The Only Game: The Scots and World Football by Forsyth, Roddy - 1990

Edinburgh, Scotland: Mainstream Publishing, 1990. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8" x 10.75. H/B 223 pages, plus. Condition is very good. THE ONLY GAME is the story of tin-Scots and Association football the single most popular sport in the world today. Here is the account ot how the-Scots took the winter pastime ot English public schoolboys and transformed it into a game which immediately attracted mass popularity. It was a Scot, William McGregor, who founded the football League, the model tor countless similar competitions throughout the world and it was ,1 Commissioner ot the Church of Scotland, Lord Arthur Kmiiaird, who was presented with the only FA Cup to be given to a private individual, in recognition ot his role as one ot the founding fathers ot the Association game. Another Scot, James Lang, became the world's first professional footballer, pioneer ot an exodus ot his countrymen whose skills were so refined that they were known as the Scotch Professors, The world's first football international fixtures were played in Scotland under the rugby code in Edinburgh in 1871, and with Association rules in 1972. For a further century Glasgow had the biggest football grounds in the world and set crowd records for club and international football, some of which have never been surpassed. Since 1954 the Scots have reached the World Cup finals on seven occasions, five of them consecutive, and Scottish teams have contested seven European club finals, a phenomenal record for a country whose population is hardly more than halt that ot London. Yet Scotland does not exist as an independent nation and its continuing presence as a separate football entity is entirely due to the fact that it was one of the founder nations of the sport. The Only Game examines the impact of its most influential practitioners players such as Hughie Gallacher, Alex James, Jim Baxter, Denis Law, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish. Here, too, are the great managers, Busby, Shankly and Stein, and the clubs which have engraved their names on the history of the sport.