Part 1. The Scotch Professors

by Billy Kay

Medal won by the Irvine Valley boys in Barcelona

If football ever had a homeland to come home to it had to be Scotland!

Escoces FC in Barcelona

AS ENGLAND progressed in the recent world cup in Russia and their fans and media joined together in singing “It’s coming home, its coming home, football’s coming home” apart from being scunnered by their brass necks, we Scots knew in our hearts that it just wisnae true - it wis us that taught the world tae kick a baw, so if football ever had a homeland to come home to it had to be Scotland! The problem was that most of us had little knowledge or evidence to back up the claim. Meanwhile with words like Inglés, Anglais, Anglichanin used in most parts of the globe to describe British pioneers of football in their country, the great propaganda machine of English football is delighted to re-patriate these pioneers, translate Inglés as English and claim arrogantly that it was Englishmen who took the game round the world. Nothing could be further from the truth - for there is compelling evidence to back the claim of Scotland as the home of the world’s greatest game.

My own interest was kindled a few years ago, when I spoke to Lennart Persson of Gothenburg University on the huge Scottish influence in every area of life in that part of Sweden. He described how the first ever game of association football played in the city had one team made up of Scottish workers from a curtain factory near the Orgryte sports club. The victories of the Scots over a Swedish/ English select at that time were not unexpected, but when I got home the reference to the curtain factory made me turn to one of the books on my native Irvine Valley, and there in “A Pictorial History of Newmilns” by Jim Mair was the astonishing answer - the curtain factory in question had been owned by Johnston, Shields & Co of Newmilns who also owned another factory abroad, La Escocesa in Barcelona…and there they were lined up as Escoces FC. for the team photo at Bonanova in 1899. It even claimed that they had won the Spanish cup the first time it was contested! For once I had some evidence for my football fantasy of Caledonian hegemony in the origins of the beautiful game. It wis obviously Ayrshire boays that taught the world tae kick a baw!