On this web-site we do not talk much about England. There are plenty of others, who will do it for us. But this piece is one of couple of exceptions.

It has long been argued that Scotland as a whole had with regard to its earliest footballing years been gas-lighted by Glasgow, specifically its piggy-backing on Robinson's 1920 history of the Queen's Park club. The argument is not without justification. In fact it is quite correct. The Hampden club, having certainly given birth to the game in our country, was top of the playing pile for only the first five years and then one element only of the elite for just another twenty more with Robinson's account at best in part delusional.          

But Scotland is not alone. England is too in its insistence that The Game there, indeed The Game period, was, with the exception, of course, of Rugby, the product of that country's major public schools (MPS), the Etons, Westminsters, Winchesters, Charterhouses and even Harrow. But it is provable less than true and here is why.    

In the meetings of 1863 a minority of 13 clubs of 48 initially dissented from those who wanted mainly to handle the ball. One, and the only obvious MPS was Charterhouse but it very soon found reason to transfer its loyalties to the majority. And of those eight which eventually remained only two Wanderers and Crusaders showed some affiliation through Old-Boys to others of its ilk, the former to Harrow, the latter to Eton and Westminster. The others were one more minor school and ad-hoc groupings with Barnes F.C. leading what was in reality hardly even a pack. 

And here is where it becomes interesting. Barnes had emerged from rowing and cricket and it would provide first one and then all three of the new association's first officers. The FA's initial President was Arthur Pember of No-Names, its Secretary Ebenezer Morley and, after the rapid resignation of Francis Campbell, its Treasurer James Turner of Crystal Palace. Pember was on election twenty-eight, a stockbroker born in London, who had been educated at home. He had attended neither an MPS or university. Turner had been born and lived most of his life in and around Croydon. He went to school at Streatham Academy before going into the wine-trade. He also did not attend an MPS. And Morley of Barnes was much the same except that he was a Northerner, born and brought up in Hull, the son of a non-conformist minister, again no trace of MPS and a solicitor to trade. 

Moreover, when Pember resigned in 1866, Morley would take over as President, whilst as Secretary he was briefly replaced by Robert Willis, of Barnes, and then Willis from 1867 by new brother-in-law,  Robert Graham, also of Barnes, who also took on from Turner the Treasury function. Willis was London-born but the son of an eminent Scots surgeon, also worked in the wine-trade as a sherry importer and did not attend an MPC. Graham was born in Cambridgeshire, was a stockbroker and had attended Cheltenham College, a PS but not an MPS.

In fact in terms of the office bearers of the FA the first involvement of a product of an MPS would not be until 1870, seven years after foundation, when Charles Alcock took on both Graham's roles. Alcock had attended Harrow but even there was a caveat, in fact two. Firstly he was another Northener, born in Sunderland. Secondly he had attended Harrow, the school which had rules to its football, a kicking not a handling variant, that were the most similar to the Association game. 

And it would be the combination of Morley, Graham and then Alcock who would see "soccer" change from a sport on the point of disappearance in 1867, when only six were said to have attended its Annual General Meeting and dissolution was openly discussed, to one on a firm footing. By 1872 the first unofficial and then official internationals had been played, the London-based football association had about seventy-members, the FA Cup was up and running involving not just the South of England but Sheffield and Scotland and in Scotland itself the game was exploding. By 1874 when Morley stepped down the number of known clubs North of the Border had doubled in a year to 150 and its Cup competition too was up-and-running.                                

Thus there an be no denying that when, albeit with Alcock remaining in place, Francis Marindin, soldier but ex-Eton, took over the Presidency in 1874 Association football, indeed the FA itself with its now hundred or so members, was not only after it first decade in a good place but one created by non-MPSs. In fact it was there for MPSs to make a mess of, which they did, both organisationally and in terms of PR based on class, at least in part reinforced as they were in 1877 by Alcock retaining the Secretariat but he being replaced by Arthur Kinnaird, ex-Eton as Treasurer. The result would be by the next decade a failure to understand the needs of the rapidly growing numbers of teams outwith London and South, and working-class teams to boot, Assistant Secretary, Lane Jackson's Corinthian antics not helping. Already by 1882 more than half the teams playing in the FA Cup came from north of the Watford Gap. By 1885 the paying by some of money to players to play had to be embraced otherwise there might well have been a break-away. And in any case by 1888 the Football League of only Midland and Northern, professional clubs had come into being not only as a separate entity but also a power-base. Quite simply by 1890 with the resignation of Marandin and Alcock and the former's replacement by Kinnaird the "MPS FA" had lost many of the footballing levers of power, a loss that fifteen years later with the formation of the Amateur Football Defence Council, now the Amateur Football Association, the advent of FIFA and again failures to adapt then and since would result in a decline, outwith a place at the IFAB table, becoming virtually total.