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SPORTS HISTORY BLOG

Over 250 articles on all aspects of Scottish sport

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This impressive memorial in Glasgow Necropolis (city of the dead) pays tribute to a former secretary of the Scottish Football Association, William Dick.
   He died in 1880 aged just 29, after five years in post. He was quite an influential man, as founder and editor of the Scottish Football Annual in 1875; Queen's Park played Clapham Rovers in a benefit match a month after his death, representing the Scottish and English cup holders.
​   What is particularly interesting about the gravestone is the detailed carving, which is one of the earliest such representations of a football in existence. The grave is in the part of the Necropolis known as the quarry, at its southern edge.
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Update: an earlier carving of a football is in Wardsend Cemetery, Sheffield, in memory of a footballer called George Beaumont who was killed during a match on Christmas Day 1877. Click here to read his tragic story.
1 Comments
FORREST ROBERTSON - 14 years ago
Dick was arranging a Scottish FA tour to Canada when he died and the tour never happened; had it done so it would have been by many years the earliest international soccer tour from the UK.

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All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell.