At some point in the summer or autumn of 1872, quite possibly in late August, a match is said to have been played as Park Neuk, the then sport's ground, cricket in the summer, shinty in the winter, of the Scottish town of Alexandria. It was a demonstration by Queen's Park F.C. of a new game, or at least a game new to all but its small corner of Scotland, indeed of all but the city of Glasgow's gradually expanding, Southern Suburbs. Named Association Football, for its London formation, it might never have happened without initially two teams both from Dunbartonshire's Vale of Leven, Vale of Leven F.C., aka The Vale, from Alexandria itself and Renton F.C., from the neighbouring village two miles south, taking and, in the space of a decade and half, conceptionally revolutionising it on-field not just once but twice. 

And that was before a third Vale-team, Dumbarton, would be the vehicle to see, in Scotland at least, competion become Cup and League and then, as a new century began, provide the first, full-time, professional coach, Johnny Madden, to take the game, the Scottish, his Leven ball-to-feet, passing game into the wider World beyond Britain.