When Scotland's footballers first visited London

With Scotland due to travel to Wembley in August as part of the Football Association's 150th birthday celebrations, it is worth marking the anniversary of the first time our national team headed for London.
   On 8 March 1873, 140 years ago today, Queen's Park FC selected the team as the Scottish FA had still not been formed (that would come just a week later). There was only enough money in the kitty to pay the rail fares for seven players and an umpire, so four more had to be recruited locally. One of them, Robert Smith, was an obvious choice as he was a founding member of Queen's Park and had moved to London; he had also played in the first game in November. The others were John Blackburn and Henry Renny-Tailyour of the Royal Engineers - the latter already having played for Scotland at rugby - and Arthur Kinnaird, a young aristocratic banker from a Scottish family.
   The combination was not a great success, with the newcomers not familiar with Queen's Park's passing style, and England won the game 4-2. The Scots learned their lesson and not until 1896 would they again select any players based in England. It was largely a period of complete domination for Scotland, and England only won one of the next 14 matches between the nations.