Football's oldest pitch discovery

The Stewartry may be the home of the world’s oldest known football pitch.

- STUART GILLESPIE

Football historian Ged O’Brien has uncovered evidence that suggests the beautiful game was played on farmland near Gatehouse more than 400 years ago.

And he believes this will lead other experts to “rewrite everything they think they know.”

Ged's discovery was unveiled in the final episode in the current series of BBC Scotland's A View From The Terrace on Friday night.

The founder of the Scottish Football Museum has discovered a letter written by Rev Samuel Rutherford, who was minister at Anwoth Old Kirk in the 17th century.

It shows that when he arrived at the parish he found “a piece of ground on Mossrobin farm where on Sabbath afternoon the people used to play at foot-ball”.

Ged-a former president of the Association of Sports Historians - believes this sentence backs up his argument that football was being played in Scotland hundreds of years before it was invented in England.

He said: “This is one of the most important sentences I have ever read in football history, because it specifically identifies the exact place the football pitch was.”