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:
Peter McWilliam - football's quiet revolutionary
Chapter Five
However, the change of the goalkeeping regulations was not the only innovation, to which new manager McWilliam is said to have to adjust. There was a second and its source was none other than Newcastle, specifically the theory from Colin Veitch and Bill McCracken the trigger for its application on the field of play. Veitch would call it “The Off-side Bogey”. Today we call it the offside trap.
The Bogey, the trap, was in essence much the same as we know it today; the movement up the field of players in a defending team to catch one or more of the attacking team in an offside position. Usually it is explained in terms of numbers of defenders or today even their parts between the foremost attacker and the goal-line. I have always found it easier in order to eliminate the distinction between defender and goalkeeper, specially with sweeper-keepers, to clarify in terms of the number of the defending team between that foremost attacker and the goal-line. Of course, there are other variables; attacker can be attackers, one cannot be off-side in one's own half, the questions of interference with play and when the ball was passed; but in most cases it is a question of numbers, of a number. From the acceptance in 1872 by first Scotland and then others of the supremacy of the English FA's and then from 1887 the IFB's rules that number had been three. That meant from the point-of-view of the attacking team for off-side to be avoided and the attack to continue three of the defending team, including, if applicable, that 'keeper had to be in front of the receiver of the ball, or looking at it alternatively eight behind him (This is important since it might be the way out of today's new, self-inflicted off-side dilemmas as would be the use of the term fully or bodily with precise definitions). Put in terms of the defending team, if just two of its players were between the between the goal and attacker and the other ten up the pitch off-side was triggered and became an effective defensive tactic. That was still the case in 1912. It would not be until 1925 that the current law of two and one for attack and defence respectively was introduced and could induced by well-timed and coordinated movement forward.
It is also said that the Bogey was developed as a direct response to the change in the goalkeeping laws, confining handling of the ball to the penalty area. However, if Veitch and McCracken were the source there is a potential problem.
In the 1912-13 season Bill McCracken would play thirty-five of thirty-eight League games but Colin Veitch just twelve. He could not have regularly making the call on the pitch, which begs the question either was Veitch the source of the initial work, theoretical and on the practice pitch, and someone else, McCracken, the sole controller of it in the games proper or alternatively was The Offside Bogey, perhaps in embryo form, being used before 1912?
The former is possible. Veitch remained a player at Newcastle until 1914. McCracken joined in 1904, stayed until 1924 and with Frank Hudspeth, who joined the club in 1910, would certainly perfect its practical implementation. All three overlapped. However, the latter is also not impossible, indeed there are hints from match reports that it might indeed have been what happened. Closer examination indicates It would still have been a sensible ploy, whether a goalkeeper was allowed to advance up-field or not.
So how might the Off-side Bogey have worked both prior and post the goalkeeping rule change? What was it in practice. In fact it may have had two, even three variants, all with one aim, to improve defence and all potentially controlled by McCracken. He would have given the order to move.
Prior to 1912 there were two scenarios. The first was that if the goal-keeper was up-field a la Roose and Foulke the full-backs could remain deep, if they were safe in the knowledge that the goalkeeper or anyone else on the team knew not to drift back. As long as they did not there were just two and not three between the opposition receiver of the pass and goal and off-side would be triggered. If there was a danger of a team-mate drifting back McCracken could warn him to move forward. Alternatively, if the position of the receiver was marginal then it was again McCracken, who decided either to step back, not forward or to order the player on his own side, who was making the by-passing of offside a possibility to step up and fast.
If, however, the 'keeper was anywhere across the field but back, the matter was fully in the hands of the full-backs. If all other outfield players were in front of them then McCracken call the step-up. As long as, depending on which side of the pitch was the source of the attack, either he did as he told himself or the other full-back followed instructions there would only be two players, one the goalie, between the opposition receiver of the ball and the goal and again off-side was triggered. Equally, if there was another outfield player back, off-side could still be triggered by both full-backs stepping up simultaneously, leaving the goalie and the outfield player behind. The problem was that someone, say McCracken, had a choice to make, up or back, and choice increases the scope for mistake.
However, from 1912, with the goalkeeper obliged to stay in the penalty area, it was a different and simplified matter. The possibility of the step-back was eliminated. The step-up became the only recourse and therefore more with McCracken deciding on a single full-back or both depending where other outfield players were.
In summary, before the rule change The Offside Bogey had normally been triggered by a step-back but could have be done in certain circumstances with a step-up. However, play was concentrated in the last thirty yards at either end of the pitch by the 'keepers ability to advance to the half-way line and throw or kick the ball into the goalmouth. There was no point in having advance defence because it would be by-passed by the long-ball. Instead defence would be packed around the goal-mouth.
It also could only have been introduced between 1904 and 1911, after McCracken's arrival and before the change. It was unlikely to have been in 1904-5. Veitch played twenty-eight times but McCracken only thirteen. McCombie and Carr were the preferred full-back pairing. The same was true in 1905-6 and probable in 1906-7, when the full-back duties were more equally shared but with McCracken still the least used, and even in 1907-8, when McCracken was the most used but not a shoe-in, as Veitch was also not.
It might have been done in anticipation of the change of rule except that in 1911-12 its invention or at least its implementation were, if anything, less likely than in the 1912-13 season. McCracken again had played thirty-five times but Veitch only took the field six times all year. It was, in fact, far more likely to have been first employed in 1908-9 or 1909-10, when both Veitch and McCracken both played almost all the games, or in 1910-11 at the latest. McCracken played in every game and Veitch in all but four. It meant, however, whichever year it was McWilliam was there to watch it happen both on the field and from the sidelines.
After the change, with goalkeepers' wanderings retrained only step-up was effective. In addition, with the heavy leather ball 'keepers were also only able to throw only within their own halves and only the longest to kick to half-way, the game was firstly moved back almost half the pitch and by that same the step-up then concentrated in the thirty to forty yards either side of the half-way line. Furthermore, because at that time off-side applied to throw-ins, even that as a route was of little advantage. It was a new situation. In fact a total rethink was necessary and McWilliam, in spite of his success with the old ways and possibly viewing the innovation by then not from St. James' Park but White Hart Lane, where one of his first acts was to give a trial to a certain Invernesian, Jimmy Rhind, was not immune.