The Beautiful Game, Made In Scotland Options

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FOOTBALL: MADE IN SCOTLAND FOR THE WHOLE WORLD

England claims it gave the world The Beautiful Game. However, England is wrong. Their brand of football was kick and rush as opposed to pass and move - and it was a foreign legion of Scots who taught the world to play

According to research by football historians, there would be no modern game without the contribution of a bold generation of Scots.

Scottish colonialists, sailors, merchants and teachers were responsible for introducing The Beautiful Game to every corner of the Earth.

And although the Scottish game has lost its way, the football that is now played in Brazil, Argentina and Germany has its roots in a classic pass-and-move football style that was `Made In Scotland'.

Richard McBrearty, a historian at the Scottish Football Museum in Hampden, has been researching Scotland's world roots for the museum's Scots Away exhibit.

And he dismisses claims by our neighbours south of the border that it was they who gave the game to the world.

Richard says: "It's claimed that football was invented in England, but we now know that is not the case and the modern game definitely came from north of the border.

"There is historical evidence of the game being played up here as far back as 1424, but it probably goes back even further.

"The birth of the modern game was the Scotland-England match in Glasgow in 1872 - up until then, the English had played a hybrid game of rugby and football as we know it.

"There was no goalkeeper, no set number of players for each side, there was limited use of hands and no forward passing.

"It was only the Scottish game which developed these rules which have become part of the modern game, and it was the Scottish pass and run game which spread throughout the world.

"The English style was very individual, with lots of dribbling with the ball, but teams like Queen's Park used the pass much more widely. And it was that style which was widely copied because it was more attractive and successful."

The English game only changed in the late 1800s, when major teams down south started to pack their squads with Scots.

These original Anglo-Scots players were quickly lauded and nicknamed `The Scotch Professors', the first Liverpool side of 1892 were nicknamed The Macs, with 11 Scots in the line-up, while the Preston North End `Invincibles' side of 1889 included eight Scots.

And Jock Hamilton, one of the biggest Scots stars of the English game at the time, went on to help create the greatest footballing legacy in the world - in Brazil.

Strange as it may seem, there may never have been a Pele, a Zico or a Ronaldo if it hadn't been for three Scots.

Football was started there in 1894 by Charles Miller, who was born in Brazil to a Scottish father, and who helped found the Paulista League in 1901.

However, Miller preferred the English-style kick, rush and dribble football - it was the arrival of two Scots-born men that created Brazilian football as we know it.

When Paisley textile firm J & P Coats opened a thread mill in Sao Paulo in 1907, workers formed The Scottish Wanderers, who were one of most successful and popular teams in the league's early days.

Their star player was winger Archie McLean, who went on to play for the Sao Paulo state team, and was nicknamed `O Veadinho', meaning `the little deer'.

HIS fast and tricky ball control became the template for the Brazilian style, but it was Jock Hamilton who really impressed the Samba stars, as the first professional football coach in the country, in 1907.

Hamilton, from Ayr, was part of the Scottish exiles who ran Fulham in the early 1900s as coach and star player, and was poached by Brazilian side Paulistano to help promote and shape the game in the Amazon. He is still remembered as founding what is incorrectly known as the Systema Ingleza (English System) they still use, because the locals didn't know the difference between Scotland and England.

It was also a Scot who is credited with the birth of football in Brazil's greatest rivals - Argentina.

Glasgow-born Alexander Watson Hutton was a teacher at the St Andrew's School in Buenos Aires in the 1890s and started an Association Football side in 1882, earning the honorary title of `Father of Argentinian Football'.

The Scottish influence even extended to Argentina's 1986 World Cup-winning side. It included Jose Brown, a direct descendant of 1825 Scots emigrant James Brown and his all-conquering Brown dynasty, who made up much of the Argentina team in the early 1900s.

While Scotland have never been past the first round of the World Cup, the first team to ever win the trophy, Uruguay, owe some of the credit to the teachings of a Scottish railroad engineer.

Glasgow-born John Harley worked in the capital city of Montevideo and played for local side Penarol before becoming a coach.

He adopted the classic Scottish pass-and-move style, and his precise tactics won him the nickname "the Technician", as well as revolutionising the national game and ultimately leading to their 1930 World Cup triumph.

Canada's first club, Carlton FC of Toronto, was founded by a group of Scots in 1876 and was even affiliated to the SFA, while Scots were even more instrumental in the early football successes of the USA.

Dozens of Scottish league players - among the best in the world at the time - were invited to help form the US league in the 1920s, with the result that the SFA tried to ban the recruiting process, described as `The American Menace'.

Saturday's Record told the story of the Scots captain and coaches involved in the historic 1950 World Cup win over England, but 20 years earlier, five Scottish players starred for the USA in the tournament, alongside Scots coach Bob Millar.

Andy Auld, Jimmy Gallagher, Bart McGhee, Jim Brown and Sandy Wood were part of the USA team which made it to the 1930 semi-finals after either emigrating with their families or having been poached by the American league from Scots teams.

Scottish influence even spread as far as China - Glaswegian John Prentice's team, Shanghai Marine Engineers Institute FC, were affiliated to the SFA in 1888.

Back in Europe, ex-Celtic player Johnny Madden coached in Czechoslovakia in 1905, George Smith MacGregor helped inspire an early version of the German Bundesliga, and English coach Jimmy Hogan took Jock Hamilton's pass- and-move tactics to Austria and Hungary.

Historian Richard adds: "The tragedy is that after spreading passing football to every corner of the world, we lost our way.

"We taught the world to play the game, and then forgot how to do it ourselves."

Brian Mciver...for the Daily Record(4/8/2003)