A couple of years ago I wrote about William Sleator, an Englishman who is regarded as one of the fathers of French football. In 1891 he founded White Rovers FC, the first club in Paris, and imported the first set of goalposts to France.
   When I wrote that article, I appealed for further information and was therefore delighted to be contacted by his grandson, Christopher Robbie. We met up and exchanged information - he was unaware of many of Sleator's exploits - and he found his grandfather's priceless gold medal, pictured here. He also provided a snapshot of the man himself. 

The gold medal is the top honour of the French Football Federation, presented to those who have made a major contribution to football in the country. In general it is awarded to long-serving officials, who have already accumulated the silver and gilt category awards, so it was really something special for Sleator to be recognised in this way. The presentation was made 1949, half a century after he gave up playing the game, and showed that his pioneering role in French football had not been forgotten.

Christopher Robbie shared fond recollections of his grandfather, who died in 1955. The story was made all the more interesting as Robbie himself has a fascinating life story as a TV announcer and actor - there are plenty of clips online - and I am sure I saw him in action as a cyber leader on Dr Who in the 1970s (Revenge of the Cybermen). It just goes to show that sport history can lead in all sorts of interesting directions!

The colourful life of Harry Boyd, a Scottish goalscorer of the 1890s, is a classic example of a player whose talent was blighted by drink and personal demons. Yet for a while his star shone brightly, notably as top scorer at both  Woolwich Arsenal and Newton Heath. He was also capped by the Scottish League during a season at Third Lanark.
​   Boyd's chaotic story has never been told in full before but now it has been researched and written by a trio of guest bloggers: Robert Bradley, Douglas Gorman and Colin MacKenzie. They reveal his family background, detail his goalscoring exploits, and contrast his playing success with his tragic outbursts of violence and indiscipline, culminating in an early grave.
   Click here to read their fascinating account of Harry Boyd's life.

by guest blogger Douglas Gorman

Scotland had three great Junior  football internationalists in the early post-War period: Bert McNab (Petershill), Davie Mair (Stonehouse Violet) and Willie Niven (Irvine Meadow XI). 
   Their combined Junior Scotland careers stretched from 1948 to 1955 and overlapped between 1951 and 1954.
   In the 16 matches played by Scotland from 23 December 1950 to 12 February 1955 at least one of the trio was in the team and they all captained the team in a total of at least ten matches. Bert McNab’s 13 matches against international opposition has yet to be beaten.
   
You can read Douglas Gorman's account of their careers and achievements by clicking here.

As I write, Belgium are set to face Scotland at Hampden Park, fresh from an excellent World Cup campaign which saw them finish in third place. Yet perhaps their greatest honour came in 1920 when they won Olympic gold in the football tournament, and much of the credit went to their Scottish coach, Willie Maxwell.
   Maxwell is a key figure in the development of Belgian football, having gone to Brussels in 1909 after a fine career which included a cap for Scotland against England in 1898. Born in Arbroath, he started out in his home team where he represented Forfarshire aged 18. He played briefly for Hearts and Dundee before joining Stoke in 1895, where he was the club's top goalscorer in five of his six seasons there. Rated one of the top forwards of his era, Stoke turned down serious money for him but after he suffered a knee injury (thereby missing a second cap) he lost some of his speed. He had a season at Third Lanark in 1901-02 before returning to England with Sunderland, Millwall and finally Bristol City, where he won a Second Division championship medal in 1906.
   Like many prominent players of the era, he went to the continent to coach and took charge initially of Leopold FC in Brussels. Part of his remit was to teach the players how to shoot, and he also took them on a short tour to England. He was optimistic about the future for Belgian football, according to this article at the end of 1909:

   In 1911 he was asked to coach the Belgian national team, and was also training another club side, Daring FC. He threw himself into Belgian life, and even represented the country at cricket in 1913. He had always been a fine batsman and had played for Arbroath, Staffordshire and Bedminster during his football career.
   Although his Belgian appointment was curtailed by the First World War, he returned after the conflict and his greatest triumph came in 1920 at the Olympic Games, held in Antwerp. Belgium, as hosts, beat Spain and Netherlands to reach the final against Czechoslovakia. With Belgium leading 2-0 towards the end of the first half, English referee John Lewis sent off a Czech player and the rest of the team promptly walked off in protest. The Belgians were awarded the gold medal, and were essentially world champions (albeit this competition was for amateurs only).
   Maxwell remained as national team coach until 1928, after which he coached Malines (Mechelen) for a decade, and finally led Cercle Bruges to the second division title in 1937/38.
   He returned to Staffordshire and his wife's home town of Stone, where he is buried, although he died in Bristol.

William Sturrock Maxwell, born Arbroath 21 September 1875, died Bristol 14 July 1940. 

When I wrote the biography of Lord Kinnaird a few years ago, one of the challenges that I faced was an absence of personal recollection by the man himself. He kept some scrapbooks and photos, but appeared to have left no sporting memoirs.
   However, there was one particular quote widely attributed to him, the source of which I had never been able to track down. It read: 'I believe all right-minded people have good reason to thank God for the great progress of this popular national game.' It was only recently that I stumbled across its origin in a religious magazine called Progress, published by the United Free Church of Scotland in January 1901. The article sheds a fascinating light on the early development of football, made all the more useful as it is written by a man who lived through the sport's fledgling days in the 1860s.

Thanks to digitised newspapers, and I can now reproduce the full article:

Football, by Lord Kinnaird

I have been connected with the Association game ever since its commencement and, indeed, my knowledge of the game dates from about 1865. Looking back, I cannot but contrast its present popularity, when from 60,000 to 70,000 people will gather to see an International match, or the final for the Football Association Cup, and those old days, when a handful of people, who were admitted free, used to come and witness the best matches of the year. Reading the football reports on a Monday morning, it is difficult to realise that this is the same game. I know of no sport which has so quickly assumed national importance as football.
   I well remember some of the first attempts to extend the game beyond the confines of our public schools and universities. The earliest efforts were made in London, and the neighbourhood, the teams being largely composed of old members of Eton and Harrow, with Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, and members of H.M. Civil Service. My own personal knowledge of the development of football mainly applies to the Association game, but I fancy that what one can say of this branch is equally true with reference to the Rugby game.
   I was one of a small committee formed to think out what came to be the Association Rules. These were based on the game played by Eton, Westminster, and Charterhouse, leaving out the Eton 'rouge', which resembles what Rugby friends would call the scrum.

What Led to Football's Great Popularity?

It is generally difficult to popularise a new game, but it early appeared to many leading athletes that there was a great need for an open air game available to all classes, especially for those who could not afford the more expensive pastimes. It further gained a great impetus from the increase of the Saturday half-holiday and the general increase of leisure. Young men found they had more free time, and not much to occupy the time. Another force which early came in to extend the liking for football was the annual matches between public schools and university teams.
   The first large town to take up the game energetically was Sheffield, and the annual matches were played between London and Sheffield under rather different rules, the first match being in 1866. Then came the keenly contested games between England and Scotland, which became an annual fixture. It was in Yorkshire, at the home of sport, Bramall-lane Cricket Ground, Sheffield, that spectators first began to assemble in any great numbers. They were the fairest spectators of any crowd, always ready to appreciate the points of the game, and to applaud good play on either side. It would be well if the spectators in England and Scotland today would follow their example. We would then be spared many of the disgraceful scenes which bring discredit on the game. In those days umpires were not necessary - the captains of the two teams made most admirable umpires, and from their positions they were able to give as good and fair decisions, often better, than the modern umpire.
   Scotland, of course, began early to take up football, and it spread like wildfire, and they very soon produced players to hold their own in any contest. The management of the Scottish team passed into the hands of a committee in Glasgow, which became the Scottish National Association, and the annual match was keenly looked forward to and eagerly contested. The third match, which was played at Kennington Oval in 1871, was a most exciting affair, and ended in a draw. For the first three or four contests the Scottish team was mainly composed of men like myself, resident in or near London, but Mr. R. Smith, of the Queen's Park, Glasgow, did excellent work, and was amongst the forerunners of the many who are now willing to take a long journey in order to play in such games. Before very long the committee decided that the International team should be composed entirely of Scotsmen, which was a very just rule.

Gate Money and Its Troubles

Amongst the teams which made their mark in the early development of Association football might be mentioned the Wanderers, the Queen's Park, Glasgow, Old Etonians, Harrow Chequers (which soon merged in Old Harrovians), Royal Engineers, Clapham Rovers, and Civil Service. With the growing popularity of the game the troubles began. Gate money flowed in, and how it was to be spent became a substantial factor in the game - the question of players receiving payment pressed for consideration. Personally, I took the view that it would be better to recognise what was bound to come. It did not need the gift of prophecy to foresee that, with large sums of money coming in there was a danger of it being illicitly spent if the professional was not permitted. Many of my friends differed from my view that, in football as in cricket, there was room for development, not only among amateurs, but also among professionals.
   I will not, however, enter at length upon the thorny question of professionalism. Suffice it to say, that I find professionals play just as fair and sound a game as amateurs. Some of the roughest games in which I have taken part have not been with Northern or professional teams, but in matches with clubs representing public schools and universities - more especially the games between the old rivals Eton and Harrow. While, however each side played a hard game, there was nothing in the way of mean or unfair play.
   With reference to the development of the game itself, the first football tour was undertaken by a team of officers of the Royal Engineers, under the able captainship of the late Major Sir F. A. Marindin, who was for so many years president and chairman of the Football Association, and very few of its meetings took place at which he did not preside. As might be expected from a team comprised of scientific men, the Royal Engineers were the first to develop that style of play (so different from the public school game), which is now known as the combination, or passing game, and which has been carried to such perfection both by Association and Rugby players. Football is a game possessing many advantages. It may be played in any weather and at a time of the year when few other games can be so advantageously played. One of the roughest days in which I ever played was in a match at Glasgow - Old Etonians v Queen's Park - just the day before the sad Tay Bridge disaster, but none of us were any the worse for our game.

The Future of Football

As to the future of the game, I am often I asked: 'Do I not regret the part I have taken in promoting the development and popularity of football?' I unhesitatingly say 'No!' I look on the increase of athletic sports as one of the most important elements in improving the physique of our population, and producing a sound body and a healthy spirit amongst the young men of the vast population herded together in our great cities. I admit that I cannot now speak with the same accurate personal knowledge as I could have done ten years ago of all the districts in the United Kingdom; but even if it be granted that there are sometimes blots on the game in small areas of the country, I believe that all right-minded people have good reason to thank God for the great progress of this popular National game, and it is the duty of all good citizens to do what they can by personal influence and presence, and by associating themselves with the various clubs, to see that the game - both Rugby and Association - is fairly and honestly played. In this game numbers, variously estimated at 300,000 and 350,000, take part every week.
   I wish further, that rich men would acquire freehold land for open spaces sufficiently near the centre of our large towns for cricket and football, and secure these under trust deed with rules prohibiting the sale of intoxicants and forbidding betting and gambling.
   The Football Association has steadfastly set its face against all gambling and betting in connection with football matches, and we are always ready to come down with a heavy hand on any infringement of our rules on this point, and we invite the aid of all who are interested in the well-being of young men of the rising generation to encourage them to take part, not as spectators, but as players, in some of the many branches of athletic sports which are now brought within their reach. Of all these, I personally think that football is the best for the development of true manliness and unselfishness of character, helping to fit the young men to take part in after years in the more serious competition of life, whether for the Churches or for the Empire.

First published in Progress, the monthly magazine of the United Free Church of Scotland, January 1901

He was a Scottish football coach who managed teams in Spain, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina. He won trophies and was held in high regard, but almost nobody in this country has heard of William Raeside.
   I first came across him when I wrote my recent blog about the Scottish players who spent the 1946-47 season in Mexico. He has a fascinating story, but working out Raeside's football career has proved quite a challenge: he changed his name, knocked years off his age, exaggerated his achievements and had long periods out of football.
   I can find no record of Raeside until he was announced in the summer of 1927 as the new coach of Celta Vigo in north-west Spain. He was then aged 35 and the club outlined an impressive background as player and coach: 'He played for 11 years with Hibernian, South Shields, Darlington and others. Later he was trainer of Hibernian and then, as a professor of athleticism for Charles Durning at St Mirren. He was instructor at Glasgow University and then trainer of four Norwegian clubs – one of whom he took to the final of the Norwegian championship. He comes with excellent references, including from Celtic and Motherwell.'
   The trouble is, I have been unable to verify any of these claims, or indeed any football pedigree as player or trainer. There is perhaps some truth in it, for example he may well have been an assistant to Charles Durning, who was trainer of St Mirren 1911-19 and subsequently athletics coach at Glasgow University, but there is no hard evidence. He certainly didn't make any first team appearances as a player.

Nonetheless, he was a success at Celta Vigo: his team won the championship of Galicia for 1927-28, and the club was disappointed when he left them after a year.
   Yet what makes his story particularly curious is that Raeside took the Celta Vigo job under a false name, WH Cowan. And that takes some explaining.
   Born in Paisley in 1892, William Raeside was brought up in the city, where he worked as a steel cutter, which probably saved him from being called up in the first war. He married Jane Gerrard in 1911 and they had two daughters.
   However, he separated from his wife and by 1920 was living in Edinburgh when he fathered the first of five children by Jessie Cowan Scobie. Her middle name is significant as he used it to change his identity, and perhaps to evade his first wife, who divorced him in 1928 claiming 'address unknown'. At the time, he was coaching Celta Vigo as WH Cowan, and later that year he had a son who was registered with that surname, and Raeside even signed the register as William R Cowan. That subterfuge was only corrected years later, in 1946, with the aid of a sheriff.
   Following his year in Vigo, Raeside returned to Glasgow to work as an accountant, reverted to his own surname and married Jessie in 1930. Throughout this time, he was described on all the birth and marriage certificates as a clerk or accountant. Interestingly, however, on similar certificates relating to his children, many years later, his occupation was given as football trainer or athletic coach. It is a good example of how family records can help to build up a life story with their snippets of information.
   There is no record of Raeside having any further football involvement until the summer of 1937, when Millington Drake, a British diplomat in Montevideo, was asked by the president of Nacional to find him a coach who would improve Uruguayan football 'by the influence of English technique and training systems.' Somehow Drake was put in touch with Raeside, whose ability to speak Spanish must have helped, and he duly crossed the Atlantic in November 1937 to take up the position.
   He spent a year coaching Nacional, assisted by Hector Castro, a World Cup winner with Uruguay in 1930, and they are credited with laying the foundations for the great Nacional team which Castro led to five straight championship titles. The first signs of that success came early in 1938 when Nacional won the Gold Cup, formally known as the Torneo Internacional Nocturno, played between the ten best teams from Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rosario and La Plata. It included a memorable 2-1 away win at Estudiantes on 19 February 1938, in a bitterly hostile atmosphere known as 'the match of the bloodstained shirts'.
   Raeside (also known as Reaside) decided to return home in October 1938, reportedly to become a scout for Arsenal, prompting mass demonstrations from fans who wanted him to stay.

Again there was a fallow period before his next overseas appointment with Asturias in Mexico City, coaching the team for the 1945-46 season in the Mexican Liga Mayor. They finished tenth out of 16, a disappointment after winning the league two years earlier, but he remained with the club for a second season having recruited three Scottish players, including Jackie Milne as coach.
   In 1947 he was on the move again, this time to Argentina, taking charge of Newell's Old Boys in Rosario. It was not a great success as Newell's did not win any of their first ten games, in fact they only won seven out of 30 all season, and ended the season in 11th place in the Argentina Primera Division. 
   He appears to have suggested recruiting Scottish players, as in 1948 Newell's had three Scots in their ranks: Willie Kilpatrick (ex-Chelsea, Dunfermline and others) was joined by two inexperienced juniors from Renfrew, Stewart McCallum and Donald McDonald. Former Celtic striker Joe Rae also signed up but then bought himself out of the contract. By all accounts, the Scots were not a great success, but by then Raeside had returned home. 

 
With thanks to the following sources:
​
Celta Vigo: http://yoentrenealcelta.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/wh-cowan.html

Nacional: http://www.nacionalenargentina.com.ar/una-gesta-unica-y-heroica-el-campeonato-nocturno-rioplatense/

Newell’s Old Boys: http://anotandofutbol.blogspot.com/2018/02/newells-old-boys-parte-2.html

Newell’s Old Boys: https://nobhomenaje.blogspot.com/2017/05/quinteto-ofensivo-1947.html

Chivas Guadalajara: https://www.facebook.com/Datos.Chivas/

British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

The anecdote about Millington Drake in 1937 is from Scoring for Britain by Peter J Beck (1999).

When writing the book 1824: The World’s First Foot-Ball Club, we took a close look at the lengthy pre-history of football in Edinburgh. This led to the rediscovery of some remarkable seventeenth century drawings which include what is probably the earliest illustration of football goalposts yet discovered – not to mention the oldest picture of football in Scotland.
   It was drawn by Archibald Flint, a student who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1673. He doodled extensively in the margins of his lecture notes (known as dictates) and on the title pages of two surviving volumes are four little pen sketches which show men – presumably students – taking part in sport. They depict billiards, tennis, football and target archery.
   The importance of these drawings was first recognised by Charles Pringle Finlayson, who was keeper of manuscripts at Edinburgh University library. He wrote a lengthy analysis in the Scottish Historical Review, published in 1958, but his paper has been largely forgotten and deserves to be better known among sports historians.

The football scene is fascinating, with two men in hats kicking a ball between a curious set of three-barred goal posts. Finlayson speculates that the bars may be associated with some kind of scoring differential, depending on which bit of the goal the ball crosses. Alternatively, he says, they might relate to the Edinburgh field where football was played, Gallowgreen, because of their similarity to the shape of the gallows.
   Finlayson also notes that the Latin translation of one of James VI’s works calls football 'pila Scotica quae pede propellitur' (a Scottish ball which is propelled by the foot).
   The drawings confirm that sport of various kinds had became respectable in late 17th century Scotland, when attitudes relaxed again after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. It was not just football: emerging from years of negativity by the Kirk and the civic authorities, golfers started to knock balls around Bruntsfield and Leith Links, horse racing began again on Leith Shore and Musselburgh, and bowling greens were laid out in the city by landowners on their estates.
Archery was strengthened by the founding in Edinburgh of the Royal Company of Archers in 1676, the nation's first sporting society. From Alexander Flint’s drawings we can deduce that tennis was popular – there was a tennis court at the Abbey of Holyroodhouse – and so was billiards.

Students were at the forefront of this activity, and around the same time, there is an account of the money spent by Alexander Heriot, who was perhaps a factor for the Gilmour household, on behalf of Alexander Gilmour of Craigmillar (just south of Edinburgh), reflecting what the young man about town needed in 1671-3: 'A great comb to his periwig, half a dozen golf balls, a football at fastern's even'.
Golf was also considered a suitable game for a student of that era, as Thomas Kincaid, an Edinburgh surgeon’s son, reveals in his diary for 1687-88. Aged about 26 years old, he played golf on Bruntsfield Links, 'near the Tounis College', and on Leith Links. Kincaid went on to describe 'the only way of playing at the Golve', giving instruction on how to adopt the correct stance and hit the ball, and elsewhere in his diary he outlined how golf clubs were made. He also developed a talent for archery and went on to be an active member of the Royal Company of Archers, becoming just the third winner of the Edinburgh Arrow in 1711.
 It all goes to show that football games, archery butts, tennis courts and billiard tables were an accepted part of the landscape for Edinburgh gentlemen towards the end of the 17th century. The enthusiasm of the university authorities for some of these sports appears to have waned in the following century, before John Hope and his friends revived football as a respectable pastime when they founded their club in 1824.
 
With thanks for the Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, for rephotographing Archibald Flint's dictates, and giving permission for reproduction.
 
CP Finlayson's article was entitled: Illustrations of Games by a Seventeenth Century Edinburgh Student. The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 37, No. 123, Part 1 (April 1958), pp. 1-10.

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 stars 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 for Scotland, 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.