Arthur Kinnaird won just one full international cap for Scotland, in the match against England on 8 March 1873.  The game was just the second recognised as a genuine international, with the Scotland side selected by Queen’s Park FC as the Scottish Football Association had not yet been formed.

Queen’s Park had made a healthy profit out of the first international in Glasgow in November 1872, but only had sufficient money to send seven players to London for this match. They needed four locally-based recruits to make up the team.  One was Robert Smith, a Queen’s Park member who had settled in London; two more, John Edward Blackburn and Henry Waugh Renny-Tailyour, were with the Royal Engineers at Chatham; and the last was Arthur Kinnaird.

A grainy photo of the Scotland team survives, showing Arthur with beard, cap and half-length trousers. There is a common misconception that he always wore long white flannels, but here he is in knee-length knickerbockers.

Around 3,000 spectators at the Oval produced receipts of £106 and one shilling, which equates to 2,121 paid admissions at a shilling each, with ladies and some guests admitted free. The FA was left with a handsome profit of £73 8s 6d – not bad considering their total annual income in the late 1860s was around four pounds!

Having lined up in Glasgow with eight forwards, one half-back, one back and a goalkeeper, the English adopted the more pragmatic Scottish formation of six forwards, two half-backs and two backs.

England raced into a two goal lead, thanks to Captain William Kenyon-Slaney’s shot in the opening minute and a second from Alex Bonsor which was deflected past the visiting goalkeeper, Robert Gardner. It looked at that stage as if Scotland were going to be outclassed but the visitors rallied and by the time twenty minutes were on the clock they had drawn level. First, Renny-Tailyour scored to finish off a brilliant dribble by Arthur Kinnaird, then William Gibb got the equaliser. The revival did not last, and England deservedly went ahead as Kenyon-Slaney again scored with a left-foot shot, and although Scotland goalkeeper Robert Gardner kept the English at bay with a succession of fine saves he could do nothing to prevent goal number four from Charles Chenery. Final score 4-2.

Three weeks later, Arthur won the first of his FA Cups with Wanderers, and although he would feature regularly in cup finals for another decade, he would never play for Scotland again.

The match card illustrated here, the oldest known football programme in existence, remains in the family of England captain Alexander Morten. Although overprinted with the match result and scorer, it is clearly based on a pre-match card to help the spectators identify the players by their headgear and stockings. This is how the players were listed:

England:
Alexander Morten (Crystal Palace, captain), black cap and brown stockings
Alexander George Bonsor (Wanderers), light blue and red cap
Charles John Chenery (Crystal Palace), blue and black cap, blue knickerbockers, blue stockings
William Edwin Clegg (Sheffield), blue cap
Alfred George Goodwyn (Royal Engineers), yellow blue and black stockings and cap
Ernest Harwood Greenhalgh (Nottingham), red white and blue cap
Hubert Heron (Uxbridge), blue stockings, blue cap with yellow crest
Leonard Sidgwick Howell (Old Wykehamists), cerise cap
Captain William Slaney Kenyon-Slaney (Household Brigade), red gold and black cap
Robert Walpole Sealy Vidal (Oxford University), white knickerbockers, dark stockings
Pelham George von Donop (Royal Engineers), red and blue stockings and cap.

Scotland:
Robert Gardner (Queen’s Park. captain), light blue cap
John Edward Blackburn (Royal Engineers), scarlet and blue fez
William Gibb (Clydesdale), black cap with magenta stripes
William Ker (Queen’s Park), no cap
Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird (Wanderers), blue and white cap
William McKinnon (Queen’s Park), blue and scarlet cowl
Henry Waugh Renny-Tailyour (Royal Engineers), blue and black cap, yellow tassel
Robert Smith (South Norwood), black cap
Joseph Taylor (Queen’s Park), white cap blue stars
James John Thomson (Queen’s Park), blue with white stars
David Wotherspoon (Queen’s Park), scarlet cowl.

Umpires: Charles Alcock (England) and Archibald Rae (Scotland)
Referee: Theodore Lloyd (Crystal Palace)