4 of 4 So what? Both beat half the opposition. Brockbank runs around. Jerry Weir, playing to the tactics laid down for the #scotchprofessor does something useful and direct, with his skills. What does this tell us? You know what it tells us... James Biggar Weir smiles down on the Boys of ’26.

3 of 4 John Brockbank of Cambridge University. His only cap. COMPARE AND CONTRAST. ‘Weir then took charge of the ball and carried it in fine style past both forwards and backs, and seemed likely to score, but England kicked the ball into touch’. The Scotch chap headed towards the goal. Bounder!

2 of 4 ‘...Brockbank got the ball at his toe, and exhibited a splendid piece of dribbling, passing half a dozen of his opponents, but making little of his work, having dribbled almost across the field, instead of towards the Scotch goal.’ There’s yer English Dodoball. Skill minus brains.

By 1937 it was registered to hold about 184,000 if the stairways were also used. I am certain it hit that figure many times, given the ease with which you could jump over the walls or sneak in at the turnstiles.

That’s fighting talk! In 20 years’ time with more research, I expect a lot of places to make the same claim. Let battle commence.

4 of 4 So what? Andy’s piece is vastly longer than my quote of a few words. I commend it to the attention of anyone wishing to stock up on their ammunition, in defence of the certain knowledge that #scotsfoundedfootball The road is long and we need facts. We have the stamina. Read away.

3 of 4 A Scots riposte was quick, witty, pointed and savage. As the game was put on by the Glasgow Abstainers’ Union, drunkenness was not a feature. A letter asserted that ‘conceited Englishman know that the game of football is as well understood in all parts of Scotland as England.’ Nice to know.

2 of 4 More bricks for the #scotchprofessor wall. Both pieces are pertinent, in the month when Scotland founded modern world football. Andy has found some belting quotes relating to the insulting of a football match at Gilmorehill in 1862. Note the date. One year before England invented everything.

5 of 5 So what? The middle and working classes from which these men came, played football, from childhood. They epitomised a code of play, and were known to the world, as the #scotchprofessor thanks to 1872. In England there was chaos. The wrong social group being in temporary command of their game.

4 of 5 The spread of player origins is absolutely excellent. That they ended up in Glasgow is that demographic lightning bolt created by Glasgow briefly being one of the world’s most important cities. The players were still playing the National game - just that, now it was in their new home.

3 of 5 You have reverends and posh people writing nonsense about football in such publications as the Statistical accounts. Loaded with bias against Football. So how did they get the gig? Because they had the time and money to sit and invent stuff about Football not being played, any more.

2 of 5 From the English Border to the North-East. It was a team that the Country could claim, as their own. Crucially, it says a lot about their birthplaces. It is unwise to assume that none of these men knew football, until they moved to Glasgow. This is the problem of documentary evidence.

4 of 4 So what? Football at the time had not yet settled down, but there is one crucial difference. Scotland did not have a plethora of competing ball-to-feet codes. The SFA had a code and everyone played it, if they were not Rugby That was an English sport, anyway. In England, there was chaos.

3 of 4 ‘...plus one each from the Wednesday (Sheffield) and Nottingham FC. Although all three of those clubs were in membership of the FA, all continued to use separate playing rules for many of their matches.’ Just in case you missed it - they were picking players from other codes.

2 of 4 (p. 40.) Their national organisations weren’t national. ‘In a bid to give their teams the appearance of representing the whole of England, both the FA and the RFU included players from clubs over whom they did not have complete control’. The FA ‘selected 3 players from Oxford University...’

4 of 4 So what? It was not until 1877 that England had a national set of rules. It was not until 1886 - when the 4 national associations agreed international rules - that we had an international code. Never forget: it wasn’t rules which won the world, but the #scotchprofessor 1872 Combination game.

3 of 4 The players went back to their clubs and myriad versions of Football, except when they had their one game in the (London Rules) Cup. That had to be London rules because the Poshies insisted. In 1872-3, 14 teams started, one of whom was our own Spiders. That amounted to 13 games in total.

2 of 4 The QPFC rules became the Scottish Association rules. EVERYONE rowed in behind the SFA. Off Scotland went, founding clubs and producing the #scotchprofessor from every corner of the land. England? Well that is a much unhappier story.

4 of 4 So what? The excitement of seeing Scotland in November must have influenced the Vale of Leven and many others. It was not that QPFC’s game was new or unusual: it was that they were organised and assertive enough to retake it to the rest of Scotland. RETAKE not TAKE.