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 (3 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
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.
​

I was recently asked to write an article about the origins of Scottish football. In the end, it wasn't used, but rather than let it go to waste I wanted to share it here. This is an extended and updated version of a piece I wrote back in 2013.

The established narrative of the birth of association football in Scotland generally starts with the foundation of Queen's Park FC in 1867. But if you look behind the bare facts of that event in Glasgow you will discover that a little village school in Aberdeenshire can stake a claim as a birthplace of Scottish football.
   At least three of the founders of Queen's Park were educated at Fordyce Academy, while many of their fellow pioneers also came from Scotland's north-east. Their origins encapsulate a story which helps to explain why football north of the border evolved along different lines to that in England, with passing and teamwork rather than dribbling and individuality as its principal characteristics.
   Scotland's first association football club came into being on 9 July 1867 when a group of young men met in Glasgow 'for the purpose of forming a Football Club'.
   The minutes of Queen's Park's inaugural meeting were captured in beautiful script by 19-year-old William Klingner, a merchant's clerk, who was elected secretary. The single sheet recorded a few basic rules and a list of committee members from whom four office bearers were appointed to lead the club.
   Unfortunately for researchers it is not possible to consult the original document, which was lost in a fire at Hampden Park on Boxing Day 1945. However, a picture of the minute was reproduced in Richard Robinson's History of Queen's Park, published in 1920. His book is widely accepted as the definitive version of how the club was formed, and who its founders were, but in the course of my research I became aware of a few anomalies in Robinson's version of events, which merited a close re-examination.
   Dublin-born Robinson, the club historian, was in fact more of a cycling aficionado when he came to Glasgow in his youth and was one of the founders of the Scottish Cyclists' Union, elected its president in 1896. His day job was managing the Post Office telegraph office in the city, with a sideline as football editor of the Glasgow News and he also launched the Scottish Athletic Journal. Newly-retired at the time of the Queen's Park jubilee, he was in a good position to write the club's history.
   In the build-up to the club's fiftieth anniversary there was copious newspaper coverage of some early reminiscences, and two books of press cuttings from 1916-17 are held in the Scottish Football Museum. These provide a number of pointers which are not in Robinson's book, which had to wait until the First World War was over to see the light of day.
   What is clear is that the Queen's Park story began in the mid-1860s when a group of young men exercised together each Saturday on a patch of ground in Strathbungo, on the south side of Glasgow.
   One of them was James Cruickshank Grant who, when interviewed in 1916 for the Athletic News, identified the initial group as comprising himself, Robert and James Smith, Donald Edminston, Lewis Black and 'a couple of others'. They were all north of Scotland men: Grant came from the Highland village of Duthil, not far from Black's home in Grantown-on-Spey, the Smiths had been brought up in Morayshire and Edminston was from Aberdeenshire.
   Grant related how initially they practised traditional Highland sports at Strathbungo but when the ground became too confined they decamped to Queen's Park Recreation Ground in Langside. There, they encountered about forty youths from the local YMCA who were kicking a ball about and the men from the north joined in their game of football. They enjoyed it so much that they went into town to buy their own ball, as even in the 1860s footballs could be bought over the counter – there was a range on sale at the Royal Polytechnic Warehouse – which indicates the game was already popular in Glasgow.
   As more and more people joined in their football games, in the summer of 1867 they decided to form a proper club, hence the meeting at 3 Eglinton Terrace in Crosshill. It was attended by about 20 young men, of whom 13 were elected onto a committee, and this is where the minute of that first meeting merits close examination, with a particular focus on those individuals.
   William Klingner, the secretary, came from Portsoy on the Banffshire coast, the son of an émigré from Dresden who was village doctor.
   The treasurer is recorded as 'Smith senior' to distinguish himself from 'Smith junior' who was one of the ordinary members. These were James Smith and his younger brother Robert, the sons of the Earl of Fife's head gardener at Innes House in Morayshire. (Richard Robinson got them the wrong way round in his book.)
   The Smith brothers and Klingner were all educated at the same school, Fordyce Academy. It is really at the epicentre of Queen's Park's foundation as just five miles west of Fordyce is the coastal village of Cullen, birthplace of Queen's Park's first captain, Lewis Black.
   Fordyce Academy was a remarkable institution. It was endowed in 1790 by George Smith, son of the village blacksmith who had made his fortune as a merchant in Bombay. He left £10,000, known as the Smith Bounty, to fund a schoolmaster and minister and to pay for the education of boys whose surname was, preferably, Smith.
   Not surprisingly, there was fierce competition for places, with entrance exams for seven bursaries each year as well as for private fee-paying pupils. This gave it a cosmopolitan mix of pupils from different classes.
   With the benefit of their surname, the Smith brothers from Morayshire were among the bursary pupils, probably as boarders as the family home was about 25 miles away. Klingner, however, could easily have travelled the three miles from home to school each day.
   The Academy only had about 40 pupils, but the education they received could be life-changing and former pupils included surgeons, barristers and men such as Thomas Glover, responsible for introducing Western technology to Japan, and Sir James Clark, physician to Queen Victoria. The school enjoyed immense prestige in the Victorian era, described on occasion as the 'Eton of the North' (although it must be admitted that the term has been applied to several other schools such as Sedbergh, Rossall, Glenalmond and Fettes). In 1902, HM Inspector of Schools wrote 'The position of this school is now well established as the most important feeder of the university outside the city of Aberdeen.'
   The last of the four Queen's Park office bearers was 30-year-old Mungo Ritchie, chosen as president, who came from Madderty in Perthshire. Lewis Black would succeed Ritchie as club president the following year.
   The other members of the club, at least those who can be identified, came from various parts of Scotland ranging from Ayrshire to Inverness-shire and it appears that only one of them, the future club captain Robert Gardner, was a native Glaswegian.
   With so many different backgrounds, and with none of the club members coming from schools with written rules, one of the first acts of the new committee was to decide which form of football to play. They wrote to Lillywhite's sports shop in London to ask for examples, and soon adopted their own 'Rules of the Field'. These were based on those of the Football Association and copies were printed in 1868 for the members, although none are known to have survived. Thankfully Robinson reproduced them in full in his book.
   Rather than adopting the FA's rules entirely, the Queen's Park pioneers took their own view, and a sub-committee redrafted some of the text. Crucially they came up with a different wording to Law 6, covering offside.
   The original text reads: When a player has kicked the ball, any one of the same side who is nearer to the opponents' goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until the ball has been played, unless there are at least three of his opponents between him and their own goal; but no player is out of play when the ball is kicked from behind the goal-line.
   The text in italic was altered to read: 'unless there are at least two of his opponents between him and their own goal, who must not be more than fifteen yards from the goal-line'.
   By relaxing the number of opponents from three to two, and introducing a stipulation that those opponents had to be performing a defensive role in the last fifteen yards of the pitch, there was clearly a desire to have greater freedom to pass the ball forwards. This indicates that the Queen's Park players had an understanding about how to play football that was based on a passing game. They did not have the mental baggage that constrained public school-educated footballers in England.
   They were not alone in choosing this approach. Also playing football in Glasgow then were young men from Callander, brought up in the tradition of the town's Hansel Monday game. One of them, John B Connell, claimed to have brought the first football to the city back in 1862 and his team, the Thistle, was Queen's Park’s first opponents in August 1868. Connell's story of the early games on Glasgow Green was related in The Mighty Kick, published in 1933.
   From these pioneers' approach to the rules there is a strong inference that they already knew how they liked to play the game, and the outcome of that understanding is that Scottish football in the 1870s and 1880s was defined by the ability to pass the ball, while English football foundered on its 'manly' origins that valued strength over teamwork.
   The challenge for the football historian is to demonstrate the facts behind this theory, as there are few written records. The complete truth of Scottish football's origins will probably never be known as there is little hard evidence that boys played a kicking and passing type of football at Fordyce Academy, or at other Scottish rural schools, in the 1850s and 1860s.
   What is evident, however, is that while the pioneering club in Scottish football was founded in Glasgow, the roots of the club and its founding fathers can be traced to a small school at the other end of the country.
   Today, Fordyce is a conservation village caught in a time warp. It boasts a medieval castle at its centre, a church which has stood since Pictish times, and a historic schoolhouse. Fordyce Academy may have closed in 1964, and the building is now a private house, but its legacy remains.

In 1935 the Scottish Football Association (SFA) decided that it needed a stadium with a realistic capacity of 150,000 in which to stage major matches.
   Matters had come to a head that year after crowd scenes in Glasgow city centre before the international match with England. Supporters, anxious to get to Hampden Park before the gates closed, crossed working railway lines at Central Station as a short-cut to the trains heading for Mount Florida. Incoming trams were boarded before they had reached their terminus to ensure a place was secured for the return journey to the ground. At the ground there had been over-crowding.
   ​Glasgow was already the football capital of the world, with Ibrox and Hampden each capable of hosting crowds of 120,000, with Celtic not far behind. It was still not enough.

It was clear to the SFA that something had to be done to safely accommodate and increase the number of spectators that could watch big games otherwise the Glasgow Corporation would take action itself on the grounds of public safety and order.
   The most likely threat from the Corporation would have been a significant reduction in the 120,000 capacity of Hampden Park and further changes to how the spectators entered the ground to avoid over-crowding. It is also possible that the Corporation may have looked at restricting public transport arrangements to avoid a repetition of the scenes in the city centre. These measures would have had a major financial impact on the SFA.
   The SFA itself thought that the major games should be all-ticket with no tickets on sale on match day at the ground. This would aid control of the vast crowds and reduce the numbers travelling to the ground many of which would be locked out.
   The SFA decided that the solution was to give one club sole right to stage the Scotland v England international and the Scottish Cup Final for a period of 21 years in return for committing to significant ground expansion plans.
   It appears that Celtic FC, with a current holding capacity of 92,000, did not put forward a proposal for Celtic Park.  In December 1905 the club had already withdrawn its own plans to host these major matches and supported the new (third) Hampden Park as the big match venue. It is possible that a survey of their ground revealed that they could not meet the SFA’s capacity requirement within their land or that plans would be economically unviable.
   This left the way clear for Rangers FC and Queen's Park FC to submit proposals.
   In 1930 Ibrox Park was certified to have a capacity of 136,941 but 120,000 was the match limit. Rangers had plans to increase the capacity to 150,000 together with spectator cover over the entire north enclosure. There were later reports of other plans to increase it further to 184,000.
   Hampden Park had a certified capacity of 141,765 although again the match limit was 120,000. Queen's Park FC put forward two schemes that would increase the capacity to 167,720 or 163,472. Both schemes would give a realistic match limit of 150,000.
   When the Council of the SFA met on 1 April 1936 to make its decision, there was a keen debate as there was little between the two proposals. Rangers' manager, Bill Struth, attended the meeting and asked many questions. He was keen to know what the position of the SFA would be if the Queen's Park FC plan was accepted but the club was later required to make a request for financial assistance - a pertinent question as you will find out. He also pointed out the Chief Constable's comments on the access improvements to Ibrox Park that would arise from the completion of the new Renfrew Road had been omitted from the report under consideration at the meeting.
   In the end, the deciding factor was not the stadium plans, but supporter access.  A letter from the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company (LMS) informed the SFA that it could provide 20/25 special trains to Ibrox station on a match day but 45 using Mount Florida and King's Park stations near Hampden Park, with the latter leading to routes to the east. The company said that it could offer and manage a better service to Hampden Park.  The decision was made.
   Queen's Park FC agreed to provide the SFA with a stadium capable of holding 150,000 spectators for a period of 21 years. In return the club would receive one third of the receipts from the biennial international match against England, with a guaranteed minimum of £5,000 after deducting Entertainment Tax. The club would also receive 20% of the gate receipts from the Scottish Cup Final after deducting Entertainment Tax, match expenses, club guarantees and the percentage due to the SFA under the competition's rules. The SFA made it a condition that the admission price for the terracing for the match against England should be 2s (£0.10). One final condition was that if Queen's Park reached the Cup Final then the match would be played at Hampden Park, but Queen's Park would forgo its ground rent.
   The Queen's Park club selected its slightly smaller scheme and engaged the famous Scottish football ground engineer, Archibald Leitch, to undertake the work. Glasgow, like each Scottish burgh, had a Dean of Guild Court made up of local magistrates, which at the time was the public authority to which anyone intending to build had to apply for permission, which they duly gave on 29 May 1936.
   Construction started that summer and the extended ground was ready for occupancy on 15 February 1937 with the improvement costing £63,325. The original estimated cost was £40-50,000 but further unanticipated expenditure had been incurred to deal with safety requirements together with some other cost increases. It was a heavy financial burden for the amateur club and on 27 September 1937, after having received a deputation from Queen's Park FC, the SFA Council agreed to make a loan of £5,000, despite earlier requests for £10-12,500, to the club to be repaid over the period of the agreement to stage major matches. The annual interest rate was 2½%, paid half-yearly.
   ​How many people could be safely accommodated watching a match was not the same as the theoretical holding capacity calculated by the engineers. The engineers assumed that every seat was occupied and then made a calculation of the space available (around a width of 18 inches) for spectators standing in serried ranks on each step of terracing. This produced a total of 163,782.
   The engineers also calculated that an additional 19,906 spectators could stand in the gangways and that is the reason why a round 180,000 was often quoted at the time as the ground’s new capacity.
   The match capacity was set and reviewed by the Glasgow Corporation based on advice from the Chief Constable, responsible for crowd control, and its Master of Works who made his own calculations. His result was 149,969 that was based on 14,269 seats and standing accommodation for 135,700. In his calculations 1.77 square feet per spectator was allowed for on the east terracing and 1.79 square feet on the west terracing with no standing in the gangways. The layout of the ground and its entrances and exits meant that 150,000 spectators could be admitted in under 75 minutes and it could be safely cleared in just 19 minutes.
   When the expanded ground staged its first major matches in April 1937 new attendance records were set immediately. 149,547 attended the Scotland v England international on 17 April 1937, a new world record, which remains an all-time Hampden Park record and a European crowd record.
   A week later, on 24 April 1937, 147,365 watched the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Aberdeen. This set an all-time Scottish Cup Final record and is still a record for a European club match. It was also a world record for a club match until December 1963 when 177,656 saw Fluminense play Flamengo in the Maracanã.
   Soon afterwards a meeting of the Glasgow Corporation was held on 27 May 1937 to discuss concerns over safety at the ground and heard claims that the passageways were blocked and there had been overcrowding and swaying. The Corporation received reports from the Master of Works and the Chief Constable and were keeping in mind possible further improvements. Councillor David Brown, who had watched the International match from the east terracing, argued that the match capacity should be reduced to 135,000 and other aspects of crowd control and ground layout needed to be addressed. However, no change was made.
   In 1938 Hampden Park was not hosting the England match and the Cup Final opponents (East Fife and Kilmarnock) meant that ground capacity was not going to be taxed. The issue arose once again the following year. On 4 April 1939 the Glasgow Magistrates met and discussed the capacity for the forthcoming international match against England and the Cup Final. It was again suggested that it should be reduced to 135,000 to ensure safety and comfort but in the end it was set at 149,000. That was the capacity calculated by the Master of Works and subject to the installation of some more crush barriers before the international.
   149,269 attended the Scotland v England match on 15 April 1939.
   Hampden would never witness such large crowds again. For much of the Second World War the ground operated under a reduced capacity. 139,468 watched the Scotland v England Victory International on 13 April 1946 that was played a month after the Bolton disaster when 33 spectators lost their lives, and hundreds were injured. The public enquiry into the disaster made a number of safety recommendations and consequently, the Hampden Park capacity was reduced to 134,580 where it remained for many years.

For my final article to mark Black History Month, I look at the story of BAME players in Scottish football in the 20th century.
 

I have written recently about the early black pioneers of Scottish football, starting with Andrew Watson and Robert Walker in the 1870s, then Willie Clarke and John Walker at the turn of the century. It would be nice to think that their example inspired generations of other black footballers, and that their influence on the Scottish sporting scene was long-lasting. Yet the opposite was true: after Willie Clarke's departure for England in 1900, Scottish football closed in on itself.
   A new book, Football's Black Pioneers, describes the challenging experiences of black players in England, and that has prompted me to research what happened in Scotland. I am going to take the story up to 1990. 

In the course of the 20th century there were a small number of black players from abroad, and I will detail them later, but the first Scot was Dougie Johnson, who made his league debut for Brechin City in October 1964. Born in Edinburgh to a Ghanaian father and Scottish mother, he had been on St Mirren’s books as a teenager, went back to junior football, then was given an opportunity at Glebe Park. He was a first team regular in a forgettable season which saw Brechin finish bottom of the league, and moved on to Albion Rovers where he made a handful of appearances.
   Meanwhile, Dougie's half-brother and friend Peter Foley (same father, different mother) was carving out a career in the English lower leagues at Workington, where he was top scorer, then at Scunthorpe and Chesterfield. The story of how Dougie and Peter came to find out their shared paternity is astonishing.
   ​After that breakthrough, in the next two decades there were a few BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Scottish players, although nothing compared to the numbers in England.

The most high profile was Scotland internationalist Paul Wilson. Born in Bangalore where his father was stationed, and with Indian heritage through his mother, his dark skin tone sometimes made him a target for racial abuse. He made over 200 appearances for Celtic after his debut in 1970, and also played for Motherwell and Partick Thistle later in his career. His Scotland cap was won against Spain in 1975, when he came on as a late substitute.

Dave Smith made his debut for Dunfermline Athletic in 1975 in the old First Division aged just 17. He spent two years at the club before reverting to junior football and later became Scotland's first black manager at Whitehill Welfare and Montrose.

Victor Kasule, born to a Scottish mother and Ugandan father, caused a stir with his exciting play at Albion Rovers, where he was a first team regular for four years after his debut in 1983.
   He was transferred to Meadowbank Thistle in 1987 for a club record fee of £28,000, helped them clinch the Second Division title and moved on the following season to Shrewsbury Town where his exploits off the field made a few headlines. He later played for Hamilton Academical and a few other clubs.
   Also in the 1980s, Rashid Sarwar made 25 appearances for Kilmarnock and may have been the first Scot of Pakistani heritage to play professionally in Scotland, while Mike McArthur played three first team games for Aberdeen in April 1988 and had a similarly brief spell at Kilmarnock. 
   And that was about that, as far as black Scots were concerned. In Emy Onuora's superb book Pitch Black he wrote about the English experience: 'The early pioneers had been largely looked upon as exotic embellishments to what had always been considered a white working-class game'. From a Scottish perspective, it is hard to disagree with his view.
   Most black players seen in Scotland were in visiting teams, notably thanks to the new European Cup, such as Eugène N'Jo-Léa of St Etienne who featured on the front cover of the Rangers programme in 1957 and Paul Bonga Bonga of Standard Liège who played at Hearts the following year.
   They were rarities, and while they generally provoked curiosity rather than abuse, Scotland could be a hostile place. Ruud Gullit recalled 'the saddest night of my life' in 1983 when he experienced racism as a footballer for the first time, in a UEFA Cup tie for Feyenoord at St Mirren. In 1985 the Commission for Racial Equality criticised Scotland supporters for barracking black England players at Hampden, while Rangers disparaged the 'appalling stupidity' of their own supporters for booing a black FC Twente player in a pre-season friendly.

That hostility boiled over in 1988 when Mark Walters, a talented black English midfielder, made his debut for Rangers against Celtic. He was met with unremitting vitriol from the terraces, including bananas thrown on the pitch, and when that treatment was repeated two weeks later at Tynecastle it ended the lie that racial discrimination in Scotland was nothing to worry about, the poor relation of sectarianism.
   Walters stuck at it and was soon followed by Raphael Meade at Dundee United, Paul Elliot at Celtic, Wes Reid and Gus Caesar at Airdrie, and Richard Cadette at Falkirk. With tedious regularity, all these black players were abused on and off the pitch and their treatment was sufficiently shocking to launch the first anti-racist movement in football, Supporters Campaign Against Racism in Football (SCARF). It began in Edinburgh and set out an action plan for football clubs to combat racism. In turn, this led to the formation of wider campaigns such as Kick it Out and Show Racism the Red Card.

Then in 1992, what I believe was Britain's first conference on anti-racism in football was held in Stirling. Chaired by Stuart Cosgrove, it brought together a broad range of campaigners who articulated the issues and the way to combat them. I have digitised the conference papers and they make fascinating reading.
   Thirty years on, the game here is considerably more cosmopolitan and things have certainly improved, but Scottish football does not yet have a clean bill of health. There are still virtually no BAME referees, coaches and administrators, while abuse from fans still occasionally rears its ugly head. I hope this article helps people to understand where we have come from and why anti-racism campaigns are still necessary.


Players from elsewhere
 
Before Mark Walters arrived here in 1988, a number of black players from around the world made a fleeting acquaintance with the game in Scotland. I have listed them below, but I acknowledge this is a subject which is poorly recorded and there may well be others.

Walter Tull, formerly of Tottenham and Northampton Town, signed for Rangers in February 1917 but returned to active service and was killed in action before he could play. He is celebrated enough to be commemorated on a postage stamp, but in fact his elder brother Edward preceded him in Scottish football. Under his adopted surname Warnock, he played a couple of league games at inside right for Ayr Parkhouse in March 1909, scoring in both of them, and then turned out for Girvan.
   Three Egyptians played for Scottish clubs in the inter-war years, starting with Tewfik Abdullah at Cowdenbeath in 1922-23. Born in Cairo he played 6 league games and 2 Scottish Cup ties in a season interrupted by a broken arm. He had played for Egypt in the 1920 Olympic Games, joined Derby County, and after leaving Scotland went to Bridgend and various other clubs.
   Mohammed Latif joined Rangers in 1934 after playing for Egypt in the World Cup but spent most his time with the reserves in the Scottish Alliance. He made a single league appearance against Hibs on 14 September 1935, as well as a friendly at Falkirk on 30 April 1936, then returned to the national team to compete in the 1936 Olympics.

Goalkeeper Mustapha Mansour spent 1936-39 with Queen's Park while studying PE at Jordanhill College in Glasgow, and although primarily in the reserves to begin with, he was first choice goalkeeper in his third and final season. Like Mohammed Latif, he played for Egypt in the 1934 World Cup and 1936 Olympics, a team coached by a Scot, James McCrae.
   Mohammed Abdul Salim, an Indian from Calcutta, played two reserve matches for Celtic in the Scottish Alliance in 1936, scoring a penalty in the second against Hamilton Accies. He attracted a lot of interest as he played in bandaged feet rather than wearing boots, but decided to return home where he resumed his career with Mohammedan Sporting Club.
   During the war a young black striker called Fred Hanley, who had been on the books of Chelsea and Clapton Orient without making a first team appearance, was posted to Perth. He spent two seasons with junior side Jeanfield Swifts and made two appearances for Raith Rovers in March 1942 before heading to North Africa on active service.
   Outside the senior leagues, the story of Biawa Makalaga, brought here as a child from Matabeleland and who played in goal for Rothes Victoria in the 1920s, deserves to be better known.
   Also, referee Eustace Elliott from Sierra Leone took charge of non-league matches in and around Edinburgh, including a women's Championship of the World between Edinburgh City Girls and Dick Kerr's in 1939.

Perhaps the most famous post-war player  in Scotland was Jamaican-born Gil Heron, who joined Celtic in 1951. He made an immediate impact and played in four League Cup ties, scoring in two of them, but was then dropped and was only selected for one league match. He moved on to Third Lanark for 1952-53, again without gaining a regular place and his seven games for Thirds were all in the League Cup, although he did score five goals.

Among those who came to Scotland on trial were Madhi Salih, an Iraqi at Celtic in 1953, while Aberdeen signed Armando Buscarenhas of India in 1959 and Eversley 'Bo' Lewis of Bermuda in 1961 but none of them made a competitive first team appearance. Lewis was only 16 when he came to Scotland and went on to a pro career in Canada. Two decades later another Bermudan, striker Ricky Hill, played a couple of reserve games on trial for Hibs in 1981.
   The only other significant instance of black players from abroad came in 1965, when Scottish football enjoyed a brief influx of Brazilians. There were eight in total.
   Celtic gave trials to Marco di Sousa and Airton Inacio, both of Sao Paolo, who played for the reserve team. Then Jorge Farah and Fernando Consol arrived, but all four were released in September.
   Airton Inacio remained in Scotland after being released by Celtic and had a brief association with Dougie Johnson's Albion Rovers, scoring against Forfar Athletic on 29 September 1965 in his one match for them. He then left to play for Vitória Guimarães in Portugal and Stade Français in France but returned to these shores in the winter of 1967-68 and made three appearances for Clydebank.
   Dunfermline also had two Brazilians but only one of them, Francisco 'Chico' Filho, played in a league match, against Morton on 18 September 1965. He went on to a fine coaching career in France and at Manchester United, where he worked alongside Sir Alex Ferguson – who had been his strike partner in the Dunfermline attack in 1965. Another trialist, Alexandre Gabrielle, was released and had a further unsuccessful trial for St Mirren in a friendly against Neilston.
   Two other Brazilians went to St Mirren, where Fernando Azevedo (who was not black) played once against Morton on 11 September 1965 but left the following month and ended up in the USA. Roberto Faria played a trial for Saints alongside Azevedo in a Renfrewshire Cup semi-final.
   My impression is that all these players found it hard to settle in Scotland, and were given few opportunities to adapt their game to 'the Scottish way'. With a bit more flexibility and understanding on the part of Scottish clubs, our game could have been so much different.


If you can add any further names to this article, please feel free to comment below, or contact me directly.
​

Postscript: a big thank-you to Gordon Bell who has alerted me to his amazing story of the students from Hawaii who played for Rangers in the 1880s: The Sons of the Sandwich Islands.
​

This is the fourth of my articles for Black History Month 2020 on pioneering black footballers in Scotland.

Having written recently about early black players in Scotland, it occurred to me that I had never heard of any match officials. So I was surprised to come across a black referee called Eustace Elliott taking charge of matches here in the years before the Second World War, and what is more he did it in a time of acute discrimination.

Eustace Elliott was from Sierra Leone and had come to Edinburgh as a mature medical student in the 1920s. Although I have not found anything about his earlier life, Elliott clearly had a solid sporting background as he played cricket and tennis to a decent standard in Edinburgh.
   However, it was as a football referee that he stood out, and it seems likely that he learned the game in Sierra Leone, whose football association was affiliated to the FA in London. He was a familiar face at matches in the 1930s, respected enough to be appointed to referee a juvenile international between Scotland and England in 1936 as well as several cup semis and finals at venues including Celtic Park and Tynecastle.
   In a society that was overwhelmingly white, Elliott must have faced discrimination including the infamous 'colour bar' imposed by some Edinburgh bars and restaurants against African and Asian students. Although that racist ban caused such condemnation that it was soon withdrawn, it reflected a society where feelings were strong and Elliott spoke about this in later years.
​   A report of a YMCA meeting in 1948 reveals he gave a talk on 'The Colour Bar', and the article added: 'He will be remembered by many Broxburn football fans as the only coloured football referee ever to grace West Lothian Juvenile circles. He was a very competent official and woe betide those who questioned his decisions.' 

That observation is borne out by contemporary reports. In 1935 the Linlithgowshire Gazette commented: 'The referee literally added more colour to an already colourful tie. He is a coloured student from Edinburgh and shows a very keen grasp of the rules, which he interprets with an admirable contempt for any attempt at intimidation.' A few months later he was praised for his control of a juvenile cup-tie at Winchburgh, whose players included a young Willie Thornton, when fighting broke out on the terraces.

Perhaps his biggest match was in June 1939, billed as a World Championship between Edinburgh City Ladies against Dick Kerr Ladies. The Scottish and English champions met at the Gymnasium, St Bernard's ground, on a summer Saturday evening, and the Scottish team won 5-2 in front of a crowd of around 12,000. The Sunday Post reporter, former Scotland goalkeeper Jack Harkness, attended his first women's match and was particularly impressed by the legendary Nancy Thomson, praising her ball control and passing; he also noted that 'colour was added to the picture by Mr Elliott, West African student, who acted as referee.'

The same paper had featured him a few weeks earlier with a photo in cricket gear, saying that 'Scotland owes this coloured all-rounder a big debt' and outlined his impressive record of playing and coaching in a variety of sports. Although they thought he would return to Sierra Leone, in fact he settled here for life.
   In September 1939, just after war broke out, Elliott was appointed secretary of the Edinburgh Referees Association. I cannot find any more football references to him but he continued to play cricket.

For over a decade before the war he had featured for Edinburgh Indians and Portman CC, who played on the Edinburgh Meadows, and in 1944 he turned out for a Colonial team which included the great Learie Constantine.
   Elliott was born about 1894 in Sierra Leone, where his father was a chemist, and was already in his thirties when he came to Edinburgh University in the early 1920s. After finishing his medical studies he married Ellen Hastings, a widow, and worked as a laboratory assistant in the city until shortly before his death in 1963.
   Eustace Elliott may not have refereed at the highest level, but he is certainly a trailblazing figure in an era when black sportsmen were a rarity in the UK, and black officials were virtually unknown.
 
Eustace Egerton Elliott
Born c1894 in Sierra Leone to Anthony William Elliott, dispensing chemist, and Fanny Jackson.
Married 8 November 1938 to Ellen Hastings.
Died 25 March 1963 in Edinburgh.


NB as far as I know, the first BAME referees in England were Alf Buksh and Emerson Griffith in the 1970s, while the first in senior football in Scotland was Ramzan Bashir in the early 2000s.

While Andrew Watson is hailed as Scotland's first black internationalist, he was not in fact the first high profile black footballer in the country. 
   That honour belongs to Robert Walker of Third Lanark and Parkgrove, who played in the 1876 Scottish Cup final and was a trialist for Scotland.
   Once described as a 'curly-haired son of Africa', Walker was largely forgotten until his existence was highlighted in 2015 by Richard McBrearty of the Scottish Football Museum. However, with a common surname and a fleeting connection to Glasgow, his identity remained a mystery.
   I can now tell his story and give him his due place in football history.

​His full name was Robert Gustave Walker and he was born in Sierra Leone to a white Scottish father and a black local woman. He came to Scotland as a child and was brought up near Dumfries, then as a fresh-faced youth came to Glasgow where he became a member of Queen's Park FC.
   Although he played for Queen's Park Juniors he never got into the first team and in the summer of 1875 he moved to near neighbours Third Lanark. Aged just 18, his pace on the right wing was a great asset to the team in 1875-76, and he played his part as Thirds reached the Scottish Cup final, scoring against Western in the quarter final and against Dumbarton in a semi-final replay. They came desperately close to lifting the trophy in March 1876, taking the lead in the final only for Queen's Park to equalise, and the Hampden giants then won the replay 2-0.
   Walker's precocious talent was recognised as he was selected twice that season for Scotland international trial matches, for the Blues on 19 February and the Improbables on 1 March, without making the final cut. Perhaps if he had given a better showing he might have been our first internationalist.
   Like many footballers, in summer he took part in sports meetings, and in September 1876 at the Queen's Park Sports he came across Andrew Watson, perhaps for the first time. Walker placed second in the half mile race for members, while Watson competed in the high jump.
   Throughout the 1876-77 season Walker continued to feature on the right wing for Third Lanark, occasionally scoring goals, and again was asked to play in a Scotland trial in February, representing Mr McGeoch's team. However, that was as close as he came to an international cap.

In the autumn of 1877 he left Third Lanark, despite having been in their team for the opening match of the season against Lennox. In October he joined Govan side Parkgrove where he played for 1877-78 alongside Andrew Watson, who was just starting to make a name for himself. It was unusual for a player to switch clubs during the season, so was it a coincidence that the only two black players in Scottish football should join forces, or did they feel a common bond? Regardless, it was a successful combination as Parkgrove reached the Scottish Cup quarter final before going under to eventual winners Vale of Leven.
   I would love to have witnessed the fifth round tie between Parkgrove and Partick, which was full of players whose names still resonate today. The Partick team included Fergie Suter and Jimmy Love, whose move to Darwen in the autumn of 1878 would be the catalyst for professionalism in football.
   Parkgrove, meanwhile, had Walker and Watson who were black, their goalkeeper was Tommy Marten of Chinese extraction, with Wales internationalist Thomas Britten thrown in for good measure. It was a more cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse team than any other Scottish club in the next hundred years.
   The teams actually had to meet twice, a 1-1 draw followed by a 2-1 victory for Parkgrove, who were no doubt helped that between the two Scottish Cup ties Partick made a New Year trip to Lancashire for friendlies against Darwen and Blackburn Rovers.
   In 1878, Walker's football career came to an end when he left Scotland for Liverpool to pursue a career in marine engineering.
   This is one of several striking similarities between his life and that of Andrew Watson: they were the same age, both sons of a relationship between a white Scot working abroad and a local woman; they were both sent back to the UK for their education and barely knew their fathers; both took up football when they arrived in Glasgow as young men; and both retired to London when their maritime career was over.

​Thanks to Robert Walker's descendant and family historian Jan Dawes, the story of his eventful life can be told, and she has also kindly provided the only known photograph of him.
   His father was Alexander Walker, a Scottish merchant who spent most of his working life in Sierra Leone where he was a prominent figure, at one point president of the Chamber of Commerce. Alexander came home on leave to Dumfries in 1852 to get married to Jane Haig, but it appears it was a marriage of convenience as he soon went back to Sierra Leone without his new wife, and the following year the first of three sons was born to his black partner, Judith Jarrett. Their youngest son was baptised in Freetown on 23 January 1857 as Robert Gustave Walker.
   Robert spent very little time in Sierra Leone and he and his elder brothers Walter and Allan were brought up by their great aunt Agnes at Preston Mill, south of Dumfries, where he was known locally as 'Black Bob' and probably went to Kirkbean parish school (whose most famous former pupil was John Paul Jones, father of the American Navy). The boys may have finished their schooling in Dumfries.
   Their father continued to be based mainly in Sierra Leone, although latterly he worked as a shipping agent in London until his death in 1870. He left a comfortable legacy to his four surviving children (Allan had died young while he had a son and daughter from yet another relationship), albeit they had to wait until they were 24 years old to access it.
   Walter became a farmer near Dumfries and Robert (Bob) chose his own path. He came to Glasgow in 1874 but whether to study or to work is currently unknown. There is a family story that he may have studied medicine, but he is not in the matriculation lists of Glasgow University and student records of other colleges have not survived.
   After four years in Glasgow he went to Liverpool to embark on a maritime career. He married there in 1881 to Jane Watson, daughter of a Scottish engineer, and over the next few years on Merseyside he served on a variety of merchant navy ships and passed his exams as a Second Engineer and then First Engineer (exactly the same Local Marine Board certificates that Andrew Watson would take later in the decade).
   It was the springboard to a successful career as he rose to become Chief Engineer for the Elder Dempster line, which plied routes between Britain and Africa and no doubt gave him the opportunity to visit his birthplace in Sierra Leone.

Meanwhile his domestic life was complicated. He and Jane had five daughters followed by four sons but the relationship was on thin ice and in 1894 he put adverts in the local papers to say he would no longer be responsible for his wife's debts. While still married he embarked on a new partnership with Alice Stokes and had three more children.
   When his sea-going career was over he lived with Alice in London and died in Hammersmith in 1936, aged 79. Sadly, there is no gravestone to mark his last resting place in Hammersmith Cemetery.
   What of his legacy? Walker succeeded in football (and in his career) despite being black, and it is remarkable that Scottish sport in general was so ethnically diverse in the 1870s, a phenomenon which does not appear to have been replicated elsewhere in the UK.
   It was not just the footballers Watson, Walker and Marten: looking at the bigger picture, I have previously written about rugby player James Robertson and athlete William Forman, both black, while Scotland rugby internationalist Alfie Clunies-Ross was of Malayan descent. And those are just the ones we know about – there may well be more, waiting to be discovered.
   All of these black or Asian sportsmen appear to have been judged on their skill rather than their race, and were able to compete without any obvious discrimination or adverse comment in the press. This is in stark contrast to, say, attitudes towards the first women footballers, or the sectarianism and racism that became so pervasive in the twentieth century.
   Robert Walker is important as Scottish football's first black pioneer, and now that his story has finally come to light, his place in history can be assured.