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ScotsFoundedFootball

@gedboy58.bsky.social

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Football History of the Scotch Professor. Telling the story of how Scotland invented modern world football. Working to Preserve, Protect and Publicise the history of the game from a Scottish perspective and crush the myth that England invented the game.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · Aug 7

A non-Football point about Privacy and Data protection. I have not signed up to the new UK laws on Identity. Bluesky seem to be using a games company to harvest my details before I can get back on my messages. Nah. Not going to happen. I am skeptical. [email protected] if you need to contact me.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 11h

4 of 4 So what? We know that QPFC practiced three nights a week. Variations of captains and teams. It would be illogical to think that corners were not to be studied, discussed and planned. I welcome a Dodomaniac’s analysis as to why this is not a big deal and Little Lord Poshy founded Football.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 11h

3 of 4 The game was supposedly all Clapham. QPFC’s final. Two goals were from corners. Is this luck or an example of practising dead ball tactics? We will possibly never know. What we do know is this is yet another example of a game where a small country beat a big country by using brains.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 11h

2 of 4 At this point, both teams were holders of their respective national cup competitions. The Herald’s report is quite vague, even for the time. It does say the Spiders’ equaliser came after ‘some passing and repassing McNeil shot the leather through’. That sounds like Scottish Combination.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 11h

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball I feel the early ‘Friendly’ games between English and Scottish clubs do not get enough airing. The SFA’s secretary William Dick died suddenly. The Benefit match 15th May 1880 was to support his mother. Clapham Rovers v QPFC at the 1st Hampden. 3-2 to Queen’s.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 1d

ADDENDUM: You are young. There is a bizarre L-shaped scrap of ground down your street. It incorporates a Council salt bin, two lamp posts and a dodgy kerb. Only one team ball game here - Scottish Combination. Punt and catch? Drag people to the ground? Naw. Just. NAW! Tanner ba’? That’ll do nicely.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 1d

5 of 5 So What? The cliché is right: Football is a simple game. No kid worries about offside when they are battering a ball about in the street or school yard. They just pass and run. This is why Scottish Combination stands strong and proud in every country on earth, particularly Australia. Mate.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 1d

4 of 5 If you want to learn more about Football in Australia, here are two websites I love: neososmos.blogspot.com by Ian Syson and www.shootfarken.com.au by the bold Athas. I am glad I got the chance to thank Athas for the help he has given me. Help that has saved me years.

Neos Osmos

A blog about Australian soccer and Australian soccer history

neososmos.blogspot.com

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 1d

3 of 5 You need coaches, teams, structure, training. That is why the only game I have seen in Melbourne - outwith a proper match in a big stadium - is the Association game. Kids on an oval with a round ball, enjoying themselves. AFL is an elite sport played by elite athletes. In specific settings.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 1d

2 of 5 The answer is obvious, to Athas, who seriously knows his shit. The football meme of jumpers for goalposts and any rough patch of land being usable, is true. Not so AFL (and Rugby Union). You can’t really have a kick about - punt and high catch. The Game is not that open to messing about.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 1d

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball On Sunday I had cause to return Ian Syson’s books, via another eminent historian: Athas Zafiris. As usual, I came away from the meeting, knowing vastly more than I did. I am keenly aware of my ignorance of Australian sport. But - remember my posts about unused AFL ovals?

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Reposted by ScotsFoundedFootball

Andy Mitchell @andymitchellmedia.bsky.social · 2d

The very first Scottish Football Annual was published 150 years ago this week in 1875. You can read a digitised copy on my website. www.scottishsporthistory.com/digitised-bo...

Digitised books and articles

This is a personal selection of published articles and books on Scottish sport history. There is a wealth of interesting material online, from digitised books to scholarly research, which I will...

www.scottishsporthistory.com

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 2d

4 of 4 So what? Sadly, the north of England and Scotland did not continue their development - to mutual advantage. Cynically - it took most of the 1870s to bring Sheffield down, whilst the #scotchprofessor carried all before them and won the world. In Melbourne, I see the ghost of Sheffield.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 2d

3 of 4 To think that there are two different and mutually irreconcilable narratives in the 1872 match. Scotland wanted a chance to show everyone the Scottish game. Alcock wanted a chance to land a sickening blow against the competing types of English football. International v Parochial mindset.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 2d

2 of 4 All Rae wanted to do, was to get the best eleven for the game against the London Ruler’s Association team. Alcock was working hard on his pet plan to extend, embrace and smother the intelligent game of Yorkshire. How could anyone in England object to the man who ran the ‘national’ team?

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 2d

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball OTD 1872 Archibald Rae’s letter appears in the Scotsman. A pivotal moment in world football, when viewed in hindsight. I wonder if Rae was aware of the machinations of Charles Alcock Liar Extraordinaire as he tried to fight off the northern (Sheffield Ruler) hordes?

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

Ah. I will hold my peace until I have read that again. I don’t know if any code will be able to define exact parameters in any country. We will all have to get along through the 1850s-90s, sharing some heritage.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

Excellent. That is the next place to visit and Andrew has just opening a new branch there.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

5 of 5 So What? There will have been a handful of Scots before those ships. Maybe it was them. Most likely it wasn’t. It leaves us with the mystery of who wanted the reader to know that this was not an English game they were putting on? Australia knew there were different games...

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

4 of 5 ...that they were not talking about the roughness of the English game. They wanted science and good play. @petereedy.bsky.social tells me that - coincidentally - the first ship of three, in an official contingent of skilled Scots, arrived 21 January 1849. Could they have paid for the advert?

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

3 of 5 ...and then added 'Foot Ball' as a rider? ‘Preliminaries to be settled’. I assume this means the fine points of the rules. If English people are not writing this classified ad, ...then we can infer that the non-English who put this in circulation were aware that they would have to specify...

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

2 of 5 ‘in addition to the usual English Sports, the Lads of Kangaroo Point CHALLENGE all comers to a Game of Foot Ball – preliminaries to be settled at the Commercial Inn, Kangaroo Point, on the evening of the 24th.’ Why have they used the term 'in addition to the usual English Sports’...

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 3d

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball Sometimes you need to read a simple sentence many times before the analysis hits you. A classified ad in the ‘Moreton Bay Courier’ of Brisbane 20 Jan 1849. The young men of Brisbane challenged others to a ‘Foot Ball’ Game. The context is very interesting.

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ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 4d

5 of 5 So what? Are these coincidences? Cathcart contained four stadiums because there was space and QPFC had worked out how to build them. The railways expanded across Cathcart. Harley worked for them in Springburn, before his emigration to Argentina and his appointment with eternal fame.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 4d

4 of 5 Cathcart encompassed the house where Archibald Rae wrote his famous 1872 letter, the home of the Maleys of Celtic renown, and all the Hampdens: 1, 2 (aka Cathkin 2) and 3 as well as #RememberClincart Glasgow expanded because there was no room for expansion inside the old city limits.

ScotsFoundedFootball @gedboy58.bsky.social · 4d

3 of 5 Through the 19th c. it became full of houses and factories. Into these new neighbourhoods came the migrants from other parts of Scotland and immigrants from Ireland, Jews escaping pogroms. Glasgow laid out Queen’s Park, even though it was not Glasgow. The migrants all seemed to know Football.