Queen's Park Football Club

There are lots of reasons to love Queen’s Park. Partly it’s their quirkiness – they are the only amateur club playing at senior level in Britain. Partly it’s the surrealism – watching a home game in a stadium with 52,500 seats, 52,000 of which are empty, is a pretty strange experience. But it’s also because of their past – for this club is, quite simply, one of the most important clubs in the history of football.

They are the oldest club in Scotland (and didn’t concede a goal for the first 8 years of their existence). By playing exhibitions in various locations, they spread the game throughout Scotland. For example, a match they played in Edinburgh led directly to Hearts being formed. And the excitement caused by an exhibition match they played in Belfast led to the formation of Cliftonville, Ireland’s first club, and shortly afterwards the formation of the Irish Football Association.

The organisation of football in Scotland was down to Queen’s Park. They wrote to other clubs suggesting a cup competition, and inviting donations for the purchase of a trophy. And it was at their instigation that a meeting was called to form the Scottish Football Association.

In the earliest days of organised football, there were several different sets of rules, and Queen’s Park developed the rules that were used in Scotland. They were responsible for the inclusion of crossbars, free kicks, half-time breaks and two-handed throw-ins in a unified set of rules.

In fact, these different sets of rules cost Queen’s Park the honour of winning the English FA Cup. In 1884 they lost the final 2-1 to Blackburn Rovers, but had two goals disallowed for offside. If the offside rule had been interpreted as it was in Scotland, both goals would have stood. (In addition, the referee later admitted he hadn’t allowed another, perfectly good, goal for Queen’s Park, because nobody had appealed for it).

Queen’s Park built Hampden Park in 1903. For almost half a century it was the biggest sports stadium in the world, and still holds all the major attendance records in Europe. It also continued Queens’ Park’s tradition for innovation, as it was the first stadium to use turnstiles, crush barriers, a tannoy system, and to have a car park attached to it. It also hosted the world’s first ever all-ticket match.

But beyond even all this, there are two main reasons why Queen’s Park are so important to the history of football.

Firstly, they organised the first ever international match, between Scotland and England in Glasgow in 1872. The Scotland team contained 11 Queen’s Park players, and played in their colours of dark blue shirts and white shorts. Scotland adopted these colours, and Queen’s Park changed to their famous, and frankly superb, colours of narrow black and white hoops.

Queen’s Park also provided the world’s first ever black international footballer – Andrew Watson, who played 3 times for Scotland in 1881 and 1882.

Secondly, and possibly even more importantly, they invented passing. No, seriously, they did! In the early days of kick and rush, Queen’s Park were the first team to develop a game based on passing. It was the greatest innovation in the history of the game.

So think on this – when your opponents’ shot comes back off the crossbar, when your team manages to hold out until half time, when you win a game with a well worked free kick; when you cheer on your country in the World Cup, or enjoy watching Arsenal or Manchester United running rings round the opposition, just remember who you owe it all to – those wise old men of Queen’s Park.