The Scottish Football Association - last updated on 10 December 2007
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Association name: The Scottish Football Association
Foundation: 1893
Confederation UEFA
Colours: Navy blue and white
Website: www.scottishfa.co.uk
Honours:
The Scottish Football Association has currently no honours.
A bit of history:
Following the formation of Scotland’s earliest football clubs in the 1860s, football experienced a rapid growth but there was no formal structure, and matches were often arranged in a haphazard and irregular fashion.
Queen's Park, a Glasgow club founded in 1867, took the lead, and following an advertisement in a Glasgow newspaper in 1873, representatives from seven clubs - Queen's Park, Clydesdale, Vale of Leven, Dumbreck, Third Lanark, Eastern and Granville - attended a meeting on 13 March, 1873. Furthermore, Kilmarnock sent a letter stating their willingness to join.
That day, these eight clubs formed the Scottish Football Association, and resolved that, "The clubs here represented form themselves into an association for the promotion of football according to the rules of The Football Association and that the clubs connected with this association subscribe for a challenge cup to be played for annually, the committee to propose the laws of the competition".
Though they have a long and proud football tradition, Scotland are known throughout the world as something of a FIFA World Cup™ almost team. Despite having reached the finals on eight previous occasions, they have recorded just four wins in 23 matches and never advanced past the first round.
Of course, not advancing out of the first round is more acceptable than not reaching the finals at all, and after missing out on Korea/Japan 2002 and Germany 2006, the Scots and their Tartan Army are desperate to qualify for the finals in South Africa. After all, the colourful supporters and their hard-working team were previously fixtures on the world scene - reaching the finals of every FIFA World Cup from 1974 to 1990.
There were fears that such glory days were consigned to the past forever when in 2005, during the disastrous reign of Berti Vogts, Scotland failed to qualify for their fourth successive major championship, slumping to an all-time low of 88th in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The Scots' diminishing status in world football was emphasised when, with Walter Smith having succeeded Vogts, they were seeded low enough to be drawn in a truly horrific UEFA EURO 2008 qualifying section alongside both FIFA World Cup finalists, Italy and France, as well as Ukraine, who had reached the last eight.
No-one gave Smith's side a prayer of matching these football heavyweights, but a 1-0 home win over France lit the touchpaper for a remarkable campaign that saw them gazing down at the rest for much of the group's duration. Smith's departure for Rangers was expected to have a negative impact but Alex McLeish took up the gauntlet and, to the amazement of the football world, achieved another 1-0 win over France, this time in the Parc des Princes. That win set up a make-or-break final day showdown with the world champions for a place at Austria and Switzerland, but regardless of the outcome, with players such as the dynamic Celtic midfielder Scott Brown and Everton's mercurial forward James McFadden coming of age on the international scene, Scotland have restored their reputation as a force to be reckoned with.
Club crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
The Scottish Football Association
