Queen’s Park Football Club was certainly the most
influential Scottish club in the early development of the game of Association football
and arguably the most influential club in Great Britain and therefore the
world. The team from the southern
suburbs of Glasgow was at the centre of the development of the passing style of
football we are all so familiar with today.
This account of the early years of Queen’s Park’s
existence focuses primarily on the matches played by the club between 1868 and 1900. It is not an attempt to replicate the content
of Richard Robinson’s outstanding work History of Queen’s Park Football Club
1867-1917, which provides a wealth of information about the formative years of
the club.
My principal sources in pulling together this early history of
an outstanding football club have been the newspapers of the day. The Mitchell Library in Glasgow and the British Newspaper Archive have proved
invaluable in providing access to old newspapers. I have also taken some of the details about
the very early days of Queen’s Park from the Robinson book because he had
access to information that is no longer available elsewhere.
Inevitably, there will be errors and omissions in some of my
descriptions of matches played by Queen’s Park.
There were no numbers on jerseys or team sheets in those days and it
was not uncommon for details of goal scorers etc to vary from newspaper to
newspaper. If there are any obvious
mistakes, please accept my apologies.
As well as first team matches, I have recorded the results
of Queen’s Park’s second, third and fourth teams, where available. Reserve team football had a higher profile in
Victorian times. Also, the Second XI (eventually known as The Strollers), the Hampden XI (third eleven) and the Victoria XI (fourth eleven) often faced other clubs’ first teams,
including the likes of Aston Villa and Stoke (now Stoke City). I have also listed the results of "official" representative matches in which Queen's Park players were involved.
I have covered the period from 1867 to 1900 and this is where I stop. I will, however, continue to update the blog when new information becomes available.
Unlike the Victorian era, the vast majority of Queen's Park's games in the 20th and early 21st centuries were competitive fixtures. All of the results and team line-ups can be found in the publication "The Men With The Educated Feet", edited by Forrest H C Robertson.
Frank McCrossan
July 2023
July 2023