Plinths & Plaques, Statues and Graves
As with not just this but all our trails, local, national and country, we hold the view that merely recording or even putting on-line is a start but not enough. To do justice to the pioneers, as have a few clubs, even countries, to which they went, as in Scotland in the case of Tommy Donohoe and following the lead of Brazils's Bangu, Busby has too and as has SHFG again in Scotland, but also in England and Northern Ireland, there should be, both at home and elsewhere, place for more statues, golden or otherwise, restored, maintained graves, busts on plinths and if not them then plaques.
So, whilst we research and provide biographical and other details of as many of those Scots, native and Diasporan, who through deed and feet spread globally and uniquely the footballing word, we also look at where, in places from which they came or they rest, and as visual expression of our contemporary, national pride in them and those same localities, some form of physical, outdoor recognition would be both appropriate and feasible.
The Scots Spanish-Trail
The Scots Spanish-Trail - There is no doubt that without Scots Spanish football could not be what it is today both in terms of implantation and spread but also in style. The game first came to the Iberian peninsula as a whole in the early 1880s and to Andalusia, to the small and largely Scots mountain, mining town of Minas de Riotinto, then over the next decade to Huelva and Seville and thus Jerez, Cadiz and Malaga.
Further north the first arrived in Catalonia in Borgonya with the building in 1894 of a cotton-thread mill there and its start-up by Scots and their families from Paisley. In turn they took their game to Barcelona and its suburbs where they met more Scots, at first lace-makers from Newmilns in Ayrshire and then others over the next fifteen years; as players and officials.
And in between, whilst mainly Makers from Sunderland took the game the Basque country, British engineers to Galicia and in Madrid it had British and Spanish middle-class origins, via Aguilas Kelso-born, Edinburgh-raised John Gray brought it to Murcia and the more southerly Mediterranean coast.
The oldest known football club in Spain was RioTinto's, the oldest club still playing is Huelva's Recreativo and the oldest., Spanish ground still in use is that in Aguilas.
