The offer sounded too good to be true: three Scottish footballers were wanted to go to Mexico, all expenses paid, big salary, lengthy contract. And this was in 1946, so it meant an escape from post-war austerity and rationing.
   Little wonder that three of our international starts jumped at the opportunity, and for a full year Jackie Milne, Tom McKillop and Jimmy Hickie lived the dream in Mexico City. This little-known episode was brought to mind as Scotland's national team prepare to face Mexico in the Azteca Stadium for the first time.
   The adventure was chronicled in a series of articles by Jack Harness in the Sunday Post, starting in May 1946 when he revealed that William Raeside, the Scottish coach of Asturias FC, had come home from Mexico to recruit players. The three he selected were approaching the end of their careers and were all able to negotiate free transfers. Jackie Milne was player-manager of Dumbarton after a career with Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal (where he was part of the team that won the Football League in 1937/38) and Middlesbrough. Tom McKillop had spent a decade with Rangers, winning the Scottish League twice, while Jimmy Hickie was an established defender with Clyde, winning the Scottish Cup in 1939. They all had pre-war international honours, Milne having twice played against England, McKillop won one cap against Holland in 1938, while Hickie was selected for the Scottish League the same year.
   After a rush to get passports and negotiate their release from their clubs, they duly set off for Mexico in June 1946, flying from Prestwick via New York in an era when transatlantic air travel was a rare luxury. They were immediately pitched into the Asturias side for a cup-tie.
   Asturias was a mid-table Mexican side when they joined league and there was to be no fairy tale season as their league position hardly changed, finishing ninth in 1946/47. Still, it was a great experience and the three were preparing for the second year of their contracts when the club's Spanish and American owners suddenly withdrew their support. The players were effectively abandoned and had to return home.
   Nonetheless, they told Jack Harkness of the wonderful experience, away from the shortages of post-war Britain. They lodged with a Scottish couple in the Lomas district of Mexico City, and found that food was plentiful, while the city was booming. The football took some getting used to - there were stories of mass fights and appalling refereeing - but they fitted in well.

Once back in the UK, the footballers had to decide on their futures. Milne left the game and set himself up in the licensed trade, running the Wee Thackit Inn at Carluke. Hickie returned briefly to Clyde and then played for Dunfermline before retiring at the end of 1947. McKillop, the youngest of the trio, signed for Rhyl in North Wales and liked it so much he settled there permanently and later became club manager. ​
   The other factor in the tale is the role of Paisley-born William Raeside, who recruited them in the first place. He has a fascinating story as a  Scottish coach abroad, having taken charge of clubs as diverse as Celta de Vigo in 1927 (under the assumed name of WH Cowan), and later across the Atlantic with Nacional of Uruguay, Newell's Old Boys in Argentina, Guadalajara in Mexico, and - somewhat incongruously - back in Britain with Cheltenham Town in the 1952/53 season. I'm going to look into his life in more detail in a future blog.

There is a curious anomaly in the creation of FIFA in 1904. Seven countries are listed as founding members: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. Yet Germany, which agreed to join and sent a message of support, is not.
   It has long puzzled me why Germany are not also considered as founders. It is even more confusing as Sweden and Spain are included in the list, although they did not attend the opening meetings either. What is more, Spain did not have a national association until the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) was founded in 1909.
   A detailed examination of the circumstances suggests there may be scope to challenge FIFA's assertion that it was established by just those seven nations, and that Germany should also be recognised.
   In May 1904, a number of football federations were invited to Paris by French football administrator Maurice Robert-Guérin, who drafted a cooperation agreement (described as a treaty), and the original articles of the FIFA Statutes. These were ratified in the course of the historic three-day Congress which was attended by just eight men, from whom the first FIFA committee was chosen.
   The French governing body of sport, the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA), hosted the meeting at their offices at 229 rue St Honoré in central Paris. Somewhat surprisingly, despite FIFA's prominence in world sport, there is no plaque or indication that such an important event took place there; there are shops at street level, with offices and apartments above. At the entrance to the courtyard there is a Paris History info panel, but it only commemorates a medieval convent which stood on the site.

The opening session of the FIFA Congress on 21 May 1904 was chaired by Alphonse Fringnet, the 60-year-old vice-president of USFSA but he took little further part in the deliberations. More importantly the event was a personal triumph for Robert-Guérin, the chair of the USFSA's football section, who had been the driving force in creating the international body and bringing together the fledgling football nations. By the end of the Congress he was elected its first president, aged just 28.
   Sitting alongside Robert-Guérin was André Espir, secretary of the USFSA, who took the minutes. There were two representatives of the Belgian sports body, the Union Belge des Sociétés de Sports (UBSSA), Louis Muhlinghaus and Max Kahn. Also in attendance were Ludvig Sylow of the Dansk Boldspil Union (DBU), Cornelis 'Carl' A W Hirschman of the Nederlandsche Voetbal Bond (NVB) and Victor E Schneider of the Association Suisse de Football (ASF). They were all relatively young men, four of them in their twenties.
   By prior agreement, Sylow represented by proxy the interests of Sweden’s Svenska Bollspells Förbundet (SBF) while Espir performed the same function for the Madrid Football Club (now Real Madrid), who had sent a letter of apology from Spain.
   However, there was no German representation, despite Germany being invited as one of the strongest European football nations. The Congress had been arranged at fairly short notice, and this is where fate conspired against the Deutscher Fussball Bund (DFB) as it coincided with their own annual congress and elections, held in Kassel. Nonetheless, they wanted to send a delegate to Paris and nominated Dr Gustav Manning, who had been a founding member of the DFB in 1900 although he was no longer on its board.
   Manning was unable to travel - there is a suggestion that he missed a ferry connection, perhaps from England - and DFB president Dr Ernst Karding sent a telegram in time for the opening FIFA meeting to say that Manning would be replaced by Philipp Heineken. However, he too failed to make it to Paris, for reasons unknown.
   When Dr Karding realised that there would be no German delegate present, on Monday he sent a further telegram which confirmed the DFB's support and its agreement in principle to the statutes, a decision that had just been made in Kassel. The minutes stated 'Germany subscribes to the Congress' [French original: 'L'Allemagne adhère au Congrès']. Yet despite this, Germany has never been recognised as a founder of FIFA.
   On the other hand, Madrid Football Club's letter requesting a proxy somehow carried more weight than a national federation sending a clear message of intent, and Spain has always been credited as a founder.
   Now, over a century later, there is a case for FIFA retrospectively acknowledging Germany's role in its creation. Of course, the question has to be asked: does it matter? I believe it does, as it is important to celebrate our sporting heritage and give due recognition to football's pioneers.

Click here to read a full transcript of the minutes, translated into English.

The missing delegates

What of the two German delegates who failed to reach Paris? They both have fascinating stories, in particular Dr Manning. By an extraordinary twist of fate, he did make it onto the FIFA executive committee – over 40 years later, and for a different country!

Manning was born in the London suburb of Lewisham to German parents in 1873 as Gustav Rudolph Leo Mannheimer, and when his father applied for British citizenship in 1876 the family name was anglicised to Manning. In the 1880s they moved back to Germany, where his enthusiasm for football made him one of the founders of FC Freiburg, and he was also the first secretary of the DFB in 1900. Meanwhile, he had qualified as a doctor in 1898 and worked at a clinic in Strasbourg (which was, at that time, in Germany).
   In 1905, a year after he should have attended the first FIFA congress, he emigrated to the USA and anglicised his name even further as Dr G (or Gus) Randolph Manning. He continued to be heavily involved in soccer and in 1913 he was the driving force behind the foundation of the United States Football Association and was elected its first president. He also developed his medical career and was an eminent gastroenterologist in New York, while serving in the US Army reserves.
   His commitment to football remained constant and in 1948, a mere 44 years after he should have attended that meeting in Paris, he was the first American to be elected to the FIFA Executive Committee. He attended the 1950 FIFA Congress, and died in 1953. Manning is buried in Arlington Cemetery and has been inducted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame.
   Philipp Heineken (no connection with the beer industry) also led a wandering life. He was born in 1873 in New York, where his father was a jewellery maker. The family returned to Germany after his father died and he became a football enthusiast in Bad Cannstatt, a suburb of Stuttgart, initially playing rugby. He helped the spread of football by translating the rules of the different codes from English into German, launched a football magazine and published one of the first German football yearbooks. As a student he was one of the founders of FV Stuttgart (which later merged with Cannstatt to form VfB Stuttgart). He was a vice-president of the DFB and sat on the German Olympic Committee, frequently travelling abroad.
   Then in 1910 he walked out on his wife and daughter and headed back to New York, working as an electrical engineer, living on his own. But after the Second World War he suddenly turned up at his daughter’s door and they were reconciled. He remained in Stuttgart and died there in 1959.
 
FIFA's seven founding fathers

Maurice Robert-Guérin (1876-1952) 
André D Espir (1879-c1950) 
Louis Muhlinghaus (1870-1915)
Max Kahn (1871-1959)
Ludvig Sylow (1861-1933)
Cornelis 'Carl' A W Hirschman (1877-1951)
Victor E Schneider (1876-1948).

One of the most important developments in football in the 19th century was the creation of rules, a common code by which all the players had to abide.
   Pictured above is the world's earliest known set of football rules, written by John Hope in Edinburgh in 1833 to guide the members of his Foot-Ball Club which had been established in 1824. This crucial document now resides in the National Records of Scotland, and is a priceless piece of footballing history.
   It is worth examining why Hope felt it necessary to lay down the rules in writing, and what they implied for the players.
   By 1833 the club had been going for nine years, it was buoyant and attracting new recruits from a variety of backgrounds and schools. Therefore many of the players may not have had the implicit understanding of how to play and how to behave that former High School boys would have had.
   The club's membership records indicate that football games involved up to 40 men playing at the same time, wearing caps to distinguish sides. Their football was of a robust and healthy nature, played within a defined area on rough grass fields in summer and winter. All games were played within the club membership as there simply was no other club with which to play competitive matches.
   Their football was clearly a competitive game with a code of behaviour to avoid serious injury - the members were young men who needed to be able to walk to work or study the next morning. Their game had progressed from the schoolboy pastime of the High School Yards, and Hope probably felt he needed to establish some guidelines. His rules therefore appear to mark a step on football's evolutionary path from its often violent origins in the folk games of a less sophisticated age to the more sanitised, codified form which emerged in the 1850s. Hope wrote in his own hand:

1. Single soled shoes, no iron
2. No tripping
3. Ball to pass imaginary line
4. A free kick if ball out of bounds
5. Pushing is allowed. Holding not illegal
6. Allow the ball to be lifted between fields

Underneath, he noted the attributes of the game:
Aff [affirmative] Fun, air, exercise
Neg [negative] No tripping

These rules are brief, and leave much to the imagination, but they are highly significant not just in what they say, but what they do not say. In many respects this is similar to the early editions of Rugby School's laws in the 1840s, which stated they were to be regarded 'rather as a set of decisions on certain disputed points in football, than as containing all the Laws of the Game, which are too well known to render any explanation necessary.'

   Hope's first two rules indicate a concern for safety and a desire to avoid injury. Therefore the players could be robust (a founding member wrote of 'such kicking of shins') so there was clearly a risk of being kicked, but they were expected to avoid hurting their opponents unnecessarily. It seems to have worked, as there are no mentions anywhere in the correspondence or club records of serious injury.
   Rules three and four introduce the concept of a method of scoring. The game needed winners and losers so a goal (or 'hail') was scored when the ball passed over the 'imaginary line', and we know from the financial records that there were painted hail sticks which operated as goalposts. Similarly, to stop the play wandering off into the distance, this imaginary line extended right round the pitch; so, if the ball went beyond the agreed boundary it would be retrieved and kicked back into play.
   Rule five is interesting as it permits an element of physical aggression, allowing players to push and hold their opponents (as rugby allows to this day within defined circumstances such as tackling and scrums). However, pushing and holding are a long way from the 'no holds barred' approach of traditional folk football.
   The final rule is harder to analyse, particularly as this is the only rule that Hope redrafted. He crossed out some words and perhaps had difficulty in condensing accepted practice into a short sentence. It appears to mean that the only time the ball could be lifted, i.e. picked up or handled, was when it was out of play 'between fields'. If that interpretation is correct it confirms that this was a forerunner to the non-handling code that ultimately became association football.
   While Hope's football rules are brief and open to interpretation, it has to be remembered he was the first to attempt the task. This was ​decades before the versions created by footballers at Cambridge (1848), Sheffield (1858), the Football Association (1863) and several prominent schools. He was a man ahead of his time.

The story of The World's First Foot-Ball Club is on sale now, price £11.99.