No, football is definitely not ‘coming home’
A historian has said England fans chanting “football’s coming home” as the women’s team prepare for a World Cup quarter final are wrong – as the game was invented in Scotland
The official Fifa history of the game states it began in 1863 in England when the English Football Association was formed.
But Ged O’brien, the founder of the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park, says his research shows the modern version of the game has been played in Scotland for 500 years.
It’s a familiar refrain that grates with many Scots as much as it inspires English fans of the beautiful game.
And with England progressing to the semi-finals of the Women’s World Cup, French stadia have been echoing to “It’s coming home” from the supporters’ anthemic Three Lions song.
But that claim has been challenged by a historian of the sport, who believes football was invented in Scotland and the English should stop claiming the game as their own.
Debate over the origins of football has raged for years, with it widely thought to have been invented south of the Border. The official history of the game on the website of Fifa, world football’s governing body, states it began in 1863 in England when the English Football Association was formed.
However, historian and author Ged O’brien, the founder of the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park, said his research has shown the modern “passing and running” version of the game has been played in Scotland for 500 years.
He said clan members played it in churchyards in the north of Scotland then brought the game to Glasgow in the 1860s when they founded Queen’s Park FC, who played at Hampden.
He said: “Glasgow in particular and Scotland in general invented world football and most people are not aware of that. When I hear Three Lions and England saying, ‘Oh, of course we invented football’, it drives me utterly nuts because it’s a flat lie.
“The genius of Scots over the last 500 years and particularly the clan system is what gave us football. It’s entirely a Scottish game and while I’ve still got breath in my body, that’s what I am going to be trying to push.
“Football is Scotland’s game. They have been playing passing and running for hundreds and hundreds of years, mostly in churchyards after the Reformation where they flattened all the gravestones.
“Glasgow became the fourth largest city in Europe and everybody from Scotland flooded in, including all the guys from Aberdeenshire and Inverness with their passing and running game and they set up Queen’s Park Football Club.”
He added: “I don’t have a dog in this fight because I come from an Irish background. I can always turn round and say, ‘It’s not like I’m personally insulted here’. I’m just giving the facts.”
He also dismissed suggestions that Brazilian football was invented by Charles Miller, who was born in Sao Paulo to a Scottish father and was brought up in Southampton, and insisted a Scots engineer introduced the game in South America. He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Off the Ball programme: “Archie Mclean invented Brazilian football. He took over the passing and running game when he went out as an engineer to helped build a cotton works in Sao Paulo.
“He passed the game to Brazil. You won’t find that anywhere in books because everybody thinks an Anglo-scottish guy from Southampton invented Brazilian football and it’s mince, it’s utter mince.”
Mr O’brien has researched the game in his role as chief historian of the Hampden Collection, a project to celebrate Scotland’s links to football.