or stick. Unlike Uruguay, where because of Harley there has been one organically-developing but universal style throughout the country, in its neighbour with ten times the population origins are not properly recognised, never mind understood and the complications of the transition from a middle-class, British game but with two sources, Scots and English, to a working-class one with national coherence have simply been shrugged off as ancient history. As a result the choice between running- or passing-football has never been taken, nor between short- and long-ball, there is oscillation between flair and hack, "mucha pasion", only one World Cup win in over 80 years and a great deal of chaos. In other words, we know Argentina can play football. Can it not just decide which sort?