It is a curious affinity, that between the Scottish Football Association, the SFA, and the Federation Internationale de Football Association, FIFA. We all know which is the senior. FIFA is but a stripling, little more than a century old. The SFA is a generation and bit older but this is not parent and child. It is not even grown-up son and father or more accurately step-father; that would be FIFA's relationship with the Football Association in London, the English FA; but more like nephew and ageing step-uncle. There is connection through the family of football but one that recognises that, although there is still consultation definitive power appears to be assumed by all parties to have moved on. Where once it was with the Association, as one, if the second, of the four founding Home Nations of football, it is now the Federation's.
However, the assumption is wrong although not in a presumptuous way. What cannot be denied is that the SFA had and still has greater influence than other FIFA members not through seniority alone but because FIFA is not the sole arbiter of the game, only the competitive, international game. There is also the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which on its formation in 1886 became on the one hand the organisation that governs the rules of the game, it still is, and on the other an arbiter. One of its first acts in 1887 was to do away with the notion, formal rule or otherwise, that any player born in the British Empire was de facto English, the impulse for the change coming from Ireland. It was at that time the youngest of the four then members, the football associations of the four Home Nations, each with a notionally equal vote with better than 3:1 enough for any change, since when another has been added, FIFA, and the voting structure over time changed. Since 1958 each Home Nation has had two votes and FIFA four. A change can now in theory be passed 7:5 or better, if delegates from each member vote differently, or effectively the FIFA block plus one other, with neither FIFA or the Home Nations on their own capable of success. However, to get to this stage meant a period of two pecking-orders, a stand-off and what literally could be described as shenanigans.
The shenanigans came when in 1921 Ireland was partitioned. In 1923 the newly-formed Football Association of Ireland (FAI) based in Dublin applied to join IFAB. It was turned down but not without quid pro quos. The first was that it would join FIFA, which it duly did that same year, sending a team to the 1924 Olympics. The second was that it would pull back from being an all-Ireland organisation, limiting its club jurisdiction to what we now call Eire. In return the original Home Nation organisation, the Irish Football Association (IFA), based in Belfast, would confine its activities to Ulster. The stand-off was that as the FAI joined FIFA none of the Home Nations were members. The first of the pecking-orders was that whilst FIFA had in 1912 become a IFAB member voting was on the basis still of one each with 3:2 required for change. And the second pecking order was the one that had existed from the beginning, that England as the off-the-field doyen, the undoubted founder of the game had seniority and, therefore, if not overall then greater say. With few exceptions what the FA in London said off the field went, in spite of being sometimes wrong, in fact too often very wrong and with repercussions, this as on the field Scottish football had for much of the game's history had showed itself both the more, indeed the most successful and by a considerable margin the most innovative.
That is not to say that Scotland, in the form of the SFA, did not at times take aim at it own feet and on occasion even hit. It started in 1882 with the decision, which somehow does not seem to appear in SFA minutes of that time to change the qualification rule for eligibility to play for the Scottish national team from residence only to birth and residence, from inclusivity to exclusion. At the time it perhaps did as intended. It ensured the World's first and at that time only Black international footballer,
Andrew Watson, born in Demerara, today's Guyana, became persona non grata. Unfortunately it also did the no doubt unintentional by equally excluding the White, son-of-the-manse, equally talented, also selected but Canadian-born
Malcolm Eadie Fraser. And perhaps as a consequence he would be dead within four years. Nor would Eadie Fraser be the last, for exclusion but thankfully not death. A decade later
Cathcart's Willie
Maley came, played and was deleted. Two decades after that it was the turn of Glasgow's Patsy Gallacher, who turned to Ireland instead, and in between there was Old Monkland's James Conlin and then Falkirk's
Jock Simpson, both of whom went on to play for England.
And it was in 1904 two years before Conlin won his one and only cap, a 2-1 defeat by Scotland at Hampden in front of over 100,000 that FIFA was formed in Paris. It might have been London. Its founding members were France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, in essence Spain and joining later that same day, Germany but an invitation had been sent to the FA headquarters and declined. None was sent to Scotland, Wales or Ireland. Nor crucially was it thought necessary for the invitation to be sent on. Why should it be? Didn't the FA have as its President the Scot, Lord Arthur Kinnaird, and hadn't he already been there for twenty-two years? Couldn't he make decisions for all, not least for Robert Christie of Dunblane and A. Stevenson of Falkirk, the consecutive SFA Presidents at the time?
England would reverse its FIFA decision in 1906.The quid pro quo seems to have been an agreement for the organisation's first president, the Frenchman, Robert Guerin, to stand down and be replaced by English FA administrator, Blackburn's Daniel Woolfall, during whose time, he would die in 1918, the "English" that is British Laws of the Game became the ones accepted by all and South Africa, Argentina, Chile and the United States, all previously affiliated to the English FA, moved across to membership of FIFA. It did not, however, lead to Scotland, Wales and Ireland joining, at least not immediately. In part this seems to have been because of friction between England on the one side and Austria and Germany on the other, friction caused by England or rather English football's lack of thoughtfulness. In the summer of 1908 an England touring party travelled to Central Europe. Two games were played in Vienna against Austria, one against Hungary in Budapest and crucially, whether deliberately done or not, a fourth in Prague against Bohemia, in fact an all Slavia Prague team, Slavia being coached as it would for the next thirty years by Jake Madden, ex. Dumbarton, Celtic and Scotland amongst others. The problem was that as far as the politicians of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were concerned Austria, which had joined FIFA in 1905, and Hungary were countries but Bohemia was not. It was simply a province and therefore, since England was a country, the game should not have taken place.
Noticeably the England tour the following year was designed to resolve the situation. Games were this time only arranged against Austria and Hungary. Bohemia was simply blanked. However, resolution did not result. If anything the situation was made worse. Austria now backed by original FIFA member Germany, adopted the stance that either Scotland, Ireland and Wales should be considered "provinces" of England and therefore not independent members of FIFA or, if they were admitted, so should all the provinces of Austro-Hungary, perhaps as many as twelve, and of Germany, of which there are presently sixteen. It was a row basically about voting rights, about power, which was only settled, if only after two years and, given looming events, very temporarily, by FIFA's admittance in 1912 as the fifth member of the IFAB, Scotland and Wales having been granted independent FIFA membership in 1910 and Ireland in 1911.
By the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 FIFA, still based in Paris, had continued its expansion. It had twenty-four members, the most recent Canada again switching allegiance from the FA in London. And when, with Woolfall having just died and the Dutchman, Cornelias Hirschman, as acting president, military conflict ended the Austro-German problem returned. Football became, well, "a political football". It is said the Home Nations, apparently collectively, decided it would be a good idea, now with the boot apparently on the other foot, tit-for-tat to punish the defeated European states for something. Perhaps it was for military defeat. Perhaps it for Austro-German temerity a decade earlier. Whatever the reason there were and would be two problems. The second is that it would all rebound horribly. The first is that in Scottish Football Association minutes there seems to be no note of original concerns, no discussion, just an acceptance of the decision in 1920, apparently taken unanimously by all the Home Nations, the how is not clear, to withdraw from FIFA en bloque. It reminds me of Brexit. There would be no places at the FIFA table but, you know, there would still be control of the menu through IFAB. As we say in Scotland, "Aye, that'll be reet".
The British withdrawal lasted either twenty-six years or four and sixteen, according to which version you believe. Certainly the Home Nations again en bloque definitively rejoined in 1946. However, according to some, not least FIFA itself, Home Nation re-admittance had taken place far earlier, if only again temporarily. FIFA says that the Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, the Scottish Football Association and the Irish Football Association, that is the Northern Irish Irish Football Association, were members once more in 1924, all for four years. But again there is a problem and once more it is with the SFA minutes. There is in this period agreement for the SFA to send delegates to FIFA congresses, but seemingly as no more than interested, invited observers. The interest is not surprising since Scottish clubs had become very concerned that a good number of their players had been moving to teams in the USA with no transfer-fees being paid. There was no need for them to be since, whilst the United States Football Association, the USFA, was a member of FIFA the SFA was not and therefore there were no automatic, reciprocal agreements. There are, however, no mentions in those same minutes of re-membership or of Scotland leaving, as FIFA maintains it did, in 1928 but there is a note of England's concerns about amateurism at the Olympics, which would become, it is said, the reason for England that same year to do something or other, leave FIFA or fail to re-join it. Which it is I have no idea. I have not seen the English FA minutes.
It is a bizarre situation. On the one hand FIFA has it that all the Home Nations rejoined it in 1924 and left again in 1928 because of shamateurism at the Olympics. Yet Scotland had no interest in the Olympics. Again SFA minutes note in 1912 that when it suggested Scotland send a team to that year's Games the FA in London basically told it to back off and although the team sent was Great Britain no Scot, in spite of Queen's Park being resolutely amateur, Welshman or Irishman was selected or ever had been. Only one Scots-born footballer,
Alex Hall, has ever won an Olympic medal, a gold, but he was playing for the Canadian team, Galt. Moreover the SFA had no need to re-join. Its problems with the USAF could be easily brought up at IFAB meetings, not least since FIFA was already exercised because of other concerns it had about commercial aspects of "soccer". Increasing in power, now with thirty-seven members, almost doubled in size, it considered them to be to be an anathema, one which by 1928 had lead to the "American Soccer Wars", essentially a stand-off between it and American clubs, clearly stirred by the SFA, and would contribute in short time to the US game's collapse, which helped nobody, at least no-one in the Auld Country. Scottish clubs had got no fees and now would never get any.
And so to the rebound. The events of the 1920s would mean, of course, that Scotland did not take part in any way in the Olympics of 1924 or 1928. Nor, in spite of being probably the best team in the World over the previous decade did it receive an invitation to the 1930 World Cup, itself a FIFA solution to England's problems with shamateurism. Amateur and professional football were simply separated permanently. There were, of course, Scots taking part in the competition, five in the semi-final alone, and a Scots manager. But none were in the blue of the country of their birth but, somewhat ironically in the circumstances, instead wore the badge of USFA on their chests. However, there were obvious signs of an increasingly independent stance being taken under the enlightened leadership of SFA President from 1927 to 1933, St. Johnstone's Robert Campbell. In 1929 Scotland would play non-British opposition for the first time. The games were against Norway, Germany and The Netherlands, in what are still considered by those countries to be unofficial. They had to be given Scotland's lack of FIFA membership. They were, however, clearly, if quietly, FIFA sanctioned as more games would follow; France in 1930 and Austria, Italy and Switzerland in 1931. Indeed, what problems the SFA faced, one long-term perhaps proving monumental, did not emanate from Paris but were much closer to home and should surely have caused the penny to drop, that penny being that the FA in London was, as must have been obvious for some time, only interested in looking after it own football and thus, frankly, not Scotland's, as events once more would prove.
In 1928 a suggestion with
Herbert Chapman's Arsenal as its source was made that all internationals should be played mid-week. It was an effort to exert full control over its contracted players at all times, one which escalated. It led by the end of summer of 1930 to a refusal by English clubs to release any players for international duty, a situation which the English FA seemed to be able very quickly to resolve with regard to English-qualified players but apparently unable to help with regard to Scots, Irish or Welsh plying their trade in the English Leagues. In fact the reality was that it wasn't willing on behalf of associations that had always been its allies to face the English clubs down and Scotland was forced for a year to field just Scottish-based footballers and the negotiations to end the impasse would be the last straw for the president. In 1933 he stepped down. Moreover it would lead to friction for prominent Scots players with the clubs, which would see several leave to play in France and the early retirement of perhaps the best of them all,
Alex Jackson, at the age of twenty-eight to give up the game altogether.
Scotland's situation of accommodation with FIFA would continue until the outbreak of the Second World War. The number of of games against non-British opposition was increased both the number, fifteen in the decade, and in range of those opponents, if only marginally, Czechoslovakia, including, of course, Bohemia that was, and Hungary were added to the list, this as FIFA itself expanded. In 1931 it had 42 members. In 1938 that number had grown to fifty-one. The Second World War was then a major interruption, for European teams at least, although the oldest continental championship of them all in South America continued to be played with finals in 1941, 1942 and 1945 and when war came to an end there was this time no question of retribution. In fact, there was reconciliation. In 1946 all of the Home Nations re-joined the world body, adding four to the membership, which by 1950 and the first post-war World Cup had grown to seventy-three. In 1947 a match was played, at Hampden, by a Great Britain Select XI and, as it was put, a Rest of Europe XI with the British team not made up of the best players but reflecting an interesting hierarchy as perceived somewhere, at FIFA perhaps. Of the players five were English, three Scots, two Welsh and one Northern Irish, with one Southern Irish player in the European side. It didn't reflect population. It might have reflected cooperation, at least at that moment in time. England had twice thrown its toys out of the FIFA pram, Scotland, Wales and Ireland once, if at all, if they were viewed as sheep, if rather foolish ones.
So it was in 1950 too that Scotland finally had the chance to play in the World Cup, indeed in any international tournament, in its own right. It had, after all, this time received an invitation directly from a FIFA unwilling to repeat the mistake of almost half a century earlier and in spite of there being worrying signs that Scotland as a footballing nation was, shall we say, not what it had been. Although in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of war the Scottish national team had shown revival in the two immediately years after the peace there had been more losses than victories and in the five years up to World Cup kick-off precisely as many games had been lost and drawn as had been won. It was a run that was the worse since the early 1890s, as the SFA was forced firstly to accept professionalism and before it had, to save face, to agree to choose Scottish players playing and therefore living in England. Yet, in 1948 having finish last in the Home Championship for only the second time in history, losing all three games, there was renewed hope as it had bounced back to win it in 1949.
But doesn't pride come before something, possibly sheer stupidity. In October 1949 Northern Ireland had been beaten, 2-8 away. In November at home it was 2-0 against Wales, which left England also at home in April. In the meantime the decision had been taken, as stated by the then Secretary of the SFA, George Graham, this time with no possibility of any other party, British or foreign, being in any way to blame, that Scotland would only to travel to Brazil, if it had won the 1950 Home Championship, i.e that it was British Champion. England, by contrast, was committed to being there even if only second place was achieved, which, having itself also beaten Wales and N. Ireland it knew was already in the bag, which all set it on 15th April 1950 at Hampden in front of 133,000 spectators for the inevitable to happen.
It was a close match. Scotland should have scored in the second minute but didn't. The English bar was hit in the 88th. England did score in the sixty-third minute and won and which point sense should have been seen. It wasn't, in spite of the efforts of George Young, Scotland's captain, even supported by England's captain, Billy Wright, pleading with the authority to change its mind. Instead Scotland played Switzerland at home and one before going on tour, to Portugal, a draw, and France a win as south of the border preparations were made and on 19th June the English squad flew to Rio and its hotel on Copacabana Beach.
It meant that instead of twenty or so Scots on Ipanema, or in Belo, Sao Paulo, Recife, Porto Alegre or Curita there were two, a third and another half, perhaps three and a half. It would have been three and a half had it been two years earlier and may father had been there still. The half was
Sergio Livingstone, captain and goalkeeper of the Chile team and with a Scots grandfather. The third was George Mitchell. Although the team did not go referee Mitchell did, taking charge for the Sweden-Paraguay match in the first round and running the line in three others. And the two, not without a scintilla of schadenfreude were William Jeffery and Ed McIlavenney. England, having beaten Chile 2-0 in the Maracana in its first game took on the USA team in Belo Horizonte in the second. It was an American team managed by Jeffery and captained on the day by McIlvenney and it won, 1-0, the goal in the 38th minutes from a throw-in by the Scots-American. As a result England, the States and Chile were all eliminated with the same number of points. Spain went through.
As to the SFA what it had done can only be described as "blowing it". It had gone from kowtowing to the English FA for three-quarters of a century, except for one brief period, to putting admittedly independently a gun against its own head and pulling the trigger not once but twice. The first bullet was not to go to Brazil at all. The second was that in all likelihood it would have been placed in Group Four with France, which withdrew, with Bolivia and the group winner, which was Uruguay. Held in the next round by Spain and only beating Sweden by the odd goal in five, down at half-time with two scored in the last thirteen minutes it in the final game down again but defeating the hosts, Brazil, would take the trophy. For Scotland it looks like a golden opportunity thrown away, one that required defeat by Hungary and others perhaps for the SFA to understand fully what it had done and to emerge, if slowly and blinking, into the 20th Century. It would send the national teams to the two other World Cups in the 1950s and finally in 1960 without success, only then, admittedly after more prevarication, appoint a full-time manager, and achieving under IanMcColl a noticeable but all too brief improvement, if no change of fortune. It would act just as now, after a further fifty years of slide, it also needs to. And if does not have a plan, perhaps we do!.