Arthur Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird

Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird KT (16 February 1847 – 30 January 1923) was a principal of The Football Association and a leading footballer.

Kinnaird's father, Arthur Kinnaird, 10th Lord Kinnaird, was a banker and MP before taking up his seat in the House of Lords. Kinnaird born in London and was educated at Cheam School, Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1869. He worked in the family bank, becoming a director of Ransom, Bouverie & Co in 1870. This bank later merged with others in 1896 to become Barclays Bank of which he was a main board director until his death.

As a player, Kinnaird had a remarkable record. Having played in the second FA Cup final in 1873, he took part in a further eight – an unmatched total of nine finals in all. He was on the winning side three times with Wanderers and twice with the Old Etonians and celebrated his fifth Cup Final victory by standing on his head in front of the pavilion.

In the course of his career as a Cup Final player, Kinnaird played in every position, from goalkeeper to forward. It was while playing in goal for Wanderers in the 1877 final that he suffered the indignity of scoring the first significant own goal in football history, accidentally stepping backwards over his own goal line after fielding an innocuous long shot from an Oxford University forward. The goal was not formally credited to Kinnaird until early football records were re-examined a century later, and it has been speculated that the player used his influence as a member of the FA council to have the embarrassing record expunged. In fact the confusion appears to have been caused by the haphazard match reporting typical of the earliest days of the Association game.

Although he was born in Kensington, London, as son of an old Perthshire family Kinnaird also played for Scotland, winning his solitary cap against England in the second ever international, played in 1873 at The Oval.

...
Wikipedia