Researching the past can be a pretty hit or miss occupation. If it was all available to see in a book, or on a website there would be no point in researching it ...
It is hit or miss because reporting of football was so patchwork back in the earliest days of the game. Take for example my latest find, Falkirk v Glasgow Caledonians on the 1st November 1879. Yesterday I did not know this match existed, it was not reported in the Falkirk Herald [where it should have been] but in the Glasgow Herald on the following Monday [so the Falkirk Herald people had time to read it for the next Saturday edition] but that is the way it was back then.
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Sadly the report doesn't tell me much, but it is another match and it makes the 1879/80 season slightly less 'patchy'.But if I have to check the local papers for every place Falkirk could concievably have played a football match it might take an awfy long time getting through them all.
It is hit or miss because reporting of football was so patchwork back in the earliest days of the game. Take for example my latest find, Falkirk v Glasgow Caledonians on the 1st November 1879. Yesterday I did not know this match existed, it was not reported in the Falkirk Herald [where it should have been] but in the Glasgow Herald on the following Monday [so the Falkirk Herald people had time to read it for the next Saturday edition] but that is the way it was back then.
Sadly the report doesn't tell me much, but it is another match and it makes the 1879/80 season slightly less 'patchy'.But if I have to check the local papers for every place Falkirk could concievably have played a football match it might take an awfy long time getting through them all.