It is not so far from Lanarkshire to Ruabon; no more than two hundred and fifty miles. However in 1876 for football, and Scots football in particular, it represented a quiet but giant leap not just of two countries, admittedly British both, but also for the first but not the last time a through-pass from a Scot, utilising and handing on his skills not just outwith his native country but also specifically beyond England, the country of the game's foundation.
The Scot's name was Daniel Gray. He was by no means the first to catch the football contagion; nor the first south of the border to succumb. Players with Scottish background and ancestry, even some born in Scotland, Anglos and Diasporans alike, but all of whom had learned their football south of the border, had already appeared for Scotland, three in all, and more still for England. Nor was Gray the first, carrying the specifically Scottish strain of the football virus, to head south. That honour forever belongs to Robert Smith of Queen's Park, who having taken part in the first official and subsequent Scotland-England internationals, would turn out for South Norwood in London before moving on still further to the USA. However, Daniel Gray was the first to take, although admittedly not too far, a passion for the game into the wider and virgin, footballing World.
Born in New Mills in Lanark in 1848 he had qualified as a doctor at Glasgow University before in 1874, at the age of 26, setting up practice in the small North Wales town of Ruabon, five miles or so south of Wrexham. On arrival Gray seems to have first changed the spelling of his surname to Grey and become an early member of the local, Ruabon football club, The Druids, founded in 1872 with the Association game having first reached the area perhaps three years earlier still. Then in February 1876, with the Thomson brothers and Llewellyn Kenrick, the local colliery owner and in Scottish terms, “laird”, eclectic footballers and Druid's players all, he was a founder member of the Football Association of Wales.
Kendrick was clearly something of a force of nature but, after Gray, it was the Thomsons, David and George, who were most intriguing. David had been the first president of The Druids. They were English-born, both in Dudley in Staffordshire in 1847 and 1854 respectively but the spelling of their surname was the Scottish one. The explanation was simple. Whereas Daniel Gray had changed his name, perhaps for professional reasons, on arriving in Wales, the Thomsons' father had not. He was George Thomson senior, an iron-foundry manager born in Glasgow. In 1876 he was fifty, too old ever to have been a player, but perhaps a man with sporting interests and enough of an eye on what was happening in his homeland, indeed his home city, to support the footballing enthusiasms of his two boys.
Until the time of the formation of the Football Association of Wales the international game had been confined to Scotland playing England home and away. That was until 25th March of that same year, 1876, a month after the WFA's formation, when Wales played its first ever fixture as the result of a challenge. It had come from Wales but was for either a rugby or a football match against A.N. Other country and, perhaps expecting and English response, had been placed in The Field magazine in London. North Wales took it up, specifying football, but the interest on the other side was not as might have been expected. Once again, no doubt with some input from Dr. Grey and perhaps from Thomsons junior and even senior that first kick-off, just like the first ever international involving the Principality, was in Partick at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground with Scotland the opponents.
The game was notable for many reasons. A then record 17,000 are said to have come to watch, extraordinarily 5,000 more even than had watched the 3:0 Scottish victory over England just three weeks earlier at the same venue. Robert Gardner, Scotland's first captain and author of the 2.2.6 formation, was the referee. In his place ably in goal was Alex McGeoch of Drumbreck. Both teams played Gardner's 2.2.6 with Scotland putting out a strong team. Six of its players were from Queen's Park, including captain, Charles Campbell, but it also amongst others included
John Ferguson, star of Vale of Leven, recalled after a spat about professionalism, for his second cap, Moses McNeill, for a first for him and for Rangers, and
James Lang, J.J. Lang, of Clydesdale, generally reckoned on the basis of his performance then to have been recruited by Sheffield Wednesday to become the World's first professional player or at least its first shamateur.
For Wales both the Thomson brothers played, David in goal and George, at the age of 22, as one of the two in the centre of the attack, and described as,
"a hard-working forward whose forte was running with the ball but (who) was none too accurate in his shooting"
One name soon to be synonymous with the development, the evolution of footballing tactics, Edwin Cross of nearby Wrexham, was also in the team at right-sided half. Llewellyn Kenrick was left-back and captain whilst on the right-wing, one of six players from the Druids club and described as a,
“a busy worker and tremendous player”
was Daniel Gray cum Grey.
Wales was defeated 4:0. It was a commendable result that showed Wales to be worthy opposition, especially given the recent England one and a suggestion that only under continual pressure had the debutants tired in the second-half. Scotland had gone in at half-time only one-up, scored by Ferguson. Lang added a second in the 48th minute, followed by one each from Queen's Park's Billy McKinnon and Henry McNeil, brother of Moses. It also set the scene for future matches. Dr. Grey would not be in the team for the return fixture at Wrexham in 1877, the first year of the Welsh Cup, in which he scored the Druids' first goal. Perhaps he was injured. However, he was to play a second and final international again against Scotland at the first Hampden Park, a 6:0 loss in 1878, the year his club side was also runner-up in the second Welsh Cup, played the following week. He would retire from active football by 1880 but continued to attend Druids' games and act as club doctor. And he was to stay in Ruabon for the remainder of his life, dying there in 1900.
However, 1877 had seen the inclusion in the Welsh team not just of Kenrick and one Thomson brother, George, but also of Alexander Fletcher Jones, still at Oxford University but a product of Oswestry School. The games finished 0-2 to Scotland and was described thus by the Wrexham Advertiser.
"Both teams played remarkably well and the contest throughout was an exceedingly close one. The Scotchmen exhibiting the utmost proficiency in the essential art of passing while the home team worked admirably, the 'Backs' exhibiting some really excellent play."
Jones had been born in Lochmaben in Dumfries-shire, with a Scottish mother and an English-born father, who seems to have been man-servant and butler at various Scottish country houses. He would play just once for the Principality, but there might have been more caps had he not lost his life early the following year in a tragic shooting accident. And it had not been the only early death. The reason for the absence of the elder of the Thomson brothers, David, was that he had passed away in September 1876 and just six months after he had helped to make Welsh footballing history. He was just twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
After Gray, the Thomsons and Jones Scots influence in Welsh football would quickly peter out, both in terms of players and playing-style. The next “Scot” actually to turn out for the Principality would be
Robert Atherton, Welsh-born but Scottish-raised, and that would not be until the following century. And, indeed, from as early as 1878 the game in Wales would even take a different tactical direction, with the development there of
2.3.5 at club level and the abandonment in 1883 by the national team of 2.2.6 in its favour. The Pyramid, as 2.3.5 is also known, would be made possible by the pace of John Price, with Alexander Jones and George Thomson another of the forwards in the 1877 international. In the Wrexham club side it enabled Price's central forward partner there to drop back and in doing so allow Edwin Cross, the same Edwin Cross, who had played in Wales's first international, unknowingly to invent a new position. Moving from the right of a two into the middle of a three he became the World's first centre-half, thus creating a tactical schism in the game; one that actually persisted on the field for the best part of fifty years in Britain, a little longer abroad, notionally for perhaps thirty years more and, if only in argument, theoretically persists to this day.