 Arthur
Fitzgerald Kinnaird, the son of the tenth Baron Kinnaird of
Perthshire, was born on the 16th February 1847. Kinnard was
educated at Eton College and at this time public schools were
pioneering the game of football.
Kinnaird was an outstanding sportsman and became one of the best
footballers of his generation and after leaving school played
for the Wanderers and Old Etonians.
Kinnaird went onto study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he
met Charles W. Alcock. In October, 1963, Kinnaird and Alcock
helped establish the Football Association. The aim of the FA was
to establish a single unifying code for football. The first
meeting took place at the Freeman's Tavern in London. In 1868
Kinnaird joined the council of the FA.
In November, 1872, Kinnaird and Charles W. Alcock arranged the
first international football game to be played. Alcock took a
team of English born players to play against a team from
Scotland. The match, played in Glasgow, ended in a 0-0 draw. The
main objective was to publicize the game of football. It had the
desired effect and the following year the Scottish Football
Association was formed and the England-Scotland match became an
annual fixture.
On 8th March, 1873, Kinnaird won his first and only
international cap for Scotland against England. Playing in front
of 3,000 spectators at the Kennington Oval, England won 4-2.
Kinnaird developed a reputation for hard-tackling. In an article
about Kinnaird, Hunter Davies argues that: "On the pitch, he was
a fierce competitor, not to say violent. He got stuck in - as we
say today: he took no prisoners."
His mother, Lady Kinnaird, was concerned that the possibility
that her son would be seriously injured. On one occasion she
told one of her son's teammates that she feared that he would
one day arrive home with a broken leg. "Don't worry, my Lady,"
he replied. "It won't be his own."
Kinnaird played in nine FA Cup finals, winning five of them with
Wanderers (1873, 1877 and 1878) and Old Etonians (1879 and
1882). |
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