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:
Diasporans - Part 1
1872-1884
The problem in British football of Diasporans, that is players capped for a national team but with a parent or parents born elsewhere, be it within or even outwith the British Isles, began almost with the ever official international match in 1872. It would take a century even to start to be resolved. The first such Diasporan was Robert Ogilvie. That is if, as today, maternal lineage is recognised. The year was 1874. However, if only paternal descent is accepted, as was the case at the time, then it was two years later in the form of Charles Smith, the elder cousin of G.O. Smith, the great amateur forward of the turn of the century and also a Diasporan, but of a different hue. And from Charles more, both maternal and paternal, would follow almost annually up to the retirement of G.O. himself in 1901 and, indeed, well beyond. In fact the "anomaly" was only ended partially with an adjustment in the rules on British national eligibility in 1971, hence the century from that first game, and almost but not entirely with the establishment of unified, international ones in 1995. At that point the grandparents' rule became the norm replacing what can only be described in Britain and elsewhere, if politeness is to be observed, as a hodge-podge, one which with very few exceptions worked against the Scottish national team.
In part the problem was complicated by other factors, or rather interpretations, which differed from country to country. Perhaps the example with greatest notoriety is Italy in 1930s and Oriundi, players born of Italian parents. But even then it was not novel. Wales had by then been using much the same model for fifty years. In Scotland the factors were birth and professionalism, with the latter officially ruling out between 1885 and 1896 an unknown number, certainly running into the hundreds, of players, who headed south to turn out for money for clubs mainly in England but also in Wales. Then there was the question of residence, which was used as an exclusion for fifteen years, and finally there was the Scottish Football Association itself, which frankly failed on a number of occasions, shall we say, to keep up to speed off the field and therefore to look after the country's football's best interests on it.
Yet it had all started so well, as a matter not of rules but largely of individual country choice. In that first international the Scotland that took the field was essentially a club-side, Queen's Park. There were one or three what might be seen as ringers, it is true. The Smith brothers, although very much Scots-born, were by then both living in London and travelled north for the occasion. A decade later they need not have bothered. But then they also deserved their places. That the game happened at all was in no small part due to them and their London contacts. And then there was William Ker, who actually played for another Glasgow club, Granville, but since Robert Garner, the captain of both Queen's Park and country that day, didn't want his club's regular but nineteen year-old and inexperienced full-back in front of him plus Ker was an all-round good fellow, was the son of a famous Scots scientist and and was Scots-born and bred he was given an honorary Queen's Park membership. And the England team too was pretty clean. All its chaps had been born in England or at least recorded as baptised there so that was alright.
However, the same could not be said of the next match four months later. Both sides were to a degree at it but in different ways. In the England team were two players born in India, whilst amongst the "Scots" were not just John Blackburn, who lived in England but had at least been born in Edinburgh but also
Arthur, Lord Kinnaird, born in London and Henry Renny-Tailyour, also born in India. But then these last two had estates in Scotland, Renny-Tailyour even having the good grace to died in Montrose, so that was probably enough and the game was played in London with apparently not enough money inthe Scottish coffers to pay for more than seven to make the journey south.
Then the third international was played back in Scotland, with Scottish team reverting somewhat to type. It was once made up mainly of Queen's Park players but not entirely. Again the left-back position was filled by an outsider, John Hunter of 3rd Lanark, but right inside forward was occupied by
John Ferguson of Vale of Leven and the left outside winger and the goalkeeper were from Clydesdale. Ferguson was Scotland's, indeed the World's, first working-class footballer and was there because he was special. The two clubmates were there because one was Robert Gardner, who had fallen out with Queen's Park, moved teams but was still the best goalie and the other,
Frederick Anderson, was also highly rated by all. Indeed, it was Anderson, who in that match scored Scotland's first ever home goal and would later take football, both its Association and Rugby varieties to China. England, however, did not play it quite as fair. The whole team was at least born in England but its right back, the said Robert Ogilvie, was actually Robert Andrew Muter Macindoe Ogilvie and his mother was from Glasgow.
The fourth international was notable not so much, as far as Scotland was concerned, for who was there but who was not. There was no Ferguson as a result of not just an argument, indeed, the first argument about professionalism, indeed about class, but also what today would be called gamesmanship. It was all started by an objection from Dumbarton to his participation in the first Scottish Cup. The grounds were that Ferguson had taken money for sport and that he had. But it wasn't for football or, indeed, the other game, at which he excelled, shinty, but running. Ferguson was very quick. On the football field he was the first flying winger. And professional athletics with its money prizes was, as it still is, an important part of Scottish working-class sport. Ferguson had, having run and won on the track, been rewarded in cash, a fact nobody disputed but not only Dumbarton, fearful of him as a footballer, tried to take advantage of in 1873 Clydesdale also did the following season. As for England it set yet another precedent in using players of, shall we say, diverse background. In defense was William Rowson, in the centre of the attack his brother, Herbert. Willie had been born in Cape Town, South Africa and Herbie in St. Louis on Mauritius, both places that could be argued to have been in the Empire, unlike the birthplace of the third interloper out on the left-wing. His name was Richard Greaves and he had been born in Mexico, so definitely not Empire. Moreover, whilst his mother had been born on Malta, so in the Empire, his father had been born in Turkey, again not Empire, and Greaves not even first-generation Diasporan but second.
So now we are at 1876, Charles Smith's year. Not only did he have a Scottish father, Edinburgh-born, but he himself was born on Ceylon and he was joined in the team in goal by Arthur Savage, born in Australia, which is precisely where he went back to by 1880, known to be organising football matches in Parramatta by then. And 1877 wasn't any better. In fact it was worse. Not only was William Rowson there again but so was William Lindsay, who was born in India because his Scottish father was serving in the army, his father and his Scottish mother both dying in the "Indian Mutiny", in addition to which Lindsay's grandfather had been Provost of Dundee and Lindsay himself had played for "Scotland" in all five of the "unofficial" internationals played against England between March 1870 and February 1872. And to add insult to injury also there was John Bain, living in England, it is true, but born in Scotland, in Boswell of a father born in Glasgow and a mother in Edinburgh.
It became very clear that at that point England had only one criterion for eligibility, residence, but to be fair so might it appear did Scotland and it had since the early selection of the Smith brothers become de facto precisely the same. However, Scotland's criterion might equally be interpreted as birth, it having never selected anyone not born North of the Border, andBain's selection was too close to the knuckle. There is even the possibility a wee word was had, a suggestion made at the very least that blatant "poaching" might be "ungentlemanly". Certainly Bain never played for England again and in 1878 all England's team actually appeared to be English-born.
It was a situation, however, that was not to last and, given the pool of players that must have been at England's disposal, hints either at laziness or desperation. Against Scotland it was after all struggling to win a game. In 1879 in its first fixture against Wales England sneaked in not only a Canadian but one not just with a Welsh name, Edward Parry, but whose father had been born in the West Indies, so again second-generation. But then Wales had itself included seven players from Oswestry F.C. with Oswestry in England, if not by much, three years earlier in its first international ever against Scotland in Glasgow had fielded
Dr. Daniel Gray born in Airdrie and the
Thomson brothers with their Glasgow-born father, two years earlier played
Alex Jones, born in Dumfries, playing again for Oswestry, plus one of the Thomsons and a year earlier Gray once more. It had been mixing and matching birth and residency, shall we say, novelly. And then still in1879 in the England- Scotland game, the Scots, drawing their players from five clubs, Queen's Park and Rangers from Glasgow, Vale of Leven and two from Ayrshire, Ayr Academy and Mauchline, were faced by
James Princep. Apart from becoming the youngest England international until the arrival of Wayne Rooney, he had again been born in India, was living in England because he was undergoing military training at the time, had a Scots mother, a Scots paternal grandmother, had parents married in Edinburgh, would serve and live in Egypt, take his football to Australia and would die in Nairn, where his brother and sister both lived and also died, and where, if I recall correctly, his brother had also been born.
If Bain had caused concern James Princep was for Scotland perhaps a step too far, particularly as there was controversy during the game, in which he had taken part and England had narrowly won late-on. Whilst in 1880 England's team against the Auld Enemy was actually English and for Wales only two Oswestry players took the field and both had very Welsh names, in Scottish or more particularly SFA thinking a turning-point seems to have been reached, perhaps in 1880 and certainly in 1881. That year at right back for Scotland was
Andrew Watson
and, although he lived in Glasgow, had done so for a few years and had a Scots-born father, he had spent much of his childhood at school in England and, most fundamentally, had been born in South America, in Demerara, now part of Guyana. In other words he was a first generation Diasporan, born within the Empire with certainly Scottish connections through a father born in Evanton and quite possibly a maternal grandfather born in Banff, was selected on the basis of residence and not birth and was as such a first.
In fact Watson's inclusion seemed to raise no objection, apart from, perhaps from opponents, as a result of the quality of his performance on the field. In his first match, that year with him as captain, Scotland won 1-6 away against England and then 1-5, also away, against Wales. And the next season with him once more in the team against England, this time in Glasgow, Scotland won 5-1. Moreover, it seemed England, Wales, Ireland, which had played its first international just four weeks earlier and included English-born Dr. John Davison, and now Scotland were all singing from the same residency hymn-sheet.
However, harmony would not be long in the lasting. Andrew Watson did not play against Wales two weeks after the 1882 England game, said to be because of injury or, indeed, did he ever play for Scotland again again. True he did after those initial games spend some time living England, so did not comply with residence, but he returned to Glasgow to live and turned out for his club, Queen's Park, until 1886 and aged thirty, without being selected again. And there was more. Watson's third and final game for Scotland marked the second cap for
Malcolm Eadie Fraser. His first had been in 1880 at the age of just three weeks over twenty. In 1882 he was twenty-two and a week and a forward of considerable promise, who would be Queen's Park secretary in 1882-3 and play for the national team until the 1883 match against Wales, scoring four goals in the process. Then he was completely dropped from the international game and, although continuing to play for his club, would leave Scotland in 1884 for Africa and die in Australia at the very beginning of 1886 , aged just twenty-five at a time when he should have been approaching his footballing prime. It was a strange sequence of events, one for which there is only one explanation, exclusion, caused because, although Eadie Fraser, the son Scots parents, had grown up in Glasgow the son of the manse, he had been born in Ontario, where his father was serving his then Canadian flock. He was like Watson a first generation Diasporan.
The problem for Eadie Fraser and for Watson was that at some point between 28th March 1882, Watson' last game, and 26th March 1883, Eadie Fraser's last, it was decided by the Scottish Football Association, although seemingly never noted in its minutes, that the rule of eligibility for the national team that had been quietly amended in 1880 or 1881 had been changed once more. It was no longer just residence, nor had it reverted simply to birth only but was now both birth and residence, which is fine in principle except that such a decision has a potentially darker side. You see Andrew Watson had a half-African mother and therefore was, and unfortunately still is classed as Black. He might have been one of the best footballers of his generation, the first Black international footballer, the first Black football administrator and a Scot both by heritage and choice but for some because of his colour did not fit. Rules may therefore have been adjusted accordingly to exclude him and Eadie Fraser have unfortunately and fatally become what might today be euphemistically called collateral damage.
And there would be more, if not so personally damaging. Had "fate" been otherwise both Watson and Eadie Fraser might in 1884 themselves have witnessed another Diasporan twist. By 1883 England had won just two and drawn two of twelve internationals against Scotland. In 1883 it had lost at home 2-3, admittedly by a goal scored in the eighty-ninth minute, but perhaps then decided that something had to change. That something was formation. England had played the Scottish 2-2-6 system from 1873 and had done so that year with at left-half a certain
Stuart MacRae, incidentally Indian-born. And he was there again in 1884 for his fifth cap once more with Norman Bailey to his right but now at the centre of a three. The increasing use of 2-3-5 at club level in England, and indeed in Eastern Scotland had reached the game's highest level. MacRae would be the World's first international centre-half but only once. He would be selected for the next match, against Wales , but cry off because of injury and be replaced by Blackburn Rovers' James Forrest. It would be a turning-point and no more so than for the Scottish Football Association as it would soon find out. Forrest, who would retain the position, is today generally recognised as the World's first professional, international footballer. Professional football, then officially outlawed but rife, would within two years "come out", in England at least and lead to a almost a decade of Scottish football dithering. Stuart MacRae, however, was an amateur from the hair on his head to his footballing feet. And by the way, as you might have guessed from his name, he was also a Scot. He was educated in Edinburgh. His mother, Grace, nee Stewart, was born on Harris in the Hebrides, his father, Duncan, in Nairn. His father was the chieftain of Clan MacRae of Conchra, as Stuart himself would be. Stuart had been born in India for no more reason than his father was an army surgeon there yet was excluded from Scottish qualification. Nevertheless his portrait hangs in the Scottish icon that is Eilean Donan Castle, rebuilt as we know it by his brother. And he, his father, his mother and his brother are all buried in the MacRae clan cemetery at Clachan at the head of Loch Duich. An' if tha' dinna ha' the Gaelic I'd be meikle surprised.