Sixty years ago today the French author Albert Camus was killed in a car crash, aged 46. He had won the Nobel Prize for Literature and will always be considered an intellectual giant, but in a sporting context he is remembered best for his quote on football: 'Everything I know most surely about morality and duty, I owe to football'.
   The philosophical quote came at the end of an article he had written, and which really only came to widespread notice on its second publication. As a youth, he had been an enthusiastic and talented goalkeeper in his native Algeria with a junior team of RUA (Racing Universitaire d'Alger). He was forced to give up the game aged 17 when he contracted tuberculosis, but remained a great fan of the sport throughout his life. When he moved to Paris he supported Racing Club de Paris, purely because they played in blue and white hoops, the same strip as his old club.
   His strong affection for RUA was such that he wrote a lengthy article for the club magazine in April 1953. Then, when he won the Nobel Prize, the weekly magazine France Football asked him to contribute a piece but he was short of time so he simply submitted the old article: you can read it here. It was so impressive that it took over the whole of the back page of the issue of 17 December 1957, which had a picture of Alfredo di Stefano on the cover to mark his selection as European Footballer on the Year. This edition of France Football is now a real collector's item.

A couple of years later, Camus reinforced his point in an interview: 'What little I know about morality, I learned it on football pitches and theatre stages - these were my true universities.'
   Football intellectuals are ten-a-penny these days, but in the 1950s Albert Camus was a trailblazer for the 'socceratis' to follow, and for that he deserves enormous respect.

On the last day of the decade, it's a good time for me to look back on what has happened over the past ten years, and to peer into the crystal ball of sports history.
   So much has happened since 2010 that I will have to distill this down to a few personal highlights. But the main thing for me is that I launched my first website that year, in advance of publishing my first book, the biography of Arthur Kinnaird. That website, lordkinnaird.com, has long gone but I have preserved the bulk of the content here.
   That was the first of four books I have now published, all of which have been well received, and like any author I have learned a great deal as I go along. Books don't really make money these days, but they do bring a variety of benefits in terms of reputation and credibility: for example, I've been asked to work with the FIFA World Football Museum and more recently for a Netflix drama about football (more of which later). Meanwhile, I have also had the opportunity to witness football history being made, as a UEFA media officer at momentous events such as the Euro 2016 final and last summer's UEFA Champions League final.
   As a researcher, having this website has been a great outlet for all sorts of adventures in sports history. There have been numerous discoveries ranging from life stories to rare objects and documents, and I have created a platform for a comprehensive Scottish sports bibliography and a range of digitised publications. Sometimes I even sell some books!
   The exponential growth in online resources has made this possible. Chief among these has been the British Newspaper Archive, launched in 2011 and now containing an incredible 35 million pages of content. That is just the tip of a very large iceberg for researchers, which has opened up oceans of previously unknown material. I can remember the pre-internet days of booking a desk at a library or research centre, and slowly trawling through newspapers and historic documents - not entirely a lost art, it has to be said, but now a much smaller part of my armoury.

And what of the future?

I have high hopes for 2020 on a number of fronts.
   For a start, that Netflix drama I mentioned earlier: I was taken on as a historical consultant to The English Game, which will be launching in the spring. I can't give away much about the plot, but it focuses on the struggle between Old Etonians and Darwen in 1879, and one of the key protagonists is Arthur Kinnaird, so perhaps his biography will have a new lease of life. 
   Also coming up is another book, a project which I have been working on for the best part of forty years. There has long been a need for a definitive Who's Who of Scotland football internationalists, as so many of the early players are virtually unknown. I have been steadily researching and writing the life stories of every player from the first match in 1872. It's not a job that can be rushed, but I am nearly there.
   In June, the International Football History Conference comes to Scotland for the first time, taking place in Edinburgh on 5-6 June. It promises to be a showpiece event and a great gathering of football's finest historians.
   I sit on the board of the new Museum of International Rugby which is being created at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, and am sure this will be an outstanding venue when it opens.
   And more generally, there is the prospect of new discoveries to be made in the coming decade. Even in the past year I have profiled previously unknown items such as the 1863 Cambridge Rules, and the engraving of the 1871 rugby international; I have uncovered the true identities of key football personalities Victor Gibson and Emma Clarke. 
   That's what keeps me going: there is so much more to do. 
   Please keep visiting this website, keep reading my blog, and thanks for all your support over the past decade.

Andy Mitchell

In several years of research into the Foot-Ball Club of Edinburgh, it was always thought that there was not a single mention of its activities in the papers of the day, and that the only record was John Hope's personal archive. That view can now change, with the exciting discovery of a report from 1828.
   Thanks to fellow historian Javier Terenti, I have been alerted to this cutting from the Caledonian Mercury, published on 13 November 1828. Although this newspaper has been available online for some time, the key words did not appear in OCR searches, and it was only because this snippet was then republished in a recently-digitised London paper that it was found.
   This brief report of a club dinner reveals much about the activities of the football players. For a start, it shows that the members were numerous, with 60 of them coming to the annual dinner in a Stockbridge pub. It details the breadth of their activities, not just football but also athletic exercises similar to other well-known Edinburgh clubs. And it reveals where they sometimes played, on the city's main recreational area at Bruntsfield Links, even though the club also rented Dalry Park at the time.
   Most importantly of all, however, this discovery confirms that the club was widely known about in the city at the time.
   The conviviality of a dinner was clearly important to the football players, and helps to emphasise that this was a sporting club in every essential: it had subscriptions, it had rules, it met regularly, it was active, and the members not only played together, they socialised together.
   There is also a bit of wider Edinburgh history, as the venue was a new coffee house and tavern at 4 Hamilton Place, Stockbridge - the building is still there to this day and I think it is now Caffe Nero. It was run by Charles Presgrave, who clearly wanted to cater for many more such club dinners, judging by his advert (below) which appeared a few weeks later. It seems not to have worked as he was declared insolvent the following year.

Meanwhile, I recently had the privilege of talking about the story of the Foot-Ball Club and its long-term influence to the members of the Old Edinburgh Club.
   I have now published my talk and the associated PowerPoint presentation, which can be accessed on the following links in pdf form. They should be opened and read together.

Click here for the PowerPoint.
​Click here for the text of my talk.

If you are interested to read more, my book 1824, The World's First Foot-Ball Club is available price £11.99 (post free) from this website, or from Amazon.

Emma Clarke has been hailed as 'the first black woman footballer' for her exploits with the British Ladies Football Club in 1895.
   There have been feature articles about her in national media, notably the Telegraph, the Guardian and the BBC; a campaign to commemorate her with a blue plaque; a play was performed about her; a sold-out seminar at the Royal Society of Arts celebrated her life.
   The only trouble is, these were all about the wrong woman. It is a classic case of mistaken identity.
   After researching her story, I can say definitively that Emma Clarke was not from Liverpool, as widely claimed, but from Plumstead in the east end of London. It is also debatable whether she could be considered black.
   Emma played for the British Ladies FC alongside her sister Florence and one contemporary report mentioned they were from Plumstead. This was confirmed by a newspaper article to mark Florence's golden wedding, published in 1949: the Kentish Independent reported that, before her marriage, Florence 'had been gaining a name in soccer circles as a member of the British Ladies football team, for whom she played at inside right. The team toured England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and in the north played a number of men's teams. Mrs Carver has a gold medal to show for her efforts.'

With the correct Clarke sisters now identified, there is also the issue of their ethnicity. Is it correct to celebrate Emma Clarke as a pioneering black sportswoman?
   There is, in fact, a suggestion the Clarke sisters had some Asian heritage. I have contacted one direct descendant, Dave Witham, who recalls that his late grandmother (Florence's daughter) told him the story of an affair in the 'Indian Raj' in the family's past which led to a mixed race child. He was told that this showed in the footballing sisters' generation and particularly in Emma's case. Emma does appear to have slightly darker skin in contemporary team photos and there are comments in the press of a 'dark girl'. The narrative is certainly a good fit.

Regardless of that detail, the story of the British Ladies FC is fascinating (read Patrick Brennan's website for a detailed account). The club was launched in a blaze of publicity in the winter of 1894/95, when Emma and Florence were aged 23 and 17 respectively. Their first match was on 23 March 1895 at Crouch End, between sides described as North and South (indicating north and south of London, rather than England).
   Just one Miss Clarke was in the South team that day, probably Emma, but when the team embarked on its extensive tour of the UK in April both Clarke sisters played together more often than not, in about 40 matches over two months. It must have been enormously exciting for young working class women to be thrust into the limelight like this, and to be paid for their efforts.
   The first tour ended with a couple of games in Belfast, where Florence won a gold medal in a post-match race. This may be the medal she mentioned at her golden wedding.
   After a summer break, the British Ladies FC started touring again in September, and played once or twice a week for the next year until the novelty wore off, crowds dwindled and financial problems intervened.
   Following the fortunes of the sisters during this period is a challenge as teams were not often published, and even when they were the use of initials was erratic; added to which, a player called Nellie Clark (with no 'e') from Newcastle joined the club. However, where initials or first names were reported, Emma and Florence were clearly regulars in the side.
   Within a couple of years, the football club had effectively disbanded and the Clarke sisters settled down to conventional lives and domesticity.
   In 1899 Emma married Thomas Porter, a labourer with the local council, and they had two children, Ethel and Charlie. They continued to live locally but sadly Emma died in 1925, aged just 53, and is buried in Belvedere Cemetery in Erith.
   Florence married George Carver in 1899 and there is a great football connection as he was also a player, a left back with Arsenal (or Woolwich Arsenal, as they then were). He spent four years with the club but only made one first team appearance; unfortunately for him it was away to Loughborough on 12 December 1896, a match which resulted in Arsenal's all-time record defeat, 8-0. He did, however, win a Kent League championship medal with the reserves that season. They spent their lives in Plumstead's Bannockburn Road, where Florence died in 1955, five years after George. They had two daughters, Florence and Daisy, and their descendants still live in the area.
   The fact that their true identity has taken so long to establish is indicative of the wider challenge in researching early women's football, with conflicting and incomplete reports in the press, and even misleading information from the teams themselves.
   However, now that Emma and Florence have been correctly identified, their descendants can celebrate their famous sporting ancestors, the Victorian pioneers of women's football.

However, there remain some loose ends:

 - Not least is the question of black heritage. A report of a match in Stirling in the summer of 1896 mentioned 'a coloured girl of Dutch build' but frustratingly the team was not listed. 'Dutch build' was a Victorian euphemism for thickset or fat, yet photos of Emma and Florence show clearly that they were tall and slim. So was there another black player in the team? And as she played in Stirling, was she Scottish?
 - Did the Clarke sisters have football experience before the British Ladies club was formed? There was an attempt to start a women's football team in Plumstead in 1892, and a steady correspondence in the Woolwich Gazette that year featured an anonymous female organiser who claimed that a women's team played several matches that summer. There is no other record of these matches but it is plausible the sisters were involved or inspired: the correspondent used the pen-name 'Ann-Ticipation' and the Clarkes lived in Ann Street. Coincidence?
 - And finally, what of the 'wrong' Emma Clarke? Born in Liverpool on 15 July 1875, previous accounts said her fate was unknown, but in fact she married Harry Stockdale in Bootle in 1905, raised a family, and lived on Merseyside all her life. She died in Crosby early in 1957, aged 81. Sadly, she will now be erased from the history books as there is nothing to indicate she ever played football.

I recently enjoyed a nice cappuccino at Nina's Coffee in Kendal, Cumbria. It can be found at 20 Market Place, next to the Working Men’s Institute, and is popular with shoppers and families.
   So what? There are no obvious clues, but this unassuming little place has a great sporting heritage. It used to be the Football Inn, and is one of the oldest surviving football-related buildings in Britain with a history stretching back 250 years.
   The earliest record dates from 1774, when Joshua Craven inherited the Foot-ball Inn and the nearby George and Dragon from his father, also Joshua. Its name was reputedly taken from the football taken as a trophy after a fierce competition between Kendal and a neighbouring town. For many generations the ball hung in the kitchen, and it appears to have had a football-shaped sign outside.
   Newspaper cuttings reveal some of the history of the pub, which for the early part of the nineteenth century was owned and managed by the Brocklebank family, then a variety of tenants held the lease: Henry Winter, Mrs Unsworth, John Richardson, William Hodgson, Peter Mortimer and Thomas Kay.  It was a popular meeting place for local groups such as Kendal Friendly Society, formed in 1785. 
   In 1891 Kendal Corporation purchased the Football Inn for £1,740 with a view to improving access to the market hall next door (now Westmorland Shopping Centre). They later changed their minds and decided to sell it again and the inn's alcohol licence was not renewed in 1904. George Sill was the last landlord.
   It appears to have been quickly forgotten, as James Clarke's monumental History of Football in Kendal (1908) makes no mention of the Football Inn – but then his focus was on the modern game rather than its medieval folk origins.
   Thankfully the building has survived as a café. It is Grade 2 listed, and although the ground floor has been completely modernised, the upper two floors retain the original stone frontage. The title deeds are held in Cumbria archives.

Below are some 19th century newspaper clippings (from the British Newspaper Archive):

The discovery of this unique illustration of the world's first rugby football international has brought to life one of the most important moments in sporting history.
   Scotland met England on 27 March 1871 at Edinburgh Academicals' ground in Raeburn Place but although both teams were photographed there were not thought to be any pictures of the match in progress.
   However, when I came across this engraving in a print dealer's catalogue I soon realised its significance. Previously unknown to historians, it was published four weeks after the match in a short-lived publication called The Illustrated Newspaper, originally in black and white then colourised at a later date.
   It is signed J McL R, the initials of John McLaren Ralston (1849-83), a talented 22-year-old Glaswegian artist who was starting to make a name for himself in a career that brought admiration from, among others, Vincent van Gogh.
   What makes Ralston's illustration all the more intriguing is that his elder brother William (1841-1911) famously drew the sketches of the first association football international, which took place the following year.

The brothers' style of illustration has strong similarities and it has been said by art historians that John (known as Jack) was the more talented of the two and taught William how to draw. They certainly had an excellent artistic pedigree as their father Peter ran a well-known photographic studio in Glasgow city centre, good enough to earn a royal warrant. Peter Ralston took his sons into the business, and both used it as a springboard to launch their careers.
   When Jack Ralston headed over to Edinburgh in 1871, he joined an enthusiastic crowd of around 4,000 crammed into Raeburn Place to witness the inaugural rugby international. He had ample opportunity to draw a number of character studies and used a degree of artistic licence to capture the scene, placing his focus on the spectators in the foreground. They are paying scant attention to the match, some of them engaged in discussion or argument and they are clearly well-to-do, including a finely dressed lady. Whether they relate to specific individuals is hard to say.

The players, by contrast, are almost incidental, a blur of movement in the background. There is just enough detail to show that the forwards are engaged in a mighty scrum while some backs stand aside from the struggle, ready to intercept a loose ball or breakaway run. An umpire in top hat, perhaps the legendary HH Almond, watches intently. 

There are other interesting aspects to the scene, as it appears to confirm that the playing surface was laid out between the slope of the ancient archery mound, which used to be a feature of ground, and its boundary on the east side. The English team actually complained that the pitch was too narrow, just 55 yards wide. Also of interest, the goalposts are much shorter than in modern times.
   The idea that the international pitch was squeezed into a corner of Raeburn Place is emphasised by the absence of spectators behind the north goal, a slope would have given a good vantage point but was on neighbouring farmland and separated from the sports field by a burn. In the distance can be seen the buildings of South Inverleith Mains Farm, which was bought by the city and demolished in 1889 to create what is now Inverleith Park.

The day ended in an unexpected – and much celebrated – victory for the Scotland twenty by a goal and a try to a try, yet until now the only known images relating to this historic match were the posed team groups. The Scotland photo was taken in front of the pavilion by ER Yerbury, just before the start of play, while the England team had two photos taken that morning 'in plain clothes and in uniform' by Ross and Pringle of George Street.
   Ralston was only 22 at the time and his drawing of the scene was an exciting addition to his portfolio. He must have taken it directly to his publisher as he is recorded in the London census just five days later. Over the coming decade he was in much demand as an engraver and his prolific output appeared in journals such as the Illustrated London News, not to mention many books. He covered a range of contemporary, rustic and historic scenes and among them are more sporting subjects such as bowls, croquet and curling.  His talent was even admired, somewhat incongruously, by Vincent van Gogh, who described one Ralston print as 'exquisitely done'.

Sadly, Ralston's star shone only briefly. He lived in Hampstead while he worked as an engraver for London publications, but then he fell ill. He returned to Glasgow and died on 11 July 1883 in the family home at 2 Kersland Street, aged 34 and unmarried. His cause of death was given vaguely as 'debility'.
   Rugby football, on the other hand, went from strength to strength, and the Raeburn Place ground, which opened in 1854 as a school sports field, is itself currently being transformed. Jack Ralston's impressions of the first match will go on public display for the first time at the new Museum of International Rugby, due to open there in 2020. 

You can also read an article about this discovery in The Times newspaper.

The full story of the first football internationals, both rugby and soccer, is detailed in my book 'First Elevens', available here price £9.99 post free.

Black football players were a rarity in the Victorian era. Some have become well known in recent years, notably Andrew Watson and Arthur Wharton, but the others can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Little is known about them: Watson’s teammate Robert Walker at Parkgrove in the 1870s, then two decades later the tragic John Walker of Leith Athletic, Hearts and Lincoln City, and possibly Emma Clarke of the British Ladies FC (although her identity is still debated). But that seems to be about it.
   Black players are rare enough in 19th century football for the discovery of another one to be worth noting. Recently I was reading the jubilee history of the Hampshire FA, published in 1937, and was surprised to see in a team photo from 1893 that one of the players stood out because of his colour: V Ledger of Bournemouth Wanderers.

A bit of research turned up a fascinating story: Victor Ledger was a first generation immigrant to England, born in Vienna to an African-American lion tamer and a Prussian mother. Yet in contrast to his exotic heritage, he spent his adult life working for the local council.
   His father Joseph was an archetypal showman who went by the stage name Delmonico. Originally from Philadelphia, or perhaps Delaware, he told so many amazing stories about his life that fact is hard to separate from fiction. Talking to incredulous journalists, as well as describing his dangerous exploits in the circus he claimed to have been wounded in the American Civil War and to have been awarded the Légion d'Honneur in the Franco-Prussian War. Rather than repeat what has been written elsewhere about him, I suggest reading this blog by Phil Martin which gives a flavour of the enigma.
   Victor's mother Anna, born in Poznan in what was then Prussia, was daughter of a showman herself and after meeting the lion tamer on tour in Leipzig they apparently eloped to England where they married in 1866.
   After a spell in England, during which he performed at the Crystal Palace and toured the country, they departed for the continent and their son Victor was born in Vienna in 1873. Then they spent some time in Paris where Delmonico performed at the Folies-Bergère and other venues, which gave rise to some magnificent posters, three of which have survived in the French national library, along with a short biographical sketch.

While Delmonico continued to tour with circuses and in the theatre, the family set up home on the Hampshire coast, and that was where young Victor was introduced to football. He is first mentioned in a local newspaper report in April 1888 when he was only 14 years old, playing for Bournemouth Wanderers against Poole Albion. He went on to be an almost constant presence in the team over the next two decades, at left half and centre half.
   From small beginnings the side known locally as the 'Wonders' grew in stature and was moderately successful in local competitions. With Victor in the team they won the Hampshire Minor Cup in 1892 and were finalists in the Hampshire Junior Cup the following year.

His only year away from the club was the 1896/97 season, a few months after he had advertised in a local paper: 'Vic Ledger of the Bournemouth Wanderers offers his services to any Football Club finding him suitable employment.' If the advert was an attempt to become a professional player it didn't work, but he did spend a year with local rivals Bournemouth FC, who were trying to make an impact in the inaugural season of the Hampshire League (NB this was an amateur side, not the same as the present day AFC Bournemouth, then known as Boscombe FC).
   The following summer, he was back with Wanderers, who entered the newly created Dorset and District League in 1898/99, winning the title that season and again in 1905. From 1903 they also competed in the Hampshire League as it was possible to play in both counties because of their geographical position.
   Meanwhile, Victor was good enough to play for his county, picked twice for Hampshire Juniors in 1893, and finally he earned a full county cap for Hampshire against Dorset in February 1900. He also played for a Bournemouth and District select in 1899 in a glamour friendly against Southampton, then Southern League champions.
   After hanging up his boots in 1908, he remained on the Wanderers committee until the club closed down on the outbreak of WW1. They did not reappear after the conflict.
   Given his unusual background and his colour, it may have been difficult for Victor to fit into the football scene and Bournemouth life in general, but there is little evidence of any overt racism in newspaper reports. I have found just one passing reference to 'that dark young gentleman'.

There was only one occasion when he may have been typecast because of his race. In the summer of 1901, perhaps encouraged by his father who had come to stay, he was persuaded to compete in a football contest against an elephant when Sanger’s Circus visited Bournemouth. The local papers advertised it as a 'great novelty, Elephant v Man' for the prize of a 'massive cup' but although Victor duly won the match by a single goal the reports give no further detail.
   A few days later, he had more serious issues to contend with when his father died suddenly. According to newspaper reports, 'Joseph Ledger, aged 57 years, a coloured gentleman, was for many years engaged as a lion tamer … but latterly he had been employed as a traveller in a commercial business, and for the past few weeks had been staying with his son at 170 Malmesbury Park Road.'
   Victor gave evidence to the inquest that at 2am he found his father had fallen out of bed and struck his head on the dressing table; he died a few hours later of a cerebral haemorrhage. For the man known as Delmonico, who had dallied with wild animals and (if his stories are to be believed) fought in several wars, it was a sorry way to go.
   The exotic adventures of Joseph Ledger were in stark contrast to his son who never experienced the glare of publicity apart from a few football match reports. Victor spent his life working for Bournemouth Corporation as a house painter and lamplighter, ​and died in the town in 1943, aged 69. He left a wife called Emily, one son and seven daughters.

The return of Aston Villa to the English Premier League, in no small way due to the influence of Scottish midfielder John McGinn, has brought to mind the great Scots who helped to establish the club back in the 1870s and 1880s.
   Curiously, at a time when closet professionals were transforming the game in Lancashire, the early Scots in Birmingham all came to the city primarily to work, and sought football as a recreation after they arrived.
   There was George Ramsay, a Glasgwegian who joined in 1876 and went on to captain the club to its earliest successes, then served as club secretary for over 40 years. William McGregor from Braco in Perthshire  was a visionary president and administrator, founder of the Football League. And the two Hunter brothers from Ayrshire, Andy and Archie, stalwarts of the team from 1879.
   These Scots, and more, are well documented in an excellent blog post by Villa historian John Lerwill, which you can read here.
   The mention of the Hunters presents an opportunity for me to profile their less well-known brother, John Hunter, who has been largely forgotten despite being the first Ayrshire man to be capped. He remained in Scotland when his siblings went to Birmingham.
   John (often called Jack) Hunter was born in late 1854 at Hole Farm, near Coylton, where his father ran a 100 acre farm. His younger brothers Andy and Archie were born there in 1856 and 1859 respectively.
   However, when the father died in 1866, the family had to leave the farm and their mother took up the tenancy of a small pub in Ayr town centre. John served an apprenticeship as an engineer, which took him to Glasgow to work as an engine fitter, and there he started playing for the newly formed Third LRV football club in about 1873; he probably joined up with the Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers first.
   As a talented full back, he made his international debut for Scotland against England in 1874, aged just 19, and kept his place in the team for the following two seasons. He was also capped against Wales in 1877. 
   With Third Lanark he played in two Scottish Cup finals, in 1876 and 1878, and sadly both were lost. In fact on the latter occasion, with brother Archie in the forward line, he inadvertently scored the only goal of the game, deflecting a shot from Vale of Leven's John McDougall past his own goalkeeper.
   Jack Hunter appears to have retired from football soon afterwards, perhaps through declining health, as in a few years he was dead. He was ill with tuberculosis for about a year before he succumbed to pneumonia and died in his mother's house in Ayr on 2 November 1881, aged 26. His footballing brothers also suffered from an early death: Andy went to Australia to try and cure his tuberculosis but lost his fight in 1888 aged 32, while Archie was 35 when he died in 1894, a demise which appears to have had its roots in his collapse while playing for Villa in 1890.

I guess this document will have to be filed under the title of 'one that got away'. I recently came across it in a catalogue from a small Irish auction house, but it has long gone. 
   This four page pamphlet has a unique place in football history. It was published in November 1863 by the committee which drew up the Cambridge University rules of football. This was the latest in several attempts to create a composite set of rules, starting in 1846, but would be the one with the most profound influence. It was reproduced in the sports papers of the day, and came to the notice of the fledgling Football Association in London whose members were holding a series of meetings that autumn to establish a common code for football. Its publication galvanised the debate among the game's founding fathers, as it provided a tentative solution to the arguments which were raging between different factions. Charles Alcock saw it as something of a godsend and proposed adopting the Cambridge rules in their entirety, albeit with some small modifications, and that is indeed what happened. The FA's rules were duly published in December 1863, and association football came into being.
   The Cambridge rules were important enough to be printed in The Field and Bell's Life, and then JC Thring set them out alongside the FA's final version in his little book of football rules, which he published at the end of 1863.

So, where is this original 1863 copy of the Cambridge Rules now? Sadly, the short answer is that I don't know. 
   I can't help feeling that its significance was not appreciated, as when the auction house first listed it in 2009 it was left unsold, and then when they tried again in 2015 it sold for the princely sum of 60 euros. I asked the auction house to forward my details to the purchaser, which they kindly did, but I have had no further response. 
   This is a shame as I have never seen another and as far as I know it is the only surviving copy. I remain hopeful that it will surface, one of the true building blocks of association football.
   However,  if this unknown copy of the 1863 Cambridge Rules has survived, who knows what else is out there? The fact that something so old can surface does raise the faint hope that perhaps, one day, the mythical rules from 1848 will also be found.

I have long had an interest in French football - see my posts on Victor Gibson and White Rovers, for example. And this is another example of a little-known tale, the first ever football match between English and French clubs.
   It took place in Southampton on 19 February 1873, between Portswood Park and Le Havre. Thanks to detailed reports in the Hampshire Advertiser, which have recently become available thanks to the British Newspaper Archive, I have been able to piece together the story.
   Portswood Park was originally a cricket club with a home at Abbot's Park, now better known as North Stoneham Park. The club was formed in 1867 as a successor to the Olympic Cricket and Athletic Club, and its members had played football in the winter months from about 1870. In those fledgling days of the sport, there was still much confusion about rules, and they played a kind of hybrid football that was neither association nor rugby.
   As the newspaper makes clear, this particular match came about thanks to George Harper, a local ship owner, who originally proposed a cricket match with his contacts in Le Havre. The reply came back from Rev George Washington that they would rather play football, and the clubs agreed to play the game.
   It was quite a venture for the visitors, who travelled by steamer on the Tuesday from Le Havre to Southampton, and booked into the South-Western Hotel. There, they agreed the arrangements of the game with their hosts, including the rules and the number of players.
   On Wednesday afternoon the match drew a crowd of 3-400 spectators, including 'many ladies', to the Antelope Ground in Southampton. This was the home of Hampshire County Cricket Club and later the home ground of Southampton FC until 1897.

The teams had 12 players on each side, and everything went fine with the arrangements until Le Havre kicked off: 'in a few minutes it was evident to all that their opponents were too powerful and heavy for them, and also that they did not understand the rules on this side of the water, especially the carrying of the ball'. It was one-way traffic throughout, and the final score was emphatic, with the match report declaring that Portswood Park had won by a goal, eleven touchdowns and eleven rouges to a single rouge for Le Havre. This contradicted the reporter's own description of play, which credited two goals to Lungley. Regardless, it was clearly not much of a contest.
   At this distance in time it is hard to work out what rules the teams were playing to, or the origins and influences which led to this form of football. Even the scoring system requires some scrutiny as the reporter appears to have confused touchdowns and rouges. A touchdown, as in rugby, gave the opportunity to kick for goal over the posts and historically this is similar to the rouge, a term from the Eton field game and also used in Sheffield football. 
   The teams enjoyed a marvellous dinner that evening at the Philharmonic Rooms and the visitors were entertained by numerous speeches and toasts. The visitors then returned to the docks at midnight for the return journey to France. Despite every best intention of arranging a return match in the coming months, it never happened and the game remained a one-off.
   Portswood Park had only a short life as a club thereafter and appears to have stopped playing cricket in 1874. Le Havre, on the other hand, went from strength to strength and Havre Athletic Club became a successful multi-sport club including teams playing both association and rugby football.
   Given the nature of the football they played in 1873, this match is difficult to categorise and it will not find a place in the histories of rugby or association football. Yet it was 'football' of a sort, and indicates that innovative sporting contacts were feasible outside the usual framework of established clubs and schools. 

Finally, I have looked into the background of the players taking part.
   The Portswood Park team is easier to identify, as they were mainly middle class professionals at the start of their careers as solicitors, clerks and shipping agents.  Most of them also played cricket and took part in local athletics meetings.
   Team captain was Peter Vosper Buchanan, a clerk who later emigrated to New Zealand. The others were: Caleb Joshua Wood, a clerk; brothers Charles Roberts Welsh, still at school, and Frank James Tizard Welsh, a brewer; Sidney Gater Warner, trainee solicitor; Arthur George Payne, son of Southampton's mayor; Lucius Melville O'Brien, trainee solicitor; James Lungley, son of a local shipowner; Bernard Harfield, a clerk; Frank Henly Elliott, slate merchant; Dunbar Wilson Johnston Duncan, who later played cricket for Hampshire; and the goalkeeper identified only by his surname Cecil, possibly one of the brothers Aubrey or Egerton Cecil, who also played cricket for Hampshire.
   Others mentioned include the club president, Councillor John Neat Pocock, and vice-president George Thomas Harper. Tickets were sold at the High Street shop of Thomas Dartnall, who also provided the catering.
   As for Havre Football Club, the most prominent player was Reverend George Washington (1835-1906), resident minister in Le Havre, who had been educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University, hence he probably had a good football background. The only other player I can identify with certainty is Charles Edward Gabain, the club treasurer and a wealthy coffee importer.
   The remaining Havre players were Bateson, Roberts, Moir, Mitchell, Barlow, Bruin, Bordier, Harding, Stephenson and Furneaux. From the names, most of them were British but they do seem to include two or three Frenchmen.