A Photographic History Of Scottish Football

[HibeeJibee]

Having crunched the numbers it appears Rangers are the biggest tossers in Scottish football history.

They won by coin flip on 7 occasions, lifting 3 trophies in the process:

12 Aug 1909     Edinburgh Exhibition Cup Final     Dundee 1-1 Rangers                   Rangers won on coin toss
10 May 1930    Glasgow Charity Cup Final               Celtic 2-2 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
04 Jul 1942        Summer Cup Final                                 Hibs 2-2 Rangers                           Rangers won on coin toss
05 May 1951    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Third Lanark 1-1 Rangers        Rangers won on coin toss
08 May 1958    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Celtic 1-1 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
09 May 1960    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Celtic 1-1 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
22 Mar 1967     Cup-Winners' Cup QF                         Real Zaragoza 2-2 Rangers     Rangers won on coin toss

Interestingly they only lost by coin flip on 4 occasions.

[bluearmyfaction]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

Common tiebreak inter-war and later, to avoid replays, especially in late season tournaments... this was before shootouts of course... during WWII a pair of League Cup Finals got decided thus.
 

There were loads of 4-a-side tournaments in the Victorian era between seasons and these were often decided by "points", I wonder if these were corners, or simply shots on goal.

 

One FA Cup tie was decided by toss of a coin - Sheffield FC v Shropshire Wanderers, back in 1873.  Probably to save the costs of a second replay.

[Wilbur]

27 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

Having crunched the numbers it appears Rangers are the biggest tossers in Scottish football history.

They won by coin flip on 7 occasions, lifting 3 trophies in the process:

12 Aug 1909     Edinburgh Exhibition Cup Final     Dundee 1-1 Rangers                   Rangers won on coin toss
10 May 1930    Glasgow Charity Cup Final               Celtic 2-2 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
04 Jul 1942        Summer Cup Final                                 Hibs 2-2 Rangers                           Rangers won on coin toss
05 May 1951    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Third Lanark 1-1 Rangers        Rangers won on coin toss
08 May 1958    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Celtic 1-1 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
09 May 1960    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Celtic 1-1 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
22 Mar 1967     Cup-Winners' Cup QF                         Real Zaragoza 2-2 Rangers     Rangers won on coin toss

Interestingly they only lost by coin flip on 4 occasions.

5 stars. Amazing research.

 

[HibeeJibee]

27 minutes ago, bluearmyfaction said:

There were loads of 4-a-side tournaments in the Victorian era between seasons and these were often decided by "points", I wonder if these were corners, or simply shots on goal.

One FA Cup tie was decided by toss of a coin - Sheffield FC v Shropshire Wanderers, back in 1873.  Probably to save the costs of a second replay.

Of course under Sheffield Rules from 1862 to 1868 the 'rouge' for narrowly missing was the tiebreak.

'Rouge' flags were placed 4yds either side of the goalposts.


Hallam lifted the Sheffield Youdan Cup of 1866-67 by 'winning' QF, SF and Final all on 'rouges':

(Note also 12 teams but old-style format of 6x R1 ties > 3x QF > 1x SF + 1 bye... nowadays we'd have 4x R1 ties + 4 byes > 4x QF > 2x SF).



Observe that all 6 ties + 1 replay from QFs onward produced 1 goal between them !

Edited December 15, 2023 by HibeeJibee

[Otis Blue]

Gotta hand it to you @HibeeJibee, corners and rouge flags ... this has been some school day for me!

[rollstar]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

Of course under Sheffield Rules from 1862 to 1868 the 'rouge' for narrowly missing was the tiebreak.

'Rouge' flags were placed 4yds either side of the goalposts.

This is effectively Australian Rules football. The closely related Gaelic Football is also very close to how Association Football was played in the late 1860s, with outfield players being allowed to catch the ball and shots over the bar counting instead of the Australian shots by the posts.

[bluearmyfaction]

The Sheffield goal was half the width because of the rouges, but they dropped them by 1868, and went to an 8 yd x 9 ft goal. 

Gaelic football was a conscious creation in the 1880s to form a distinctly Nationalist form of a football game and it was pretty much buried for a while.  Rugby got to Ireland long before Association, which was brought to Dublin by the poshos from the public school, and to Belfast by Scots shipyard and distillery workers.  So the divide with regard to 1921 in Association terms was not just geopolitical but also social.

Shots over the bar never counted in Association - other than the technical point that for a brief period in the 1860s there WAS no bar.  When the mark was dropped in Association is not clear.  It was in the 1863 laws, but in 1865 replaced with a bland prohibition on carrying the ball, later extended to no knocking on, and in 1870 all handling abolished (which made things confusing for goalkeepers). 

It seems that in the late 1860s the only catching was in the Harrow code, but stopping the ball with the hand was generally OK in Association.  What the abolition of that did though was make the passing game more important - until 1870, you couldn't pick the ball up out of someone dribbling, but anyone could punch out a cross, so what was the point in a passing game?   Afterwards, however, the tactic of two working down the wing and "middling" it became a key technique.

[GNU_Linux]

2 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

Having crunched the numbers it appears Rangers are the biggest tossers in Scottish football history.

They won by coin flip on 7 occasions, lifting 3 trophies in the process:

12 Aug 1909     Edinburgh Exhibition Cup Final     Dundee 1-1 Rangers                   Rangers won on coin toss
10 May 1930    Glasgow Charity Cup Final               Celtic 2-2 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
04 Jul 1942        Summer Cup Final                                 Hibs 2-2 Rangers                           Rangers won on coin toss
05 May 1951    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Third Lanark 1-1 Rangers        Rangers won on coin toss
08 May 1958    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Celtic 1-1 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
09 May 1960    Glasgow Charity Cup SF                     Celtic 1-1 Rangers                        Rangers won on coin toss
22 Mar 1967     Cup-Winners' Cup QF                         Real Zaragoza 2-2 Rangers     Rangers won on coin toss

Interestingly they only lost by coin flip on 4 occasions.

I assume in an act of true staunchness Rangers chose heads every time.

[rollstar]

3 minutes ago, bluearmyfaction said:

Shots over the bar never counted in Association

Yes, just didn't want to add too much to an already wordy post.

[rollstar]

13 minutes ago, bluearmyfaction said:

So the divide with regard to 1921 in Association terms was not just geopolitical but also social.

What I've read was that the main place for Association Football in pre-partition Ireland outside the north east was Cork, which would have been just as working class as Belfast. Obviously politics were very different though.

Edited December 15, 2023 by rollstar

[Otis Blue]

6 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

There's some absolutely fascinating stuff on this thread.

Best thread bar none.

[Eednud]

At Tannadice Park on this day in 1933 in the old Second Division, Dundee United 4 Arbroath 4 (7,000 or 7,300 according to Arab Archive) Arbroath led 2-1 at half time then 4-1 in front after 60 minutes. Despite United losing their captain to a broken leg, subs were 33 years away, they scored in the 75th, 81st and 86th minutes to draw even though the referee blew for time 9 minutes early. He obviously realised he’d stuffed up as the game was restarted. Photos from The Courier and courtesy the Arbroath Archive site. Match report here  https://www.arbroatharchive.co.uk/matchdetails.php?id=3882

Edited December 16, 2023 by Eednud

[Piquet]

14 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

Now that is an oddity, a team playing under another's name - presumably only because it's some kind of diddy tournament.

Also never heard of the concept of ties being decided by no. of corners in the event of a draw ... every day a school day as they say.

In Ireland, up to the 60s, corners was used to decide drawn games in the Dublin City Cup, which, for some reason, was open to teams from outside Dublin. 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Piquet

[Boghead ranter]

[The Mantis]

17 hours ago, bluearmyfaction said:

The irony being that Moffat were quite close to the church - two vicars as vice-presidents, a Reformed Church reverend as club president, another vicar as the club's SFA rep, and the Churchill of the Churchill Cup was the vicar of Moffat.

 

Just playing Peter the Pedant with your usually impeccable facts, but surely we don’t have vicars in Scotland? The link below states that Churchill was an English rev who lived in Moffat but makes no mention of him holding a post.

http://sfha.org.uk/churchillcup.htm

[DA Baracus]

15 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

Common tiebreak inter-war and later, to avoid replays, especially in late season tournaments... this was before shootouts of course... during WWII a pair of League Cup Finals got decided thus.









Other notable matches settled on corners
Summer Cup - 2 ties in 1941-42 including Final*
B Division Cup - 2 ties in 1945-46
East of Scotland Shield - 3 ties settled on corners between 1910 and 1930
East of Scotland Cup - 2 ties settled on corners in 1907 and 1912
Fife Cup - 7 ties between 1912 and 1931
Wemyss Cup - 6 ties between 1915 and 1932
Glasgow Cup - 2 ties settled on corners in 1916 and 1918
Stirlingshire Cup Final 1959-60
Penman Cup - 3 ties between 1910 and 1936
Dunedin Cup - 4 ties between 1922 and 1930
Lanarkshire Express Cup - 1 tie in 1914-15
Linlithgowshire (Calder) Shield Final 1921-22
Perthshire Consolation Cup Final 1928-29

Charity Cups
Aberdeenshire - Final in 1914
Aberdeenshire (Fleming) Charity Shield - 3 ties in 1912 and 1920
Ayr - 3 times between 1928 and 1932
Dunbartonshire - Final in 1922
Edinburgh (Rosebery) - 6 ties between 1907 and 1945
Falkirk (Infirmary) - 7 ties between 1915 and 1928
Fifeshire - 2 ties in 1926 and 1927
Glasgow - 27 ties between 1905 and 1947
Inverness (Sports Bed) - 2 ties in 1933 and 1938
Kilmarnock - 2 ties in 1913-14
Paisley - 2 ties in 1912 and 1939
Southern Counties - 3 ties between 1930 and 1935
Stirling - 5 times between 1924 and 1934


*Summer Cup (substitute Scottish Cup) Final 1941-42:


 

@Stellaboz, this must be where Craig Brown got it from!

[Stellaboz]

37 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

@Stellaboz, this must be where Craig Brown got it from!

Must be where he introduced the idea!

[HibeeJibee]

3 hours ago, The Mantis said:

Just playing Peter the Pedant with your usually impeccable facts, but surely we don’t have vicars in Scotland? The link below states that Churchill was an English rev who lived in Moffat but makes no mention of him holding a post.

http://sfha.org.uk/churchillcup.htm

Scottish Episcopal Church - i.e. Anglican - ordinands are officially 'rectors' (before 1890 they were 'incumbents'); but not uncommon for people to call them 'vicar'; especially worshippers from down South (afterall outsiders often call it "the English church").

William Henry Churchill only actually ministered in Moffat St John the Evangelist - as a 'chaplain' - from 1879 to 1880 leaving to become master of Stone House prep school, Broadstairs, Kent. It became a charge in its own right the year he left and a full incumbency from 1889.

[Molotov]

Taken immediately after Fergies first ever senior domestic trophy as a manager at Dens Park.

 

[HibeeJibee]

1 minute ago, Molotov said: