THREEHEARTYCHEERS

OThere was no Scottish FA in 1872 and by this time the Scots mustered Queen's Park Club to represent Scotland against England. the club secretary Archibald Rae, made an appeal to raise a side and trials were held. Scotland formed a team all of whom played for Queen's Park in a 2-2-6 formation.

England chose from a variety of clubs including Notts County, The Wednesday, Crystal Palace FCs. The others came from Oxbridge Universities the 1st Surrey Rifles, Harrow Chequers, Hertfordshire Rangers and Barnes.

On the 30th November buses ran spectators from the city centre to Patrick enabling 4,000 to watch the match at the West of Scotland cricket ground, held back by a rope boundary.

The crowd raised £103 in entrance money and the Scots wore dark blue shirts, a lion crest, white knickerbockers, blue and white hoops on their socks.

England were in white with the three lions, white shirts and blue caps.....no socks?

In a close game it stayed 0-0 despite forward Robert Leckie hitting the "tape", which the judges decided had "gone over".

In what was described as a "splendid display of football in the really scientific sense....." though no goals were scored but both sides afforded "three hearty cheers" at the end of the match.

The first ever international match had been a success.

Umpires were Charles W Alcock of the Wanderers and Henry Norris Smith of Queen's Park with the Referee Willy Keay of Queens Park.

Illustrations from The Graphic-William Galston.

Prior to this official match, there had been five unofficial internationals at the Oval starting at March 5th 1870.