Scotland national football team results (1872–1914)

The Scotland national football team represents Scotland in international association football and is controlled by the Scottish Football Association. It is the joint-oldest national football team in the world, alongside England, Scotland's opponents in what is now recognised as the world's first international football match, which took place at Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow in November 1872.[1] Prior to this, a series of matches had been played between teams representing the two countries, but the Scottish team was drawn almost entirely from players based in and around London and these games are now not regarded as full international matches.[2] The lack of involvement by players from Scottish clubs in these matches led to some controversy, which was resolved when The Football Association arranged to send a team to play in Glasgow, where the English players took on a Scotland team composed entirely of players from the Queen's Park club.[1]

Scotland national football team results
1872–1914 (matches 1–113) 1920–39 (matches 114–188) 1940–59 (matches 189–274) 1960–79 (matches 275–432) 1980–99 (matches 433–611) 2000–19 (matches 612–783) 2020–present (matches 784–839) Unofficial matches

Between 1872 and 1914, when competitive football was interrupted by the First World War, Scotland played 113 international matches, resulting in 70 victories, 23 draws and 20 defeats. This total does not include a match in 1902 which was declared void after a disaster at Ibrox Park in which 25 spectators died. Scotland played an annual friendly against England each year until 1883, and added a regular game against Wales in 1876. These two teams remained Scotland's only opponents until the British Home Championship was instituted in 1884, consisting of a round-robin tournament between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.[3] Of the 31 tournaments staged prior to the war, Scotland won 10 outright and 6 jointly.[3] Scotland's 11–0 defeat of Ireland in 1901 is the national team's biggest win,[4] and the 6–1 victory over England at Kennington Oval in 1881 remains the team's biggest win away to fierce rivals England.[5] Scotland's games with England during this period drew extremely large crowds, with five matches prior to the First World War attracting crowds of over 100,000 spectators. The compilers of the World Football Elo Ratings retrospectively consider Scotland to have been ranked at number 1 during much of the early period of international football.[6]