A field in the Scottish countryside near the Solway Firth may hold the title of the world’s oldest football pitch, according to a sports historian.
The farmland near Anwoth Kirk, in modern-day Dumfries and Galloway, was reportedly hosting football games as early as the 1600s, nearly two centuries before the first formal rules for the sport were established in England.
Historian Ged O’Brien pointed to a letter written by Reverend Samuel Rutherford in the early 1600s, which mentioned that “people used to play football” on the ground during the Sabbath. Rutherford, upset by the disruption, instructed parishioners to place large stones on the pitch to prevent the games from taking place.
The stones, some of which still remain, were laid as a temporary barrier, and lab tests of the soil from the field confirmed their placement around the time of Rutherford’s letter.
“This is one of the most important sentences I have ever read in football history,” O’Brien told The Times. “It specifically identifies the exact place the football pitch was. I’ve always believed that football has been played in Scotland for hundreds of years. Not mob football, but proper football.”
This discovery challenges previous beliefs that football in the 1600s was a chaotic, unorganized game involving large groups of people chasing a pig’s bladder across town. Rutherford’s letter, however, suggests a more structured version of the game, with players congregating at the Scottish field on Sundays, likely anticipating a return to work the following day.
Although it’s unclear whether the football played on this field resembled the modern game, O’Brien emphasized that it marked a pivotal moment in the sport’s evolution—organized play, teams, and agreed-upon rules were already in place.
“This is the ancestor, the grandparent, of modern world football,” said O’Brien. “And it’s Scottish.”
If these findings are further verified, they could shift the timeline of football’s history and provide insights into Scotland’s dominance of the sport when international football began in the late 19th century.
O’Brien highlighted how, in 1872, Scottish clubs dominated early international football, beating English teams with ease. “It’s absolutely no surprise,” he said. “These people were 200 years ahead of England in terms of football.”
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