The summer of 1980 was something of a crossroads for Scottish football. Aberdeen had just broken the Old Firm monopoly by taking the league title outside Glasgow for the first time in a generation, while crowd behaviour was in the spotlight after the Scottish Cup Final riot. Crowds were dropping and money was tight.
   This prompted the Scotsman newspaper to commission an in-depth survey of the state of the game, entitled Scottish Football: the Pride and the Poverty. It was published over six days and, as a young fan, I cut out every article and kept them for posterity.
   Now, 40 years later, the articles make for fascinating reading. I have digitised the full set of features into a single pdf, which you can download here.

Edited by Arnold Kemp and David Hearst, with contributions from Hugh Keevins and various academics, it was a serious and robust project that went into much greater depth than newspapers usually have the time and space for.
   There is detailed analysis of what makes clubs tick, including their financial figures and their wage bills. They asked clubs large and small what their plans were, how they approached football as a business and how they balanced that with the desire to win matches and competitions. It reveals how clubs as varied as Aberdeen, St Mirren and Montrose cut their cloth according to their circumstances, how Rangers were the most profitable club at the time, how Hibs and Hearts were finding life tough.
   Unusually for the time, the authors even commissioned research into what the fans thought: why they watched football (or didn't), what they thought of hooliganism, the structure of the game and whether the national team mattered.

There is an interesting graphic on how turnstile operators could cheat the clubs they worked for, coupled with an interview with the legendary Tom Fagan of Albion Rovers about how he confronted that particular problem.
   All in all, a fascinating read. The challenge now is for someone to produce something similar for 2020 and compare the results.

I was researching something else when I stumbled across this report from 1876 on a professional athletics meeting in Kirkcaldy: 'Special interest was taken in this race as one of the competitors was a coloured man, as black and shiny as a well-polished boot, W Foreman by name and hailing from Leith; he was the winner, and received a cheer for his pluck.'

I had never seen any reference to a black athlete in Scotland in the Victorian era, and an internet search produced no results. So, who was he? I felt I had to find out more.
   Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive, I established that William Forman (or Foreman) was a regular competitor at professional sprint events in Scotland over several years. He was not a top level runner and did not win many prizes, but was confident enough to enter the famous New Year Sprint handicap at Powderhall.
   Unfortunately there was also a dark side to his life: three times he was convicted of assaulting his wife and he served time in prison.

When William Forman married Isabella Davis at St Thomas's Church in Leith in 1874, neither of them were able to sign the marriage certificate as they were illiterate and they marked their names with a cross. His parents were recorded as Dickson Forman (blacksmith, deceased) and Harriet Thomson, and the next census revealed that he was born around 1853 in the USA.
   Isabella was also black although born in Leith in 1850, the daughter of another American immigrant called John Davis and his Scottish wife Christina Paterson. Isabella already had an illegitimate daughter, but there were no further children with William.

Within months of their marriage, William was up at Leith Police Court, charged with assaulting Isabella. According to the Evening News 'the prisoner was in the habit of constantly ill-using his wife' and he was sentenced to 20 days with hard labour. He was convicted again later the same year, and early in 1877 was given a two month sentence for a particularly violent attack. Yet despite all that, the couple were still living together in the 1881 census.
   Throughout this time, his name cropped up in reports of races in Edinburgh and Leith, competing for cash prizes. Sometimes he won a heat, for example earning 7s 6d in that meeting at Kirkcaldy, but never a main prize. His last recorded race was in 1882, when the New Year event was held at the Royal Gymnasium, coming second in his heat for the 250 yards handicap.

However, apart from the years between 1874 and 1882, I have been unable to find any reference to Forman in newspapers, censuses or genealogy records. There are also no known photos of him. Large gaps remain in his life story and perhaps records will be found in due course.
   Looking at the bigger picture, it has to be pointed out that in the 1870s Scottish sport had at least four black sportsmen: Andrew Watson and Robert Walker in football, James Robertson playing rugby and William Forman competing in athletics. The same decade also saw two with Asian heritage, Alfie Clunies-Ross representing Scotland at rugby and Tommy Marten playing football alongside Watson at Parkgrove.
   Yet after their sporting careers ended there was a yawning gap in black and ethnic minority participation in Scottish sport for over a hundred years. Apart from a few fleeting footballers, these black sporting pioneers were not emulated by subsequent generations as negative social attitudes and racism blanked any opportunities.

NB I am currently researching the lives of 1870s footballers Robert Walker and Tommy Marten, mentioned above, and hope to publish my findings soon.

The record books will tell you that Paraguayan José Luis Chilavert is the only goalkeeper ever to score a hat-trick of penalties in a match. He did the business in an Argentinian league game in 1999.
   But Scottish football can claim two men who achieved the same amazing feat well before Chilavert: Sam McAloon in 1937 and Jim Marner in 1975. They both played in junior football, and guest blogger Douglas Gorman caught up with Jim to hear about his penalty hat-trick for Ayrshire team Kilbirnie Ladeside.

Click here to read Jim Marner's story.

Any record book will tell you that the youngest ever player for Scotland's football team was John Lambie, who made his debut aged 17 against Ireland in 1886. Not only that, he captained the team and scored a goal.
   It is an astonishing record, but there is one problem: it isn't true. He was selected for the team but my new research shows that he did not play in the match.
   Despite that, Lambie still holds the record for our youngest internationalist, as he did play in the corresponding match in 1887.
   So, what happened? Ireland played Scotland in Belfast on 20 March 1886. The Scottish FA selected the team on 9 March, including three from Queen's Park: JJ Gow as captain, W Harrower and JA Lambie. The Athletic News described it as a team of young players, although there was no comment about precisely how young. Lambie was only 17, having been born on 18 December 1868, and was already a regular in the Queen's Park team - in fact he had just won the Scottish Cup. A precocious talent, indeed.

The day before the match, it was reported in the press that Gow and Harrower were going to miss the match. They would be replaced by Leitch Keir (Dumbarton) and Charles Heggie (Rangers) respectively. This is important on two counts: Heggie would seize the opportunity by scoring four goals in his only international, while Gow's absence left the team without a captain. None of the match reports indicate who captained the team, although the honour is commonly ascribed to Lambie.

The only paper I can find which published a 'live' report on the day of the match, 20 March, was the Glasgow Evening Post. It was a short report which focussed more on the weather and travel than the match itself, but it did list the teams and the final score of 7-2 for Scotland. Lambie is not listed, his place taken by Kelly (Renton). 
   Surely some mistake? On Monday, many of the leading newspapers named Lambie in the Scotland team: the Glasgow Herald, the Scotsman, The Sportsman, the Sporting Life, Northern Whig and Belfast News Letter.
   But look a bit further: the Irish Times says that Lambie was replaced by Kelly. Later in the week the sports papers give the same info: The Field agrees that Kelly played in place of Lambie, Sport (Dublin) says Kelly, the Scottish Umpire reports Kelly scored a goal. The Athletic News is not much help as it says Kerr (Renton).

   And then there are the official records. I have not been able to check the SFA minute books because of the lockdown, but the Scottish FA Annual for 1886 is absolutely clear. It names all the 'Scotch' players who have faced Ireland and Kelly, not Lambie, is listed among those for 1886. ​
   I have also looked at subsequent SFA Annuals for their records of who played against Ireland, and they are consistent: Kelly played in 1886, Lambie played in 1887.
   There are other sources: Richard Robinson's jubilee history of Queen's Park (1920) credits Lambie with just two caps, against Ireland in 1887 and England in 1888. And Willie Maley, writing in the Sunday Post in 1924, says that Kelly 'played against Ireland as far back as 1886, in which match he made the acquaintanceship of Michael Dunbar, who played inside left in his only international'.
   So, it seems that Lambie did not make his Scotland debut aged 17, but he does still hold the record, as he was named captain of Scotland against Ireland on 19 February 1887, aged 18 years and 63 days. However, he has lost the title of youngest goalscorer, which appears to belong to Fred Anderson in 1874.
   This is not the first time I have discovered a mistake in Scotland's international caps record. Hugh Wilson of Dumbarton played against Wales in 1885 but has been missing from the record books.
   Lambie is also not unique in being selected aged 17 but unable to play. I wrote a few years back about Woody Gray who was 'compelled to decline the honour'. 

Here is a revised list of Scotland's ten youngest international footballers:

John Lambie born 18 December 1868; Ireland 19 February 1887 - 18y 63d.
Fred Anderson born 17 November 1855; England 7 March 1874 – 18y 110d.
Bob Christie born 15 November 1865; England 15 March 1884 – 18y 121d.
Bill Sellar 21 October 1864; England 21 March 1885 – 18y 151d.
Sandy McLaren born 25 December 1910; Norway 26 May 1929 – 18y 152d.
Denis Law born 24 February 1940; Ireland 18 October 1958 – 18y 236d.
Willie Henderson born 24 January 1944; Wales 20 October 1962 – 18y 269d.
Willie Johnston born 19 December 1946; Denmark 13 October 1965 – 18y 298d.
Kieran Tierney born 5 June 1997; Wales 29 March 2016 – 18y 298d.
Davidson Berry, born 27 May 1875; Wales 24 March 1894 – 18y 301d.

A further seven players were also 18 on their debut: Danny Wilson, Paul McStay, John R Gow, Archie Ritchie, Garry O'Connor, James T Richmond and Oli Burke.  It is possible that further names will emerge as research continues.

What would it take to tempt a footballer into the lion's den? A gold medal was on offer for those who were brave enough, and no fewer than five Scots were up for the challenge.
   In a curious sideline to some research I was doing about internationalists, the same story came up several times over three decades. I decided to bring the players together for the first time.

The first was Liverpool captain Andy Hannah, the Scotland internationalist. He had just led his team to a 2-1 victory over Notts County in November 1893 and for his Saturday night entertainment he went to the circus which was pitched right outside Anfield. For a bet he went into the cage and the promoters gave him a gold medal.
   There does seem to have been an arrangement at the circus for customers to show their bravery by going into the cage and touching one of the lions, even pulling its tail. Quite how brave you had to be is open to question, and it is likely the lions were doped or restrained, but it was good publicity when someone famous did the trick.
   It was not until 1908 that another footballer took up the challenge, and this time it was Billy Fulton, who had played for Sunderland, Derby County and Bristol City. He was now running a pub in his native Alloa, and just like Hannah he was awarded a gold medal. What is more, he repeated the feat in 1910 the next time the circus came to town, this time with five lions in the cage, to collect a second medal!

Just a couple of weeks after Fulton's exploit, Bobby Templeton of Kilmarnock (and formerly of Newcastle and Celtic) agreed in advance to attend the circus, which allowed Bostock & Wombwell to advertise in advance. He played for his club against Celtic in Glasgow then hurried back to Kilmarnock where, in front of a crowded house he calmly patted the lion on the back and turned its tail, to widespread applause. It has to be said that the local paper commented 'the animal seemed to be quite unconscious of the honour which was being conferred upon it'.

The final act of 'bravery' came in 1922 with not one, but two, goalkeepers. Jimmy Brownlie of Third Lanark and Charlie Shaw of Celtic visited the menagerie next to Kelvin Hall and under the watchful eye of the trainer they both went into the cage together. According to one report they were photographed with the lion but I have yet to find any photos which record this event, or any of the previous acts.

And what of the gold medals? None have come to light, as far as I know, but they do appear to have been genuine. I found the photos below from another excursion into the lion's den in 1907 (which you can read about here). The medal is hallmarked as gold, and suitable engraved, so it does seem that Wombwell's had a stock of medals to reward the rare person brave enough to face the lions.

If you want to read more about the Bostock and Wombwell menagerie, I can point you to a couple of fascinating articles. One is on the Arthur Lloyd site about the Scottish zoo, another on the National Library of Scotland about travelling zoos.
   And if anyone does have any photos of footballers with lions, or a medal, or can tell me about more examples (surely it was not only Scottish players?), please get in touch through my contacts page. 

I have just added to my collection of digitised sports books with this 1930 history of the Scottish Football League. It was written by John McCartney, who had just retired from a long career in football as player and manager.
   You can read this book by clicking on the cover image above to download a pdf, or visit my Digitised books and articles page where you can read a wide range of rare material.
   In the light of recent controversy about the league's organisation and its member clubs, McCartney's interesting account makes it clear that discord and argument are nothing new, in fact they have been a feature of Scottish football since the beginning.
   He was able to speak from long personal experience as a player and manager on both sides of the border. His playing career included Rangers, Cowlairs, Newton Heath (Manchester United), Luton Town and Barnsley, where he first went into management. He continued his managerial career with St Mirren, Hearts, Portsmouth and Luton Town before ill health forced his retiral.

His 48 page book has a number of excellent illustrations, notably the panoramic stadium views of Hampden Park, seen here packed to capacity, as well as Ibrox and Tynecastle.

McCartney also drew, from memory, this image of the original pavilion at Renton FC when they were founders of the Scottish League in 1890. It was a bittersweet moment for the Dunbartonshire club, who had been declared 'World Champions' two years earlier, as they were summarily ejected from the League for professionalism after just five matches.

Even the adverts are interesting, such as this one from Paddy Crossan's Bar in Edinburgh city centre. Crossan was a legendary former Hearts player who saw active service in WW1. The pub retained his name for many years after his death in 1933.

If you have watched the Netflix series The English Game, you will know all the main characters. Arthur Kinnaird and Fergie Suter are celebrated for their football exploits and are both famous enough to have entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
   But what about Jimmy Love, Suter's partner who came with him from Partick to Darwen? Love is a crucial figure in football history, yet so little is known about him that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.
   This is the sad story of Jimmy Love's short and memorable life.

In the spring of 1883, a package arrived at the Love family home in Glasgow, addressed to Mr James Love. It contained the campaign medal - just like the one pictured above - awarded posthumously to his son Jimmy, a Corporal with the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who had died aged 24 of enteric fever while on active service in far away Egypt.
   Jimmy Love never won any medals during his lifetime, but he did earn many plaudits for his achievements as a footballer. Just a few years earlier he was Darwen's top scorer in their epic FA Cup run that pitched them against the mighty Old Etonians. 
   He was born in 1858 on the south side of Glasgow to James and Janet Love. His mother died when he was five, and his father remarried soon after. The family moved to Greenock, where his father was a coal merchant and general contractor, then about 1876 they settled in Partick, a Glasgow suburb.
   Jimmy set up his own business in Partick as a street cleaning contractor, and at the same time started playing in the forward line of the local football team. However, his business was not a success and in 1878 he found himself in deep financial trouble. One of his creditors petitioned for sequestration of his assets, a forced sale of his equipment was ordered, and on 28 October he was summoned to the Sheriff Court to face bankruptcy procedures. However, he didn't turn up and the proceedings were adjourned for a month. When he failed again to appear on 21 November, Sheriff Walter Spens issued a warrant for his arrest.    

The warrant was never served as Love had run away from his debts. He had found a new home in the Lancashire town of Darwen, not an obvious choice but an escape route which was open to him thanks to his skills as a footballer. Jimmy had friends there, having visited the town with Partick at New Year 1878.
   Going straight into the Darwen team in October 1878, he formed a right wing partnership with Tommy Marshall and soon there was a steady diet of goals, cup ties and an admiring public. He scored twice against Eagley in the FA Cup second round, by which time Fergie Suter had also arrived in town, got two more in the third round victory over Remnants at the Oval, and was in top form when Darwen faced Old Etonians in the famous 5-5 draw on 13 February 1879. With Darwen 5-1 down at half-time, the comeback was well and truly kick-started by Jimmy Love, who scored twice in the second half.
   He was an integral part of the team, but it was not to last. Early the next season he played three times for Darwen, but after the defeat of Haslingden in the Lancashire Cup on 25 October, he disappeared from the team. 
   He cropped up once the following month in a friendly for local rivals Blackburn Rovers, when 'Jimmy Love of the Darwen club assisted Rovers on the right wing'. Then nothing more until what appears to be his last football match, on 10 January 1880 for village side Haslingden.
   What went wrong in Darwen may never be known, although perhaps his past was catching up with him. He had an income from the football club, which even played a benefit match for Love and Suter in April 1879, and he may also have done some odd jobs, but without those he was lost. Unlike the man portrayed in the Netflix series, he was not married. What is more, he could not go home because of the arrest warrant hanging over him.
   He took perhaps the only escape open to a fit young man: he joined the army. To be precise, he signed up with the Royal Marines in Liverpool on 24 February 1880 and I found his attestation papers at the National Archives.   ​

James Love 
Born 17 March 1858 at Gushetfaulds Cottage, Glasgow.
Died 27 September 1882 at Ismailia, Egypt.


To read more about the connections between Partick and Darwen, read my earlier blog, From Partick with Love. 

I have just published a new edition of my biography of Arthur Kinnaird, who was one of the most important figures in the history of association football. This coincides with the launch of the Netflix drama The English Game.
   Described as 'without exception, the best player of the day', Kinnaird played in nine FA Cup finals (still a record), represented Scotland and was President of the Football Association for 33 years. He was involved in the game all his life and was so highly regarded that he was presented with the FA Cup in gratitude.
   Kinnaird is now famous again thanks to the Netflix series, which sees him and the Old Etonians pitted against Fergus Suter's Darwen team. The teams met in a titanic FA Cup clash in 1879, and although the Etonians won that one, it gave the first indication that football was about to change for ever, thanks to the influx of players from Scotland, the 'Scotch professors', who introduced the passing game to England.
   I was asked to be a consultant Football Historian for The English Game, and was able to give advice on various aspects such as style of play. The series has been a long time in the making, and the first I knew about it was way back in 2007. Since then, I have published my Kinnaird biography, and have also written extensively on Fergie Suter and Jimmy Love, the two pioneers who moved from Partick to Darwen in 1878.
   This new revised edition of First Lord of Football has additional material which has come to light in the past decade, and a number of new images. It is on sale on Amazon for £8.99, and there is also a Kindle edition at £3.99. 
   I also have several pages on this website devoted to Kinnaird, which provide an introduction to this football legend, who 'did more to popularise soccer than any man who ever lived'.
   
​
I'm often asked where my cover image comes from. It was on the front of one of the earliest football books ever published, by Routledge in 1867, and I am lucky enough to have one in my own collection. Although the prominent man on the cover is not identified, there is little doubt in my mind that it could be based on Arthur Kinnaird, complete with bushy beard and long white trousers, and of course in control of the ball.

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