That the internet has turned football history on its head there can be no doubt. And here is meant the game in all its variants and not just the Association variety. Moreover, the changes it has brought have encouraged a new wave of researchers, interesting times, not least in terms sometimes of attempts to overwhelm fact with hype, both north and south of the border, and new or newish revelations in the true, the un-covering sense of the word. 

And here perhaps the best start is in Scotland and with one of the most recent, for which we have to thank Ged O'Brien (see immediately above). It is not only the contention that in 1627 there was a football pitch at Anwoth by Castle Douglas in Kirkcudbrightshire. As God is witness just such had been suggested from not long after from the letters the then local minister, Samuel Rutherford. But now the disruption by that same clergyman by the placing of a line of stones across it is confirmed archaeologically. So south-west Scotland can fully legitimately claim to have the earliest, known football ground, and by implication the first, obviously organised football, on the planet. 

Then there has been the work of Andy Mitchell in so many fields but here assiduously assembling the evidence of the formation of The Foot-Ball Club in Edinburgh in 1824 (see below), its existence until 1841 and its repercussions in that city. It leaves the question dangling as to whether that makes said club the oldest, known football club in the World. Quite possibly it does, but not of course of the Association type, but it does also more or less put to bed the always rather fanciful notion that football generally was a game invented by English Public School (EPSB) boys. It clearly wasn't so in 1824 and it actually wasn't even so as "Soccer" came into being in 1863. The ESPB actually climbed on the band-waggon a little later. Old Etonians only formed in 1865 and perhaps even then and through mostly the efforts of a Scot, Artur Kinnaird, somewhat reluctantly. 

And the third to enter the fray recently has been Richard McBrearty of the Scottish Football Museum. He points out two events in 1868. The first is the long-known match between the club that took the name of its first park-venue, and Thistle, In fact it was probably arranged between by Robert Gardner of the former and John Connell of the latter, two of the most important figures in Glasgow and therefore Scottish football of the time. Moreover and importantly, it took place to Queen's Park's version of the London Football Association rules, except that it was twenty-a-side. The second is the match arranged by the Marquis of Queensberry between his Kinmount estate team, Kinmount being by Annan, and an Annan team itself. It was said to be fully compliant with LFA rules; except that it was fifteen-a-side.     

Moreover, there appears to be yet another string to this creation-bow. It comes from an article written in 2002 by John Boyd, of whom we know nothing in addition but would like to know much more. He tells, again from Scotland's South-West, of several games involving a Stranraer team, presumably drawn from the three, perhaps four clubs, operating in the town from at least 1865 onwards. For that was year it travelled to Newton Stewart to play Cree Rovers, a club that is not supposed to exist for another thirteen years. No rules are known, but some must have been agreed in advance, moreover it was organised, because someone bought the train tickets, and more importantly, we even have the Stranraer team and it was 11-a-side. 

However, we are still left with one, multiple question and an observation. The former, with regard to Stranraer, is how, why, when and by whom was Cree Rovers, version 1865, formed? The latter is the severe doubt from both Edinburgh and now the towns from Gretna to Galloway cast on what was seen as the bible of the foundation of Scottish football, the 1917-written Robinson history of Queen's Park F.C. and thus the club's role as the source, not of the Glasgow game, but of Scotland's as a whole and its modern iterations like Glasgow's Football's Square Mile. Perhaps the time has come for up-dating, to "G to G - Soccer's Source" or some-such.  

And if you think that all of the above is perhaps problematic North of the Border, let's now look south. There they seem to have got themselves into a bit of a fankle about about what is football and dates, its also north/south, so a bit Rugby-League-ish, and not for the first time more about kudos than fact. 

Sheffield is in the process of applying for World Heritage Status as the "Home of Football", as if it needed one. It is on the basis that Sheffield F.C., formed in 1858, is the globe's first club, although until 1860, like Edinburgh Foot-Ball throughout its existence and Queen's Park from 1867 to 1868, it was playing against itself. Then it only played 11-a-side from vaguely about 1862-3, about the same time as the also mainly 11-a-side Football Association was formed in London, with by January the Sheffield club joining as one of the only six left standing of that latter, wee group and the Sheffield Football Association itself only founded in 1868. It's all very chicken-egg. Did developments in Yorkshire have, excuse the pun, enough legs to cause London to respond? If yes, why did Sheffield join London and not the other way round? Or did events and experiences in London give the impetus for Sheffield eventually in 1868 to form it own FA? In truth no-one knows and, whilst there might be much bluster, facts are that by 1877 London had swallowed Sheffield, to a good degree because, where intra-national rivalry had failed, London versus Sheffield or vice versa being dull, inter-national rivalry was not, especially for somehow, repeatedly winning Scotland. There, whilst round-ball football of whatever ilk had frankly struggled to the point of near collapse in England's South and done far better in Yorkshire in terms at least of club-numbers, the game North of the Border post-1873 frankly exploded in popularity and has not looked over its shoulder to this day.