It's amazing what can turn up. This silver buckle, attached to its original belt, was presented in 1865 by the 14th Earl of Eglinton for competition by cricket clubs in Cunninghame, north Ayrshire. I believe this was the world's first knock-out cricket tournament, a distinction which has apparently not previously been recognised. 
   In fact the Earl presented three prizes that summer: a silver ball for the winners, the silver-mounted belt for the runners-up, and a cricket bat for third place. Having added the belt to my collection following a chance find on eBay, I decided to look into its history, and the wider sporting patronage of the Earls of Eglinton in the Victorian era. 

It was first announced in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald on 13 May 1865: 'CRICKET - The Earl of Eglinton has resolved to come out as a patron of this fine manly game and has intimated to the cricketers in the district of Cunninghame that he intends giving them three prizes, to be competed for annually.'
   The prizes attracted five local cricket clubs to enter the competition. It was an awkward number for a knock-out competition, but the ties were drawn and in the first round Ardeer beat Kilmarnock Junior on 3 June, then Kilwinning Monkcastle beat Kilmarnock Winton on 17 June, while Irvine Eglinton were given a bye. In the second round, effectively the semi-final, Irvine Eglinton beat Ardeer on 1 July while Kilwinning Monkcastle received a bye.
   This set up a final which was played on 22 July at the Earl's own cricket pitch at Eglinton Castle. Kilwinning Monkcastle took the honours, and the silver ball, by beating Irvine Eglinton by 45 runs after two innings.

There was still a need for a third place match, and Ardeer won the silver-mounted bat on 19 August, defeating Kilmarnock Winton by 17 runs.
   The Eglinton prizes for Cunninghame clubs continued each year until 1882 when the silver ball was won by Beith. by this time, there was no mention of a silver belt for the runners-up, and the current whereabouts of the silver ball is (I believe) unknown. 
   Hence the little belt and buckle, which I now own, appears to be Scotland's oldest surviving cricket trophy. There were earlier cricket cups in England, but only for direct competition between two teams. I can find no earlier instance of a knock-out tournament. 
   The original winners of the belt, Irvine Eglinton, had been founded in the town in 1858, and not surprisingly the club's patron was the Earl of Eglinton himself. The club was one of the leading sides in Ayrshire in the 1860s but had a chequered history, having to bounce back from losing its ground to coal mining in 1867 and then became homeless again in 1874, after which it was wound up.
   The 14th Earl was clearly a cricket enthusiast and delighted at the success of his tournament, so in 1867 he went one bigger and provided a trophy for the whole of Ayrshire (or more formally for Carrick, Kyle and Cunninghame). He had announced the previous summer that he would offer a silver cup, value £40, and the first edition of the competition attracted eleven entries. The first winners were Irvine Eglinton, defeating Ayr in the final. In succeeding years the winners always came from Ayr until Ayr CC won it three years in a row to take permanent possession of the trophy in 1875. It was in fact three trophies, a silver gilt claret jug with two goblets, all in the same velvet-lined box.
   The Eglinton Cup, still held by Ayr CC, came back into public view in 2017 when it took pride of place at a Scottish cricket exhibition within the Football Museum at Hampden Park. 

At that time, the Eglinton cup was hailed as the world's oldest cricket trophy but I think I can now dispute that claim by two years (although whether a silver belt can claim to be a trophy is another question).

While the 14th Earl, who died in 1892 aged 50, can be credited with creating the first cricket tournaments, it has to be said he was a sporting lightweight compared to his father, who had an extraordinary record of patronage that endures to this day.
   The 13th Earl of Eglinton (1812-1861) is perhaps best known for his extravagant Eglinton Tournament which he hosted in 1839. However his lasting legacy was in sport. Described as 'the generous patron of every manly exercise', over the following two decades until his death he lavished his wealth on a huge variety of prizes which encouraged sporting competition in Scotland and far beyond.
   His personal passion was horse racing and he kept a large racing stud, the greatest exponent being Flying Dutchman which won the Derby and the St Leger in 1849. The Earl also provided the Eglinton Cup at the Curragh racecourse in Kildare while he was Viceroy of Ireland.
   In bowls, he donated the Eglinton Gold and Silver Bowls for clubs in Ayrshire (1854) and the magnificent Eglinton Silver Jug (1857) for annual competition between Ayrshire and Glasgow. These are all still competed for today.
   In curling, he presented the Eglinton Jug in 1851 for Ayrshire clubs and it is also still going as a vibrant competition.
   In golf, the Earl was a founder of Prestwick Golf Club in 1851 and provided the silver belt which was won on the course by Willie Park at the very first Open Championship in 1860. It continued to be the prize for the winner of the Open each year until Tom Morris junior won it outright in 1871, and it was replaced with the famous claret jug. The belt now resides in the R&A World Golf Museum in St Andrews.

Those are the best known Eglinton trophies but he also provided a silver cup for Glasgow Regatta, a silver cup for shooting by the West of Scotland Volunteers, and a gold belt and quiver for Irvine archers. He founded the Eglinton Hunt and gave the Eglinton Hunt Cup to Ayr races. What is more, Eglinton Castle was superbly equipped with a rackets hall, a cricket pitch, a curling pond and a croquet lawn. Most of the castle is now ruins in the country park, but the rackets hall is a rare survivor, the oldest indoor sports building in Scotland.
   Overall the patronage of the 13th Earl of Eglinton helped to encourage Scottish sport in many fields. After his death, the 14th Earl was less extravagant but he still made a key contribution to cricket and I am delighted to have discovered one of his original prizes. 

A chance purchase of an old tankard on ebay led me to delve into the history of one of the classic football television shows, Quiz Ball. It ran from 1966 to 1972 on the BBC and can be considered a forerunner to A Question of Sport which opened in 1970.
   My pewter tankard is annoyingly lacking in detail, as it simply reads 'BBC TV Quiz Ball, Challenge Match 1972'. It turns out there were actually two challenge matches that year, and I cannot find any report of who won them and who might have been presented with the souvenir. But no matter, my research did reveal the fact that Scotland won Series 7 of Quiz Ball and then took part in a challenge match against the British Lions rugby team. Later that year, Northern Ireland met a team of Olympic medallists in another challenge.   

The story of Quiz Ball is punctuated by legendary performances by the 'brains' of football, notably the Scots John Cushley, Ian Ure and Jim Craig, and a number of other famous names turn up during the series, such as Alex Ferguson while he was at Falkirk. The teams always had a 'guest supporter' and unusually for the time a couple of them were women, notably Lady Isobel Barnett who once scored five for Leicester City.
   Among a few oddities: Terry Neill was a Quiz Ball stalwart who featured in the very first programme in 1966 for Arsenal and the very last one in 1972 for Northern Ireland; his team won both series. Rangers manager Scot Symon appeared in the show in 1967 but had been sacked by the time it was broadcast. Dr Who actor Jon Pertwee was roped in for Dunfermline Athletic as a last-minute substitute for Jimmy Logan in the 1971 final, and came away with a winner's medal.
   There are several online articles about the series, and perhaps the most comprehensive is by Vince Cooper at The League. There is also the story of Celtic's victory in 1970 on Celtic Wiki.
   Few videos of the show survive, although the very first edition in 1966 between Arsenal and Nottingham Forest is on YouTube. Recorded at Hornsea Town Hall, it is remarkable for all sorts of reasons, not least the pipe-smoking Forest team. As the show featured four 'own goals', it quickly led to a change of format so that goals were more likely to be scored by getting questions right rather than getting them wrong. 
   Quiz Ball was originally devised by Bill Wright, the show's producer, who was in charge of the BBC Quiz Unit and who also came up with the concept for Mastermind. That perhaps prompted another link, as Magnus Magnusson appeared twice on Quiz Ball as a guest supporter for Kilmarnock, despite later admitting that he had no connection with the team.

Scotland's internationals in 1898 were played on three consecutive weekends, with Scotland using a total of 28 players. The series starting in Motherwell on 19 March with eight debutants in the line-up against Wales: William Watson (Falkirk); Nicol Smith (Rangers), Matthew Scott (Airdrieonians, captain); William Thomson (Dumbarton), Alex Christie (Queen's Park), Peter Campbell (Morton); James Gillespie (Third Lanark), James Miller (Rangers), James McKee (East Stirlingshire), Hugh Morgan (St Mirren), Robert Findlay (Kilmarnock).
   The game drew a small crowd of around 3,500 to Fir Park, and they saw a comfortable victory for the home team. Scotland went four goals up, two from Gillespie and two from McKee, before the Welsh got one back just before half-time through the delightfully named Thomas Thomas. In the second half Gillespie completed his hat-trick and Morgan-Owen scored from a corner to make it 5-2.
   Only two of the Scotland eleven would win a second cap that season (Thomson faced Ireland and Miller played against England) and most would never be selected again, including Watson, McKee and hat-trick hero Gillespie.
   For Watson, indeed, this was almost his final football act. He gave up the game in the summer of 1898 and returned to Shotts, where he lived with his wife and a large family, employed as a hewer down the coal mine. It was heavy work which probably contributed to his early death of chronic bronchitis in 1929, aged 56.

The first football match in Scotland under Association rules was played in Glasgow on 1 August 1868 between Queen's Park and Thistle. But while the foundation and history of Queen's Park is well known, it takes two sides to play a match, so who exactly were their opponents, Thistle? And was this really the starting point for football in the city?
   The answers lie in the hidden history of football in Glasgow before Queen's Park came on the scene, with a man called John B Connell claiming to have brought the first football to the city several years earlier.
   The traditional version of events was written by Richard Robinson in the Queen's Park jubilee history, where he asserted that there was no serious football in the city before the club was founded on 9 July 1867: 'Football was played in a more or less happy-go-lucky fashion in the Queen's Park and Glasgow Green. Play with the round ball was then comparatively new, and had not yet been systematised in Scotland.'
   Robinson described how Queen's Park was founded after a few young men from the north of Scotland were engaged in athletic pursuits near to a group of YMCA members who were playing football. Sometimes the game spilled over into the athletics area, so the northerners challenged the YMCA boys. They enjoyed football enough to start playing regularly 'to amuse themselves, among themselves, in their own way,' and then decided to form a proper club. The rest is history as Queen's Park blazed a trail for association football in Scotland.
   However, it is clear that football was already a popular recreation in Glasgow long before 1867, although frustratingly for historians there are only tantalising glimpses of football in the press and written records.
   For example, in the summer of 1862 the Glasgow Abstainers' Union took over Gilmorehill Recreation Grounds to promote outdoor activities, and top of their list was football. Although it was initially described as 'the ancient and praiseworthy pastime of football', the activity was soon disparaged by an English observer in a letter to the Glasgow Morning Journal: 'Football as we play it in England, with two sides, and a goal to be kept by one of them, is a noble game. Here there was no game. By the English eye a mob of people kicking a ball about quite aimlessly and at random could only be regarded as a pitiful congregation of blockheads working off their superfluous physical energies in a particularly insane and stupid manner.' (7 May 1862)
   This drew an angry riposte from 'A Scotchman' who wrote: 'Failing to discover the drunkenness over which he would have gloated with delight, he gives vent to his bile in a scurrilous attack on the play at foot-ball, which was not managed, he says in the English style. It may be right, perhaps, to let this conceited Englishman know that the game of football is as well understood in all parts of Scotland as England.' (9 May 1862) 
   However, it appears the Abstainers' Union were scared off by the bad publicity and they abruptly ended the short-lived experiment with the stark announcement: 'Foot-Balling has been discontinued in consequence of interfering with the comfort of visitors'. The game was simply too popular.

The only other meaningful announcement about football is an advert for members of the St Andrew Football Club, placed in the Glasgow Herald in November 1865. However, apart from the location of their ground on Great Western Road, which was also the home of cricket clubs including Caledonian, Bellegrove and Blythswood, nothing is revealed about the club, not even whether they played with a round or oval ball.
   Although the city's first rugby clubs were founded at West of Scotland (1865) and Glasgow Academicals (1866), there are precious few mentions of football in the press until Queen's Park advertised the start of their first summer season in March 1868, shortly followed by their annual meeting on 4 April.

The club was quickly growing in a stature, as a letter to the Glasgow Evening Citizen on 6 June confirmed. The writer stated the need for dressing rooms for sportsmen at the Queen's Park Recreation Ground and described the football club as 'the most influential in numbers, well organised and respectable, and with their flags, goal posts, putting stones, hammers and balls.' This was quite an accolade for a club which was less than a year old.
   That summer they decided to broaden their horizons beyond their own membership and, according to Robinson: 'It was found that there were in existence other clubs in exactly the same position as the Queen's Park, on the lookout for opponents.'
   Two challenges were received: one from Ayr FC, the other from the Thistle FC, whose headquarters were on Glasgow Green. A trip to Ayr was deemed impractical on financial grounds, so the game with Thistle was arranged and a letter from Robert Gardner, accepting the challenge, is in the Scottish Football Museum. It was addressed to Andrew Holmes, secretary of the Thistle Football Club, which indicates a properly organised club.
   A few days later, the teams met at the Queen's Park Recreation Ground, with Queen's Park winning by two goals to nil. Association football had arrived in Glasgow.
   What of their opponents? To establish the story of the Thistle Football Club one has to depend on later reminiscences, some of which contradict what Robinson wrote in the Queen's Park history.
   I was first alerted to an anecdote published in a 1934 book, The Mighty Kick. The authors wrote that 'John Connal [sic] brought the first football to Glasgow in 1862, having been brought up on the traditions of Hansel Monday in Callander, and helped to found the Thistle Football Club at Glasgow Green. Callander boys came to Glasgow and played football at Monteith Row, Glasgow Green, where the People's Palace now stands, paying a penny a week to take part. They wore the colours of Drummond Castle, which was owned by Baron Willoughby d'Eresby. This included tartan caps.'
   I found more of Connell's story in a couple of newspaper articles which described how he made the transition from the rural football of Perthshire to the organised game in Glasgow.

The Scottish Referee (29 June 1914) had an article titled 'A Football Pioneer' which was based on a conversation with John B Connell. It told how he came to Glasgow from Port of Menteith in 1863, and brought his football with him, one that had been used in the annual game at Callander on Hansel Monday (the first day of the traditional new year).
   'He was the only individual in the city who possessed a public ball, and the charge for the use of it was a penny a week. The games were played on Glasgow Green, the boundaries being from Geordie Geddes's house [ie the Glasgow Humane Society] to Monteith Row, and the objective was to kick over the boundary on either side. Both hands and feet were used. There was no limit to the number of players who joined each side, once the penny was paid. These games ultimately culminated in the formation of the Thistle, in which Connell took a prominent part, though prior to that there was the Drummond Club, composed of Callander men.'

However, the accounts do reveal something of the nature of early association football in Glasgow. They also provide a documented direct link between Scottish rural football and association football, as first described by Dr Neil Tranter who told the story of Callander’s Hansel Monday football game over twenty years ago (click on link and scroll to page 143) and it was then reported in The Herald. ​The traditional new year match continued in the town until 1885, and overlapped with the formation in 1877 of Callander's first association football club, Rob Roy.

Connell was no mean player and was rated in the first Scottish Football Annual: 'Powerful back; kicks well, although rather nervous when pressed.' In 1875, while with Eastern, he played for Glasgow v Sheffield and a year later featured in an international trial.
   His full name was John Burns Connell and he was born in Doune in 1846, then brought up on a farm near Port of Menteith, a few miles south of Callander. He clearly took part in the annual football match there and after coming to Glasgow to work in the early 1860s he continued to enjoy the game and appears to have been the captain of both the Thistle and the Drummond teams.
   Later he played for Callander (a Glasgow club) in the first ever Scottish Cup tournament in 1873, after the club subscribed £1 for the purchase of the trophy. He then joined Eastern, a club which produced many prominent players, notably the Scotland internationalists Peter Andrews, JJ Lang, Alex Kennedy and WS Somers. Ultimately Eastern became one of the forerunners of Clyde FC.
   He remained in Glasgow for the rest of his life and worked for over 50 years as a draper and warehouseman with J&W Campbell. He died in Scotstoun in 1930, aged 84, and although he and his wife Louisa had two children, there are not thought to be any living descendants.
   There are no known photos of Connell, which is unfortunate as he is a key figure in the early development of football. Similarly, there is no documentary evidence of the Thistle or Drummond clubs.
   As research into the story of early Scottish football continues, I hope that, in time, the contributions of John B Connell and his fellow players from Callander will become better known and appreciated.

It was back in 2012 that I wrote of the need for a new Scotland who's who. Already by that time I had started to research the many internationalists who deserved to be better known, but I had little idea of the size of the job I was undertaking.
   Now, after countless hours of research the book is finally published. The men who made Scotland contains detailed biographies of 615 players, in fact every player who represented Scotland between 1872 and 1939.
   It is on sale from amazon or directly from me, and purchases of copies have quickly gone into three figures, but while I welcome any sales I have to clear that this was never going to be a profitable project. My aim, all along, was to ensure that footballers who reached the pinnacle of their profession by pulling on the dark blue of Scotland should be known about and celebrated. For too long, many of them were lost to the winds and I am delighted to have put that right.
   After devoting the best part of ten years to completing the research and getting this book into print, the big question is: what now? In fact, I have a list of projects, large and small, which I can now get my teeth into.
   Watch this space, I hope you continue to find much of interest on this website.

In Scottish Cup final week there are all sorts of souvenirs available to mark the occasion. But in years gone by, fans could celebrate victory with a drink from a special glass that commemorated their team's success.
   I have managed to collect quite a few of these glasses, which date from the 1920s to the 1960s. They cover teams from all over Scotland and came in different styles and sizes, with the last three being tankards with the players' signatures printed. The tankards are more robust and have survived in reasonable numbers, but the early glass ones are fragile and rare.
   Here are photos of the ones in my collection although I know there are more examples out there, for example the earliest I have seen was for Morton in 1921. And there is even one, pictured at the end, for Troon Athletic who won the Ayrshire Junior Cup in 1922.
   The only clue to who made them is on the 1928 glass when Rangers won the league and cup double. It has Crocket & Son of Buchanan Street printed below the graphics, but whether they made them or just sold them is hard to say. That year is also different as there is Scottish League flag printed on the back.
   Needless to say, I would be interested to know of any further examples.

I'm grateful to guest contributor Douglas Gorman for his article on the story of the careers of two very young footballers who hold records for their achievements.
   16-year-old Norrie Corbett was the youngest player to captain the Scotland Junior team in 1936, while 17-year-old Joe Fascione was the youngest ever to win a Scottish Junior Cup winner’s medal in 1962.

Both players went on to senior clubs, Corbett spending most of his career with West Ham United on both sides of WW2, and Fascione went to Chelsea in the swinging sixties.
   You can read their full story by clicking here to open the pdf.
​ 

Scottish football is, understandably, proud of the 'Scotch professors' who took the passing game to England and beyond in the pioneering days.
​   Well known names include JJ Lang and Peter Andrews who went to Sheffield in 1876, Fergie Suter and Jimmy Love moved from Partick to Darwen in 1878, the brothers Robert and James Smith played for Scotland in the 1872 international while with South Norwood, and Hugh McIntyre who first played for Blackburn Rovers in 1879.
   What is not well known is that several English footballers went in the opposite direction and played for Scottish clubs. They all came north to work or study, and there is no suggestion that they were paid to play, but they certainly had an impact on the game here. I have identified five English players in the 1870s and there may well be more.
   The most influential, although he would not have realised it at the time, was William Kirkham. The man from Darwen came to Glasgow to work, was a founding member of Partick FC in 1875, and was the catalyst for the close relationship between Darwen and Partick.
   He played for Partick for two years before going home and the outcome of that, as I have previously detailed, was the decision by Jimmy Love and Fergie Suter to head south in 1878. When Darwen faced Old Etonians in the FA Cup later that season, Kirkham's experience of Scottish football could be added to that of Love and Suter.

Kirkham was not the first Englishman in Scottish football, however. From 1874-78, James Waghorn was a key player for Alexandra Athletic, based in Dennistoun. Born in Essex, he came to Glasgow in the 1860s when his father found work on the railways and took up football, playing for the Kennyhill Park club from 1874-78.
   Alexandra Athletic, like Partick, was one of the pioneers of cross-border football and in 1876 played the first of a series of matches against Sheffield Albion, home and away. Waghorn was not only a club official, he was team captain. His elder brother George also played for the team in some early matches.

James Waghorn had an interesting career after he left Glasgow. He spent a few years in London, where he played rugby for the Reindeer club, then emigrated to Canada where he was founding editor of the highly successful Waghorn's Guides. He died in Vancouver in 1942.

One well-established English player to come to Scotland was Godfrey Turner. Born in Slough in 1854, he played football regularly in the early 1870s for Uxbridge, Windsor Home Park and Swifts. With Swifts his team took Old Etonians to two replays in an FA Cup tie, he was good enough to be selected for an England trial in 1875, and the following year he was England's umpire in the international match against Scotland at Partick.
   In 1877 he started studying science at Edinburgh University, and helped to found a football club with his fellow students. In fact, he captained the University in their first ever match in February 1878, against Glasgow University.

Turner continued to represent the University until he graduated in 1880 when he went into business in Liverpool. He played football for several more years, initially for Bootle, with one appearance for Everton, then in 1882 he founded Liverpool Ramblers where he was team captain. He also captained the Liverpool & District Select and in 1886 he even played for the famous Corinthians. Meanwhile he had a successful brewing business, and remained in Liverpool until his death in 1936.

Another high profile name who made a major impact was Thomas Britten, who was part of the famous multi-cultural Parkgrove team alongside Andrew Watson, Tommy Marten and Robert Walker.
   Britten is something of an enigma. He was born in the village of Byton in Herefordshire, just a couple of miles from the border with Wales, and his birth was registered in Presteign which straddled the border.
   This appears to have qualified him to play for Wales and he was capped twice, in 1878 and 1880, as well as being selected several other times. However, he also came very close to playing for England and was named as a reserve in the team to face Scotland in 1879.
   Educated at Doncaster Grammar School, he came to Glasgow in 1874 to undertake an apprenticeship in engineering and worked in Govan and Linthouse for four years. He joined Parkgrove FC and was in such fine form in 1877-78 that he was selected for Glasgow in the annual match against Sheffield, scoring one of the goals in a 4-2 victory. A few weeks later he made his Wales debut at Hampden.
   On leaving Glasgow he worked in Grantham, and later in Liverpool and London. He was much in demand from clubs including Grantham, Bootle and Brentwood, and was also selected for representative teams including the South, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and London. Wales picked him against England in 1883 and 1887 but each time he called off.
   Britten emigrated in 1887 to Johannesburg, where he won the Transvaal Cup with Wanderers. He remained in South Africa as a mechanical engineer in the gold mining industry, and died there in 1910.
   These brief summaries of the stories of Kirkham, the Waghorn brothers, Turner and Britten show clearly that football skills were transferred in both directions between England and Scotland in the 1870s. Before the first glimmer of professionalism, players moved for work or study and this must have helped to spread tactics and ideas.

Everything changed in the following decade which saw a flood of 'Scotch professors' heading south, but there was one more example of the early relationship between Partick and Darwen. Two Darwen players, James Gledhill and John Holden, both came to Scotland to study medicine in the 1880s. Gledhill is thought to have played for Partick under an assumed name, but Holden made a considerable impact in four years at Edinburgh University, and was selected for Edinburgh nine times, at least one of them as captain. 

Scotland have always played in blue, right? Well, not in the first rugby international of 1871, if you believe what you can read online. According to Wikipedia and even recent reports in The Times, the Press & Journal and BBC History magazine, the Scotland team on that historic day wore brown shirts.
   It is a myth, however - one of those mistaken stories which has persisted over the years. Now, on the 150th anniversary of the match, it is time to set the record straight.
   It all goes back to one newspaper report, the Glasgow Herald's account of the game, which stated 'the Scotch' wore a brown jersey with a thistle. As the Herald was one of the first newspapers to be digitised, a researcher must have come across this version which has been widely quoted ever since. However, it does not stand up to scrutiny.

It is abundantly clear from other reports that Scotland played in dark blue, with England in white, as they have done ever since. 

There was some uncertainly in the English press in advance of the match, with Bell's Life and The Sporting Life both reporting in the build-up that Scotland would wear scarlet jerseys, but they were careful to correct that mistake in their match reports. The Scottish papers, including The Scotsman and North British Daily Mail, were clear beforehand that Scotland would have dark blue jerseys.
   When match reports appeared the day after the game, every paper mentioned Scotland's dark blue, with the sole exception of the Glasgow Herald ​who, inexplicably, went for brown.
   One question which has never been answered is why Scotland traditionally play in blue, and England in white. The reasons behind the choice of colours are not explained, although there was clearly a logic as the Scotland and England association football teams made the same decisions for their first match in 1872.   
   Not only have these colours persisted ever since, but also the team badges: Scotland's rugby players had a thistle, England a rose, and the same emblems are still found today. In football, the national team emblems of lion rampant for Scotland and three lions for England have also been retained.

A final piece of trivia is where Scotland bought their blue shirts. There were two main sports shops in Edinburgh at the time and JC Stewart was proudly able to advertise the day after the game that he had supplied the jerseys and thistle badges of the Scotland Twenty. His great rival Percival King, however, provided the match ball.

There are few tasks more daunting in football than taking a penalty kick. And if the whole nation is watching and praying, you need nerves of steel. 
   Some of Scotland's penalties have changed the course of our football history. The recent successful penalty shoot-outs in the Nations League took us to the Euro finals. Five out of five, in two consecutive matches!
   But penalties can also turn heros into zeros. Don Masson's spot kick against Wales in 1977 secured qualification for the World Cup in Argentina, but who could forget his miss against Peru in the 1978 finals? And will Gary McAllister always be remembered for his kick being saved at Wembley in the 1996 Euros?
   It is such a key part of football, that I decided to compile a complete list of all 137 penalties awarded in Scotland men's international team matches. (See below, or click on the link for a pdf).
   The penalty kick has a long and turbulent history. It was added to the Laws of the Game in June 1891 and the very first penalty goal was scored by James McLuggage at Mavisbank Park in Airdrie. It soon became established as part of the game and the first international penalty, taken by Ireland's Sam Torrans against England in 1892, was saved. The first penalty to be scored in an international came in 1896 from another Irishman, Bob Milne, who helped his side to a 3-3 draw against Scotland.
   Responsibility for taking penalties usually fell to the team captain, so when Scotland was awarded a penalty after ten minutes of the match against Wales in 1897, it was John Ritchie of Queen's Park, captaining the side on his debut, who took the kick to open the scoring. He gained scant recognition for the feat, however, as he was never selected for Scotland again.
   Scotland's next kick resulted in the first miss, although it could easily have been forgotten about, as Jacky Robertson's failed attempt against Ireland in 1901 would have had little impact on the record 11-0 scoreline.

In total, Scotland has now been awarded 82 penalty kicks and 66 of those have resulted in goals, although three were only scored on the rebound. That's an 80 per cent success rate, which is better than the average in football of about 75 per cent.
   Our best individual record in penalties belongs to John Robertson, who hit the net with all five of his kicks, including a memorable winner against England at Wembley in 1981. The only other man to take five was Gary McAllister, but sadly he missed two of them. Eric Caldow and Archie Gemmill both had a perfect record with their four kicks.
   On five occasions, Scotland have been awarded two penalties in the same match: Ireland 1905, East Germany 1974, Israel 1981, Faroe Islands 2006, Gibraltar 2015. Only once did that not result in two goals, in 1974 as Sandy Jardine's early effort was saved so he let Tommy Hutchison take the second award.

Neither of Scotland's record goalscorers, Denis Law and Kenny Dalglish, ever scored a penalty for Scotland, although Law had the opportunity against Finland in 1965. His shot hit the post.
   As for penalties awarded against Scotland, curiously the numbers are much smaller. There have been 55 in total but nearly all have resulted in a goal, with four saved while Bobby Charlton, of all people, shot wide in 1960. It was actually his third penalty of the match: he scored the first, his second attempt was saved but the referee ordered a retake, and his third flew past the post.

Listed below are all penalties awarded in Scotland men's international matches. 

82 penalty kicks awarded:
66 scored (4 on the rebound)
​16 missed (10 saved, 4 hit woodwork, 2 wide)
 
1897   Wales: John Ritchie
1901   Ireland: Jacky Robertson (wide)
1905   Ireland: Charlie Thomson (2)
1907   Ireland: Charlie Thomson
1909   England: Jimmy Stark (saved)
1921   Ireland: Andy Wilson (saved but scored the rebound)
1927   Wales: Jock Hutton
1929   Netherlands: Bobby Rankin
1931   N Ireland: David Meiklejohn (wide)
1933   N Ireland: Peter McGonagle (saved)
1936   England: Tommy Walker
1938   Hungary: Tommy Walker
1946   Belgium: Jimmy Delaney
1946   Wales: Willie Waddell
1949   N Ireland: Willie Waddell
1957   Spain: John Hewie
1958   France: John Hewie (hit post)
1959   N Ireland: John Hewie
1960   Turkey: Eric Caldow
1960   N Ireland: Eric Caldow
1962   England: Eric Caldow
1962   Wales: Eric Caldow
1963   England: Jim Baxter
1965   Finland: Denis Law (hit post)
1969   Cyprus: Tommy Gemmell
1973   West Germany: Billy Bremner (saved)
1974   Wales: Sandy Jardine
1974   East Germany: Sandy Jardine (saved)
1974   East Germany: Tommy Hutchison
1974   Spain: Tommy Hutchison (saved)
1975   England: Bruce Rioch
1976   N Ireland: Bruce Rioch (hit post)
1976   Finland: Don Masson
1977   Argentina: Don Masson
1977   Wales: Don Masson
1978   Bulgaria: Archie Gemmill
1978   Peru: Don Masson (saved)
1978   Netherlands: Archie Gemmill
1978   Norway: Archie Gemmill
1980   Portugal: Archie Gemmill
1981   Israel: John Robertson (2)
1981   England: John Robertson
1981   Sweden: John Robertson
1982   Netherlands: Frank Gray
1982   Belgium: Frank Gray (saved)
1983   Canada: Gordon Strachan
1983   Uruguay: John Robertson
1984   Wales: Davie Cooper
1985   Wales: Davie Cooper
1986   England: Graeme Souness
1986   Luxembourg: Davie Cooper
1990   Sweden: Mo Johnston
1990   Switzerland: John G Robertson
1991   San Marino: Gordon Strachan
1992   Canada: Gary McAllister
1992   CIS: Gary McAllister
1993   Estonia: Pat Nevin
1993   Malta: Gary McAllister (hit bar)
1996   England: Gary McAllister (saved)
1997   Belarus: Gary McAllister
1998   Brazil: John Collins
1999  Lithuania: Mark Burchill (hit post but Don Hutchison scored rebound)
1999   Bosnia: John Collins
2001   Belgium: Billy Dodds
2001   Poland: Scott Booth
2004   Sweden: James McFadden
2006   Faroe Islands: Kris Boyd
2006   Faroe Islands: Kenny Miller
2008 Iceland: James McFadden (saved, but he scored the rebound)
2011   Lithuania: Darren Fletcher (saved)
2011   Spain: David Goodwillie
2013 Croatia: Barry Bannan (saved, but Stevie Naismith scored rebound)
2015   Gibraltar: Shaun Maloney (2)
2016   Malta: Robert Snodgrass
2018   Hungary: Charlie Mulgrew (saved)
2018   Israel: Charlie Mulgrew
2018   Albania: Steven Fletcher
2020   Israel: Ryan Christie
2020   Czech Republic: Ryan Christie

55 penalties conceded: 50 scored, 5 missed
 
1896   Ireland: Robert Milne
1901  England: Ernest Needham (saved by Harry Rennie)
1912   Ireland: James McKnight
1931   Wales: Ernest Curtis
1932   France: Marcel Langiller
1938   Hungary: Gyorgy Sarosi
1951   Austria: Theodor Wagner
1953   N Ireland: Norman Lockhart
1959   West Germany: Erich Juskowiak
1960   England: Bobby Charlton
1960   England: Bobby Charlton (shot wide)
1961   Czechoslovakia: Andrej Kvasnak
1963   Norway: Per Kristoffersen
1967  N Ireland: Johnny Crossan (saved by Ronnie Simpson)
1969   England: Geoff Hurst
1971   Belgium: Paul van Himst
1973   Czechoslovakia: Zdenek Nehoda
1974   West Germany: Paul Breitner
1974   Belgium: Raoul Lambert
1976   Wales: Arfon Griffiths
1977   England: Mick Channon
1977   Argentina: Daniel Passarella
1978   Netherlands: Rob Rensenbrink
1982   Spain: Quini
1988   Italy: Giuseppe Giannini
1990   East Germany: Thomas Doll
1990   Switzerland: Adrian Knup
1991   Romania: Gheorghe Hagi
1993   Switzerland: Georges Bregy
1994   Greece: Stratos Aposotlakis
1995   Ecuador: Ivan Hurtado
1996   USA: Eric Wynalda
1997   Belarus: Pjatro Kachura
1997   France: Youri Djorkaeff
1998   Colombia: Carlos Valderrama
1998   Faroe Islands: John Petersen
2002   Canada: Dwayne De Rosario
2002 Portugal: Luis Figo (saved by Rab Douglas)
2003   Lithuania: Tomas Razanauskas
2003   Germany: Michael Ballack
2004   Hungary: Szabolcs Huszti
2004   Spain: Raul
2004   Norway: Steffen Iversen
2005   USA: Joshua Wolff
2006   Ukraine: Andrij Shevchenko
2007   Lithuania: Tomas Danilevicius
2008   N Ireland: David Healy (saved by Allan McGregor)
2008   Iceland: Eidur Gudjohnsen
2009   Netherlands: Dirk Kuijt
2010   Spain: David Villa
2011   Brazil: Neymar
2011   Czech Republic: Michal Kadlec
2012   Wales: Gareth Bale
2013   Wales: Aaron Ramsey
2018   Peru: Christian Cueva

If I have missed any, please let me know.


* Updates, added to the original list:
Johnny Crossan of Northern Ireland had a penalty saved by Ronnie Simpson in 1967.
Billy Bremner's penalty against West Germany in 1973 was saved by Sepp Maier.
Also, thanks to Cris Freddi for pointing out that the first penalty in an international came in 1892; it was saved.
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