It would be the same Queen’s Park side, including Gardner and Wotherspoon, that comprised much of the first official Scotland National Team line-up, while Alcock ultimately missed the fixture with an injury sustained a few weeks prior.
Strangely, much like their clash in the FA Cup, the tie finished goalless – although the quality of both sides, despite their contrasting styles, was widely praised.
The Glasgow Herald’s post-match report would read:“Both sides were working hard, and showing excellent play. The Englishmen had all the advantage of weight, their average being two stone heavier than the Scotchmen and they had the advantage of pace. The strong point of the home club was that they played excellently well together.”
Scotland simply couldn’t compete with the physicality of the English, instead employing a technically proficient brand of football and benefitting from their Queen’s Park collective. Queen’s Park had long inherited the tactical belief that slick, accurate passing was the key to success and this transpired when they represented their nation, whereas England preferred a physically-driven game with an emphasis on dribbling.
It defined the divisiveness that was prevalent in the game at the time, from offside rules to styles of play, domestic clubs couldn’t even agree on how the sport should be played, never mind national sides. Nonetheless, it didn’t matter that the tie finished goalless nor that neither side could agree on how the sport should be played, because both sides had generated a palpable feeling of emotion and an atmosphere that is still ingrained within the fixture to this day.
“The result was received with rapturous applause by the spectators and the cheers proposed by each XI for their antagonists were continued by the onlookers until the last member of the two sides had disappeared,” wrote The Field. “The match was in every sense a signal success, as the play was throughout as spirited and a pleasant as can possibly be imagined.”
Scotland and England continued the tradition of an annual fixture between the sides for over a century, with some conspicuous games contested between the two sides during that period, but none more so than that initial fixture, that outlined the archaic relationship of the world’s oldest football foes and the landscape of international football.