"Short, an' tae Feet"

There is sadly an almost a complete lack of accurate and in-depth coverage of the history of Scottish football and then Scots football from foundation of the game in 1872 to the Second World War. It is an intriguing, official omission, especially as it was precisely the period when football in and from Scotland was at its most potent and when Scots were at the forefront of taking its winning game, its tactics and philosophy first to the rest of Britain and then globally; indeed when the slogan, "No Scots, no Soccer" would not have been inaccurate. So "Short, and to Feet", the phrase used in Brazil as a descriptor of the style brought not by the three Scots, who took the game to that country in 1894, but of Archie Maclean's Scottish Wanderers, which from 1913 supplied the blueprint for A Tablinha, the original, Brazilian style, is hoped by us to be eventually a series of fifty-plus podcasts filling that gap of almost seventy years. Click on the pictures to enjoy. 

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Church Wynd, Bo'ness

 

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Thimble Street, Renton

Bo'ness -

Ramsays and Eaton, Finland and Chile

It was from Bo'ness that first a couple emigrated to Chile, never to return, and where they had five sons, three of whom were pivotal as players, administrators and referees in football's arrival in Santiago. And it was from there too that a generation later a son of the town took not just the game but also curling to Finland and beyond.  

Bo'ness - Ramsays and Easton, Finland and Chile

 

Renton's Thimble St.

Simultaneously in 1888 and from a single, tiny street in the Dunbartonshire village of Renton came three of Scotland's most important internationals, two more major players in England, one perhaps the best ever not to play for his homeland, and two of their footballing sibling. The street is still there, suitably called then and now Thimble and this is its story.  

Thimble Street

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Newmilns

Lybster Harbour

Lethem Square

 

And to come:

Newmilns & Darvel, Sweden and Spain

 

Lybster to Logie - the Andalusian Route

 

Geo Genovese and Doig -the Letham Boys

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