Home of football statistics and historyFrom the formation of the club in July 1867, Queen’s Park had been invincible, and its goal inviolate. London had its champions, Wanderers, Royal Engineers, Old Etonians, Oxford University, but none had ever enjoyed the supremacy of Queen’s Park, a club claimed to be not only the best in Scotland, but unrivalled anywhere. And now, for the first time in its history, Queen’s Park FC conceded a goal. The team which had the honour of scoring that goal was Vale of Leven, on 16th January, at Hampden Park. Unhappily the visitors blotted their copybook, for when, later in the game, Queen’s Park had a claim for a goal upheld by the referee, Vale of Leven declined to continue and left the field.
Queen’s Park was not only the senior association club in Scotland, and the strongest, but, justifiably, the proudest. So when the Scottish FA offered the captaincy of an eleven to meet the Sheffield FA to a player of another club, Queen’s Park took umbrage and refused to take any interest in the fixture.
But the period of absolute power was coming to an end, for there were other clubs now challenging that supremacy. Vale of Leven had scored against them in January, Notts County in March, and a week or two after that Clydesdale FC actually put two goals past the mighty Queen’s Park’s goalkeeper. And everybody said what a good thing it was for the game. (Everybody, that is, except Queen’s Park, for as we have seen, it was a proud club).
The superiority of the Scottish “combination” game over the English style of individual dribbling and “backing-up” was amply demonstrated when Queen’s Park beat Notts County by 6 goals to none at Hampden Park. Englishmen had the ball they were dangerous, thought the Scottish pair of backs were well able to deal with the menace. However, Notts had no answer to the speed and precision of the short-passing game whenever Queen’s Park had possession in that match; they were running round in circles, never knowing where the ball would pop up next. In the return game at Nottingham, the Englishmen laid plans to deal with this “combination” game, and they dealt with it by the expedient of quickly falling back to their own goal-line and presenting a massed defence; the tactic was generally successful. At any rate, it limited the Scots to a single goal. At the same time, the old English style was vindicated in that it gained for Notts the honour of being the first side to score a goal against Queen’s Park in a completed match.
Queen’s Park, in common with most of the Scottish association clubs, deployed their men in the form of 2 full-backs, 2 half-backs, and six forwards, the forwards themselves frequently operating in pairs, — two on the right wing, two on the left wing, and two in the centre. Not – withstanding the demonstrations of the excellence of this formation, the English clubs preferred other means of placing ten men and a goal-keeper. The Scottish style was suitable for the short-passing game, but it found little favour south of the Tweed, and even less south of the Trent. The Englishmen were wedded to the principle of individual play, the man on the ball endeavouring to steer it by close dribbling through the ranks of his adversaries, while his colleagues were supposed to stick right behind him to back him up, as it was described, and to carry on the forward dribbling rush should he be tackled; those few players not so engaged were expected, should the ball come their way, to return it over the half way line with as little delay as possible. For this method of playing it was desirable to have as many men forward as could be spared; Barnes, Swifts, Clapham Rovers, Maidenhead, &c, &c, could spare eight, Oxford University, Pilgrims, Royal Engineers, among others found they could make do with seven.
To play the London style with only six forwards was cutting it a bit fine, but the Wanderers tried it this season with three half-backs and one full-back, a deployment which comes perilously close to the Scottish line-up. In one game Old Etonians had one full-back, four half-backs, and only five forwards. Under the circumstances attendant on the methods of progression in football, the way the game was ordered in 1874/75, it is difficult to follow the reasoning behind this bizarre collection, unless one assumes that the half-backs were really back-up forwards.