The first officially recognized international competition football held on November 30, 1872 between England and Scotland. A football field, like the ones we know today, did not exist. A venue at the West of Scotland Cricket Club, in Partick, Glasgow, was allocated to host the match.
The Scottish team consisted of only the Queen’s Park players, as the Scottish Football Association had not yet been formed. On the other hand, the England team, which traveled by train for the match – a journey of around 12½ hours – consisted of players from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Surrey Rifles and Crystal Palace.
Spectators stood just to the side of the playing field, behind a rope.
Estimates of the crowd vary, ranging from 2,500 to 4,000 people. The ticket cost one shillingwhile the fact that women had free entry. Spectators stood right at the side of the playing field, behind a rope.
But it was not only the position of the spectators that differed from today’s games. Apart from the handball rule for goalkeepers, which meant they could have the ball up to the middle of the field, there were still no penalties, no yellow and red cards, and corners were different. Teams changed sides after each goal or at half-time if no goals had been scored. As for the refereeing, apart from the referee – essentially the timekeeper – who was outside the field, there were two more “referees” – representatives of each team, who could appeal in case they could not reach a common decision.
The blouses did not bear numbers, as these would not appear for the first time until the 1920s.
The Scottish team wore dark blue woolen shirts, white trousers and blue-white striped socks. The England team, on the other hand, had chosen the color white for both shirts and trousers, while each of their players wore socks of a different color so that the spectators could identify them more easily. Also, the jerseys did not have numbers, and these would not appear for the first time until the 1920s. A common feature, however, of both teams is that all the players wore loose jester-style hats!
The two teams played very differently. Scotland opted for a team game with quick passing between players, while England relied heavily on dribbling and the individual style of each player. According to the Glasgow Herald, England had the advantage of the talent of their players, while the Scots proved that their players worked well together. Although there were no substitutes, there were changes during the match: at half-time both teams swapped their goalkeeper for a striker.
Although the match ended 0–0, according to sports magazine The Field, the result was met with enthusiastic applause from the spectators.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
