Scottish Football League XI

The Scottish League XI was a representative side of the Scottish Football League. The team regularly played against the (English) Football League and other national league select teams between 1892 and 1980. For a long period the annual fixture between the English and Scottish leagues was only second in importance to the matches between the two national teams. The fixture declined in importance after regular European club competition was instituted in the 1950s; matches in the 1960s and 1970s were played irregularly and poorly attended. A match involving a Scottish League XI was last played in 1990, to mark the centenary of the League.

Soon after the creation of the Scottish Football League (SFL) in 1890, there was a desire on the part of its officials to test its strength against the more senior (English) Football League. An Anglo-Scottish league match was first played in April 1892 at Pike's Lane,Bolton and ended in a 2–2 draw. The first Football League team contained Scottish players (Donald Gow, Willie Groves and Tom McInnes). This practice did not continue, however, as Scots were not selected for the Football League again until the 1960s, by when the match was declining in importance. A return match was played at Celtic Park in April 1893, attracting an attendance of 31,500. In the same year, the Scottish League played its first match against the Irish League XI, in Belfast.

In the early years of organised football, clubs in the Football League were almost exclusively from northern England and the Midlands, while clubs from southern England played in the Southern Football League. The increased importance of the Southern League was reflected when a fixture was played between the Scottish League and the Southern League for the first time, at Millwall in October 1910. The Southern League won both that fixture and a match against The Football League in the same year. These matches continued until the First World War, after which the Southern League was absorbed into the Football League. Frederick Wall, the secretary of the Football Association, wrote to the SFL in 1913 objecting to the use of the term "international" in describing matches between the Scottish League and the Football League. The SFL defended their right to use the term in Scottish advertising of the fixture.

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