[2][3] There were also times when royalty played the games themselves, with the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer in 1497 mentioning the purchase of footballs for James IV.
Take the whole of this bruised arm to him" Sir Richard Maitland expresses his pleasure in a late sixteenth century poem at being too old for the rough game: In modern English can be translated as: The violence of early football in Scotland is also described vividly by another anonymous sixteenth century description, "The Beauties of Foot-ball": This in modern English is translated as: It was not just the Scottish monarchy and local municipalities that passed laws on the playing of football.
In Perth, apprentices progressing to become master craftsmen in the sixteenth century traditionally had to pay for a banquet and hold a football match.
[4] In 1546 the Company of Hammermen (i.e. smiths) of Perth issued a decree that "neither servants nor apprentices" should play football "under penalty of a pound of wax" to be given to their altar in the church.
At Lochtoun in 1606 during a "fute-ball" match some players "fell in contentioun and controversie, ilk anie with otheris, and schot and dilaschit pistolettis and hacquebuttis"[3] It was clearly a passionate and dangerous pastime.
In an attempt to control such violent outbursts, and for religious reasons, football came under Puritan attack in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The original word translated as "goal" is "metum", literally meaning the "pillar at each end of the circus course" in a Roman chariot race.
Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth wrote to his wife in March 1648 that their son "hurt himself so evill at football in Polwart upon Sunday that he was not able to sturre".
However, even in 1706, local trades at Jedburgh were cooperating trying to suppress the game, as shown by the Fleshers' Corporation's fining of some members for "rastling at the football".
[3] Toward the end of the eighteenth century the poet Skinner noted in his poems some of the injuries sustained playing foortball in Monymusk: "Has ne’er in Monymusk been seen Sae mony weel-beft skins; Of a' the ba'-men there was nane But had twa bleedy shins" Sir Walter Scott described football as "his favourite border sport".
From this time until the late 1860s there is a lull in references to football in Scotland, suggested that banning of the game had at last proved successful.
Scottish football clubs started to be formed towards the end of the 1860s and 1870s, some in Glasgow introduced to a rudimentary version of the pursuit by men from Callander in Perthshire,[8] this having its roots in traditional Handsel Monday holiday mass-participation games (which also led to the formation of some rugby clubs as efforts were made to formalise the rules of these chaotic events).
Alcock's received no response to his challenges issued in Scottish newspapers, including the Glasgow Herald, for homegrown contenders to face an English eleven.
Alcock was categorical that although most players were London based, this was due to lack of response from north of the border: "I must join issue with your correspondent in some instances.
First, I assert that of whatever the Scotch eleven may have been composed the right to play was open to every Scotchman [Alcock's italics] whether his lines were cast North or South of the Tweed and that if in the face of the invitations publicly given through the columns of leading journals of Scotland the representative eleven consisted chiefly of Anglo-Scotians ... the fault lies on the heads of the players of the north, not on the management who sought the services of all alike impartially.
This match is, however, not the origin of the blue Scotland shirt, for contemporary reports of the earlier (5 February 1872) rugby international at the Oval clearly stated that "the scotch were easily distinguishable by their uniform of blue jerseys.... the jerseys having the thistle embroidered"[20] The thistle had been worn previously in the 1871 rugby international[21] The match itself illustrated the advantage gained by the Queens Park players "through knowing each others' play[22]" as all came from the same club.
Contemporary match reports clearly show dribbling play by both the English and the Scottish sides, for example: "The Scotch now came away with a great rush, Leckie and others dribbling the ball so smartly that the English lines were closely besieged and the ball was soon behind",[22] "Weir now had a splendid run for Scotland into the heart of his opponents' territory.
[22]" and "Kerr.. closed the match by the most brilliant run of the day, dribbling the ball past the whole field"[23] Scotland nearly won but a Robert Leckie shot landed on the tape crossbar and the game finished 0-0.
For his part, Alcock continued to pursue players from "north of the Tweed", inviting them in papers such as the Scotsman to contact(for example) A F Kinnaird".
Scottish clubs stopped participating in the competition in 1887 due to their hostility towards professionalism, which also meant the many talented players that moved to England were ignored for national team selection purposes.
[33] William McGregor, who grew up in Perthshire and lived most of his life in Birmingham, is credited with the establishment in 1888 of The Football League in England.
Rangers had endured a barren run during the early 1980s, but reasserted themselves after Graeme Souness was appointed manager in 1986 and was allowed to buy many senior England internationals.
Players such as Chris Woods and Terry Butcher were attracted not just by the finances on offer, but also by the fact that Rangers still had access to European competition during a period when English clubs had been banned after the Heysel Stadium disaster.
The Old Firm rivalry was interrupted in 2012, when the company running Rangers went into liquidation and the club was forced to restart in the fourth tier of Scottish football.
The rivalry resumed again when Rangers were promoted into the Scottish Premiership in for the 2016–17 season, with the previous large points gap between the pair and other clubs, which had been maintained by Celtic alone (Aberdeen usually heading the rest in that period) gradually returning to a duopoly over the next few years.
Celtic matched the existing nine in a row record of titles in 2020, but Rangers broke the sequence in 2020–21 with an unbeaten season, while St Johnstone won a rare cup double (the first outwith the Glasgow clubs since 1990).