Re: Most Hated National Team
Originally posted by Teki
2. England - When you are the creator of the worlds game, and a culturaly monolith, hate comes from all angles!
I beg to differ.
http://www.footballculture.net/youron/home_home2.html
Where is the home of football?
Is England really the home of football or can another big football nation stake a better claim? Find out what our four experts think.
Read the case for the other countries;
> The England argument
> The Brazil argument
> The Global argument
Scotland invented football
The love of your life has a past you don't know about.
The English myth
In 1863 the London Football Association was founded with their London rules and were ignored by everyone else. Sheffield had the oldest two clubs in the world and their Sheffield rules. Most other English cities had their own rules too.
The English game was odd. Dribbling was important, passing was not. You got the ball and ran for your opponents’ goal.
Things were a little different in Scotland. Since the sixteenth century at least, passing and running had been the proper form of football for Scots.
Scotland founds modern world football
In 1872 Queen’s Park FC hosted the world’s first international against England. It was played at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground in Partick, Glasgow.
I would have loved to seen the English players coming to tackle the Scots. They must have been amazed and confused when the Scots simply passed their way around the England players.
The ‘Scotch Professors’
The English clubs started importing players to teach English players the passing and running game. They called them ‘Scotch Professors’. When England was still divided over which set of rules to use, Scotland had the Scottish Football Association (SFA), one set of rules for Cup-ties and one style. The SFA was the world’s first true national association.
The English FA fought to stop the Scottish game taking over. They lost. It’s funny then how you will read how the ‘combination game’ of passing and running was perfected by Preston North End in England, they had eight Scots in their team! You will read that the Brazilians learnt football from the English (no they didn’t: Archie McLean was from Paisley near Glasgow) or that England invented football. Why spoil a good story with the truth?
Thank you Scotland
Scotland was in the right place at the right time and was the right size to perfect the modern world game and export it to all corners of the globe.
All hail to World Football: the Scottish Game.
Ged O’Brien, December 2002
Ged O’Brien is the Project Director for the Scottish Football Museum, based at the Hampden Park National Stadium in Glasgow
