The Big Idea

Everything I do since I started work on the Scottish Football Museum in 1990, is dedicated to one thing: telling people how Scotland invented the modern game of football. This will involve the main topics of the Scotch Professor, famous old clubs, the creation of the football stadium, the invention of tactics by the Scots and the development of an international set of rules. The mirror image of this will be looking at how England completely reinvented itself as the founder of football, by the 1900s.

There are heroes and villains within the Big Idea. Charles Alcock and Frederick Wall are the main pantomime baddies, here. There are walk on parts for Major Marindin and Pa Jackson. It will take decades to publicise the story of Scotland inventing football. I am in year 4 of a 20 year plan. I hope to leave the foundations of the Big Idea, so that the young team can take it on and deliver the final, victory blow to the extraordinary set of myths, legends and lies that make up 19th century football history.