KENNY OVER KEVIN

Kevin Keegan left Liverpool FC in 1977, hoping to make his way in Europe. Kenny Dalglish took his place in the team and proved to be more successful at the club. Twenty years later on this day, Dalglish replaced Keegan again, but as manager of Newcastle United. Following the early promise that he inherited from Keegan, Dalglish could not replicate the managerial "Midus" touch he had shown at Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers and was unceremoniously sacked in 1998.

On July 9th 1867, at half past eight in the evening, a number of gentlemen met at Number 3, Eglinton Terrace, Glasgow, to propose forming a football club and nobody present would have thought it would take nearly 8 years before the club conceded its first goals! Playing a 1-2-2-6 formation the team "pressed" their opposition back and remained dominant for during this early period of history. The club was invited to join the first English FA Cup in 1871, though their goal remained untroubled they did not win the trophy! They were given a bye to the semi-finals where they drew 0-0 with The Wanderers, however the club could not afford the cost of travel for the replay and there fore had to withdraw with the game.

In 1873-4, QP "walked" the first ever Scottish Cup Final beating Dumbreck 7-0, Eastern Glasgow 1-0, Renton 2-0 and Clydesdale Glasgow 2-0. They were just as successful the folowing year with wins over Western Glasgow 1-0, West End Glasgow 7-0 and they lined up to play Clydesdale in a March semi-final. Before the tie their proud record was ended by Vale of  Leven during a friendly at Hampden when Vale, a goal up, disputed an equaliser scored by Queen's and stormed off!! In the cup semi-final, Clydesdale became the first team to score two goals against Queen's, who salvaged a draw and, then won the replay and then the Final! By 1876, Queen's had won the Cup three times in succession but final tasted defeat in 1877 losing a quarter-final tie to...guess who? Vale of Leven. But them soon bounced back, winning the trophy seven times more between 1880 and 1893. On,ly Glasgow Rangers and Celtic have better records! From 1874 to 1893, Queen’s Park won ten Scottish Cups – still the third-highest total behind Celtic and Rangers – and even participated in two FA Cup finals, the only Scottish team to ever do so. They were probably the leading team across the Isles at the time, and therefore within the world.The year is 1872. Ulysses S. Grant is elected president of the US, Yellowstone becomes the world’s first national park, and the first case of Horse Flu is reported in Toronto, Canada, which will substantially disrupt life in North America by mid-December.Meanwhile, on 30 November, the first international association football match to be retrospectively recognized by FIFA as “official” takes place at Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow, between Scotland and England. And remarkably, the whole Scottish team is comprised of players from just one single club.If someone says the word Glasgow to you, what images does it conjure up as a football fan? I am guessing the Old Firm – Celtic vs Rangers, Green vs Blue, Catholic vs Protestant – the two historically strongest teams in Scotland involved in one of the world’s most passionate derbies. Two teams which, while sworn enemies, need each other to feed off, as seen during the recent years when Rangers’ absence from the top flight resulted in the loss of this great match-up.What you might not be aware of, however, is that halfway between the famous theatres of Ibrox and Celtic Park, to the south, sits the 52,000-capacity Hampden Park, home of the national team, which was built in 1903 and was the biggest stadium in the world at the time.Hampden Park was in fact the third stadium built in the area under that name. The very first was initially used in October 1873 by the oldest club in Scottish football. That club wasn’t Celtic or Rangers but a team nicknamed The Spiders, who were formed way back in 1867, making them the oldest club in the world outside of England and Wales. That club is Queen’s Park.Queen’s Park have an important role to play in the history and development of the modern game that we know and love. In those days, they dominated Scottish football. Indeed, the early playing rules in Scotland were developed at Queen’s Park. The were also the instigators of the Scottish Football Association and the first-ever winners of the Scottish Cup in 1874.As mentioned, 1872 saw the maiden game between Scotland and England, the former fielding 11 players all from the same team: you guessed it, Queen’s Park. The game ended 0-0 and had the great claim that the two teams used the following formations: Scotland went 2-2-6 while England fielded a more attacking 1-1-8. How the game ended 0-0 with those formations is anyone’s guess.Highlighted by such formations, early football tactics were pretty rudimentary. It often consisted of giving the ball to one player, who then rushed upfield surrounded by teammates in a battering ram formation more similar to what we now recognise as rugby. But yet again, Queen’s Park moved the game forward. It was there that a revolutionary new tactic was invented. What if, instead of just charging with the ball until tackled, one passed the ball to a colleague when challenged?This idea of combining together as a team, which led to the term “combination football”, helped Scottish football lead the way. Queen’s Park were the Barcelona of the 1870s, with this sharp, alien-like, movement of the ball. In March 1872, the Spiders were drawn to play against Wanderers in the FA Cup – Scottish teams took part in this famous competition until 1887 – and crushed them 5-0. A description of the game in the press included the following: “The play was now in the centre, the Queen’s Park men dribbling and passing, while their opponents indulged chiefly in heavy kicking.”One can only imagine the stunned Englishmen watching on, monocles dropping in shock as their faces reddened beneath their handlebar moustaches. The gall of those bounders! Teamwork: what an outrageous proposition.And so, from 1874 to 1893, Queen’s Park won ten Scottish Cups – still the third-highest total behind Celtic and Rangers – and even participated in two FA Cup finals, the only Scottish team to ever do so. They were probably the leading team across the Isles at the time, and therefore within the world. So where did it go wrong for this club of innovators? Why did such a dominant force fade into the background? The answer to that lies in the next key development of the game: money.When Queen’s Park were strutting their stuff and revolutionising the game, football was still a gentleman’s pastime dominated by players from public school backgrounds who played to enjoy camaraderie, healthy exercise and a few hearty drinks after. These players were usually professionals in other fields for whom football was just an amateur hobby on the side.Early FA Cup competitions were won by teams such as Oxford University, Old Etonians and Old Carthusians – names dripping of cigar smoke, hallowed halls and back-slapping chums. But as competitions developed, the game spread into more working-class areas, especially in the north of England, until in 1983, the Old Etonians were shockingly defeated by one such outfit, Blackburn Olympic.Long before Jack Walker and his steel money brought success to the industrial Lancashire town, Blackburn Olympic were formed. The town revolved around cotton, with mills employing thousands living a tough life fraught with danger and monotony. 

Football proved to be an attractive diversion and rose swiftly in popularity. However, the idea of a working-class team lifting the FA Cup was an anathema to the ex-public schoolboys that they concocted the Football Association. Surely some skullduggery must be behind such happenings.The players of Blackburn Olympic were amateurs in that they all worked for local mills. 

But then again, did they truly “work” for these mills? For example, before the FA Cup final, the team had gone to Blackpool for several days of special training. But what were mill-workers doing missing several days of work? Were they still being paid during this trip? And who were these Scottish workers who played for the team? What had induced these talented footballers to leave their homeland and come south to work in a mill?The answer, of course, was that Blackburn Olympic were arranging “jobs” for their players and supplementing their income with additional payments. These included the Scottish players, known as the “Scotch Professors”, who brought down their passing game to many of the northern teams.And so as the northern teams began to dominate English football, tensions soon came to a head. Preston beat Upton Park in the FA Cup, who then protested against the presence of paid players in the Preston ranks. 

Debate raged until around 30 northern clubs threatened to break away from the FA if professionalism was not allowed. And so, in July 1885, the inevitable occurred and the professional era came into official existence.The Scottish FA, however, were having none of it. They withdrew their teams from the FA Cup in protest. Unsurprisingly, money spoke and a significant number of Scottish players relocated south of the border, to the extent that when Preston won the first-ever Football League in 1889, they fielded ten Scottish professionals.The Scottish Football League was launched in 1890 on an amateur basis, but Queen’s Park declined to join, on the supposition that, like in England, it would be a sham and not truly amateur. And so it proved. It didn’t take long for it to be obvious that clubs were accumulating talent through financial incentives. 

By 1893, Scotland too bowed to the inevitable and formalised professional football. So what do you do if you are Queen’s Park – you are one of the innovators of the game and you believe in the amateur spirit – and see all around you paying for talent? The obvious answer is that, if you can’t beat them, join them. But this is where the story of Queen’s Park takes a remarkable twist. They decided to remain an amateur club while still playing within the Scottish League system. And they keep doing so for over 125 years.Up until 2019, 126 years after Scotland approved professionalism, Queen’s Park stuck to their guns as an amateur outfit. Having been founded as the oldest club in Scotland, it meant they’d effectively been amateur for 152 years. Their pride in such included sporting the Latin motto Ludere Causa Ludendi (To Play for the Sake of Playing).