1872–73 in English football

The Scotland v England match in November 1872 is now officially recognised by FIFA as the first-ever international football match. The Football Association (FA) had initiated five matches between English and Scottish players since 1870, but those are now rated as representative games only because the Scotland teams consisted entirely of Anglo-Scots.[1]

Illustrations of the first international at Hamilton Crescent, by William Ralston.

The first international match that is now officially recognised took place after Queen's Park, the leading Scottish club at the time, invited the FA to select an England team to face a Scotland team (which, as they selected it, consisted entirely of Queen's Park players). The match took place at the Hamilton Crescent cricket ground in Partick, Glasgow on 30 November 1872 and ended in a 0–0 draw in front of around 4,000 spectators. England's team was captained by Cuthbert Ottaway of Oxford University and consisted of players from eight different clubs and one Army regiment.[2]

The FA hosted a return match at Kennington Oval on 8 March 1873, now officially rated the first international match in England. England adopted Scotland's 2–2–6 formation but retained only two of the players who had appeared in the November match. These were Harwood Greenhalgh of Notts County in defence and Charles Chenery of the original Crystal Palace club in attack. This team had a strong Wanderers influence with Leonard Howell, Walpole Vidal, Alexander Bonsor, William Kenyon-Slaney and Hubert Heron all selected (there were no Wanderers players in the Glasgow match). Of those, however, only Heron would play more than two matches for England. The other players selected were Alexander Morten in goal, William Clegg (whose brother Charlie had played in the previous match) and two Royal Engineers, Pelham von Donop and Alfred Goodwyn.[3]

The Scotland team lacked funding and could only raise enough money to cover rail fares for eight players to travel. Their team was augmented by three of the Anglo-Scots who had appeared in the representative matches: A. F. Kinnaird, John Blackburn and Henry Renny-Tailyour. The match ended in a 4–2 victory for England with Kenyon-Slaney scoring the first-ever international goal. The Scottish Football Association was belatedly formed on 13 March, five days after the second match, and assumed responsibility for running the Scotland team.[3]