1876 Scotland vs Wales football match
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| Date | 25 March 1876 | ||||||
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| Venue | Hamilton Crescent, Partick | ||||||
| Referee | Robert W. Gardner (Scotland) | ||||||
| Attendance | 17,000 | ||||||
The first international match for the Wales national football team took place on 25 March 1876 when they played Scotland at Hamilton Crescent, Partick, the home ground of the West of Scotland Cricket Club. The match was also the first time that Scotland had played an international fixture against a side other than England.
The match was organised by Llewelyn Kenrick who had founded the Football Association of Wales only a few weeks earlier and the Welsh team was selected after a number of trial matches were held at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham following adverts being placed in several sporting journals for Welsh players or players with more than three years residence to come forward. The FAW selected the side and Kenrick was appointed captain for the fixture. As the more experienced team, Scotland dominated the match and claimed a 4–0 victory in front of a crowd of 17,000 people, a record for an international fixture at the time, with goals scored by John Ferguson, James Lang, Billy MacKinnon and Henry McNeil.
The two nations have met frequently following the first match, playing against each other every year in friendly matches until 1884 when the British Home Championship was introduced. The Championship was an annual tournament, meaning that Scotland and Wales played a fixture every year until 1984, apart from when competitive football was suspended during the First and Second World Wars. In total, they have now played over 100 matches in both competitive competitions and friendly matches against each other with Scotland recording 61 wins to Wales' 23 as of their last meeting in March 2013.
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