SUPER-STITION? LUCK? COINCIDENCE?

It was the "hand of God" that scored that goal against the English, of course, and no doubt the Almighty was looking down on Diago when he finally went to the big pitch in the sky. When the first international match was played on November 30th 1872 at the West of Scotland Cricket Club at Partick, between the Scots and the English FA, the Scots' team, was made up entirely from  members of the Queen's Park Club. Rather than wear their famous "spider" black and white hoops (spider meaning thin in this case) the Scottish team opted to play in dark blue shirts, white trousers with blue and white socks. They wore red "cowls" which you will know from a previous, recent reading, that a cowls was a sort of pointy hat. The nice kit didn't work and the score was 0-0 (actually the new kit may have been an inspired move, hence the lucky score??).On April 7 1900, against England, at Celtic Park, Glasgow, the Scots white sleeves and England white shirts were too close for comfort. So, in honour of Lord Rosebery, who had been Prime Minister four years before and President of the SFA, Scotland wore his "racing colours" of primrose and pink. Scotland won 4-1. Hence, the occasional showing of pink in the Scots' kit bag when there is a difficult colour clash.

Do you remember Southampton v Man U at The Dell on April 13 1996? United needed a positive result to win their third league title in four seasons. They chose to wear grey, as their ussual kit clashed with that of The Saints. At half time the Red Devils were 0-3 down to the Saints, so Alex changed his team's kit to Blue and the game ended 3-1! In five league games wearing the grey, United had only won one point from 15. Shirt suppliers contracts and the MU commercial department were severely tested.

Burnley, back in history, would take a lucky mascot, a china black cat, with them to all their away games, during the season. Everton had a "real" black cat, which had inspired the Toffees to the FA Cup Final in 1907. The cat fell ill just before the Final and Everton duly lost 2-1 to Sheffield Wednesday with the winning goal coming in the final minutes. 

Fulham were presented with a goat as a mascot in the late 1920s. The Cottagers didn't win a game until they got rid of the beast several months later. Curry?

And just to involve the "luck" of royalty, King Edward VII, the Prince of Wales played football and also attended several major matches. On October 20th 1888, at the Kennington Oval, Edward went to watch the Old Carthusians (old boys of Charterhouse School, then located in Godalming) play against a touring Canadian side, the first team from beyond Europe to play in Britain. The OCs won 1-0. Below is their tour info. 1888 was when the Football League was founded.

http://www.canadiansoccerhistory.com/Canadiantoursabroad/Gt%20Britain%201888.html

Three days before the OC game, the tourists played Oxford University 1-1; the team photo is here:

Two days later they played Aston Villa-lost 2-4