Sadly, there will be no Scots in France at next summer's European Championships. So I've been taking a look back at an era when Scottish football played a key role at the very top of the French game: the 1920s.
   And in particular the 1924 French Cup Final, when both sides may have been led by Scottish coaches.  I say 'may have been' as there is an air of mystery about one of them, but what is in no doubt is that Olympique de Marseille won the cup for the first time under the charge of a Scotsman, Peter Farmer. His team won 3-2 after extra time against FC Sete, who were captained and trained by Victor Gibson.
   Peter Farmer is often referred to as 'anglais' in the French reference books, but while there are some gaps to be filled in his career, he was definitely a Scot; in fact he was born in the football hotbed of Renton on 26 October 1886.
   Little is known of his early life or how he embarked on a life in foreign football. I have seen references to him playing for clubs in Scotland but no facts to back that up. Similarly, there are sources that say he coached in Vienna, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Berlin, but there is scant contemporary evidence.
   However, I did find a mention of him holding a diploma in medical massage from Glasgow's Western Infirmary, and this would have been as much an essential qualification as his coaching skills.
   Peter Farmer was appointed to train Olympique de Marseille in 1923, and soon took the club to its first major triumph, the French Cup on 13 April 1924.

   And what of Victor Gibson, the opposing coach in 1924? He is a man who had an enormous impact on French football over two decades, yet who remains a complete enigma outside of his time there. He is described as Scottish in many sources, even as playing for Falkirk and Morton, but I have not been able to confirm anything about his origins, despite extensive research.
   The earliest mentions of Gibson come in 1911 when he was with a touring team of amateurs from Plumstead, Kent, who played a couple of games in Barcelona against CD Espanyol.
   Apparently then aged 22, Gibson (and a couple of his colleagues) liked it so much there that he stayed and was appointed captain of the team. He even made the front cover of the sports magazine 'Stadium'. There are potential clues to his identity as he is sometimes described as 'V. Raine Gibson' but unfortunately this has not led to any breakthroughs.

After a year in Spain, Gibson was persuaded to head for Sete (or Cette as it was then known) and he would spend the next 12 years there as captain and coach. He was already described as a veteran in the early 1920s but continued to play and score goals throughout the decade. Sete reached the French Cup finals of 1923 and 1924, losing both, with Gibson only playing in the latter match.
   He then succeeded Peter Farmer as Marseille coach and in five years he led them to two more French Cup successes, in 1926 and 1927. 
   Regarded as one of the top coaches in the country (in fact known as 'Papey' which translates as 'Daddy') he was poached by the Peugeot family in 1929 to manage their new club in Sochaux. Their free spending led to the game in France finally turning professional, but his five years there were not a great success and he left in 1934 (they won the league the following season!). He was still playing in 1930, although not as a first team regular.
   Gibson's coaching powers were probably fading and his last appointment was for the 1934/35 season at an amateur club in Bordeaux, called FC Hispanola-Bastidienne. 
   There is one delightful anecdote of him watching a Marseille match and each time his side scored he took a bottle out of his pocket and had a swig; his colleague asked what was in it and the answer was 'water and tea'. It was only when he stood up at the end of the game that it became apparent the (now empty) bottle had contained whisky.
   Although Victor Gibson is often now described as Scottish, contemporary reports are inconclusive and he disappears from view after 1935 - there are no newspaper reports, no comments, no death notices. It seems nobody knows what happened to him.
   The only potential clue is that in 1934 he was interviewed about the chances of the France team in the forthcoming World Cup, and the reporter noted that Gibson had recently become a father, with a charming young daughter. So perhaps, somewhere, there is a family who have proud memories of their football pioneer grandfather.

Update (January 2019): The true identity of Victor Gibson is discovered!

Victor Gibson and Peter Farmer belonged to a generation of British coaches who were successful in France but were virtually unknown in their own country. It would be wonderful to find out their full stories, so please get in touch if you have any additional information.
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Continuing my research into the early links between Partick and Darwen, I spent an afternoon at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow trawling through microfilm copies of the short-lived Partick Advertiser from 1875-76.
   It proved to be a goldmine of information, not least by pinpointing the precise date of formation of Partick Cricket and Football Club. The issue of 27 March 1875 reported: 'On Tuesday evening [ie 23 March] a meeting was held in the Lesser Burgh Hall to take into consideration the advisability of forming a club for the practice of cricket and football'. A committee was appointed to find a suitable ground, and among them are several names who would feature regularly in reports over the coming years: William Swan (convenor and interim secretary), Alex Anderson, William T Campbell, John Paton, John Riddoch, James S Campbell, T Kirkwood, David Muirhead and T Marr.
   They moved fast, as a week later the committee reported back to another meeting that they had found a piece of ground at Whiteinch which was 'very suitable for the practice of cricket and football'. The annual subscription was set at 12s 6d, although for those who only wanted to play football it was 5 shillings.
   A more formal club committee was voted in, with John AL Riddoch as president, WN Swan vice-president, James S Campbell secretary and W Kinross treasurer. Committee members were William Kirkwood, George Davidson, John Paton, Alex Anderson and William T Campbell. Over 40 young men joined and the opening of the new ground was set for 1 May.
   Setting up the ground took a bit longer than expected, but by 22 May the paper reported that the field had been fenced and put in order, with an opening match arranged at Whiteinch for 5 June.
   Reports of matches that summer are patchy, but there were two games against St Vincent and the first teamline published was for a victory by 81 runs to 39 over the 1st LRV on 31 July: Horn, Love, Kirkwood, Campbell, Currie, Struthers, McInnes, Hamilton, Swan, Anderson, Taag (sadly, no initials were given).
   There were several other minor cricket clubs in Partick at that time, as well as the established West of Scotland CC at Hamilton Crescent. Names which crop up include Partickhill, Westburn, Nightingale, Elm and - intriguingly - Partick Thistle CC who had a ground at Partickhill.
   On the football front, Partick Football Club published their fixtures for the autumn covering the 1st and 2nd elevens, which indicates a thriving membership. Their first match was on 18 September against Ramblers, who won 3-0 with all the goals coming in the last eight minutes, and a week later Eastern also came to Whiteinch and won 6-1. John Paton scored Partick's first ever goal, and the team was: J Currie (goal); J Young and J Leslie (backs); JS Campbell and G Davidson (half backs); McNaughton, G Kirkwood, W Kirkwood, W Kirkham, J Paton and D Young (forwards).  Of particular note is the presence of William Kirkham, the young man from Darwen who inaugurated the cross-border links, starting with the match in Lancashire on 1 January 1876.
   The Partick Advertiser listed the teams for that game a week before it took place, but failed to publish a match report - although we know from Bell's Life that Partick won 7-0. They lined up as follows:
   Partick: William T Campbell (goal); John Young and William Scott Somers (backs); Alexander Kennedy and James S Campbell (half-backs); William Kirkwood, Peter Andrews, William G Struthers, George J Kirkwood, William Kirkham and William N Swan.
   Darwen: James Booth (goal); AN Hornby and Charles Walsh (backs); L Baron and John Duxbury (half-backs); Christopher Rostron, JC Ashton, Wright Ainsworth, Baron Harwood, James Walsh and Moses Neville.
   Having done some research into the players, there are a few to mention. Partick included three players from Eastern FC, Kennedy and Andrews who were already internationalists, and Somers who would later win Scotland caps. Darwen included sporting all-rounder Albert Neilson Hornby, an Old Harrovian who later captained England at both rugby football and cricket, two more Harrovians in the Walsh brothers, and James Christopher Ashton, the mill-owner's son who had founded the Darwen cricket and football club.
   Over the course of the season, the Partick Advertiser's coverage of football was sketchy and there are still a number of gaps, but these discoveries of Partick's first year in existence do add considerably to the early history of the club and its links with Darwen.

Coming soon: the story of Partick's Jimmy Love, who became the first professional when he moved to Darwen in 1878, and a man who has - until now - eluded sports historians.