THIS story behind Scotland wearing what are known as the Rosebery colours arose due to the global pandemic. Reduced opportunities to leave the house meant that I finally began to tidy up my programme collection. One of these was in poor condition (Scotland v England 1984) and upon delivery of a better copy purchased online, browsing through this, I was interested to read an article, supposedly from an SFA book entitled “One Hundred Years of Scottish Football”, in which was the following paragraph:

“There were 60,000 at the Rosebery international in Celtic Park in 1900. The Scotland team wore the primrose and pink racing colours of Lord Rosebery, the Hon President of the SFA. His horse Lada had won the Derby the previous year and Scotland marked the win and the new century by beating England 4-1.”

I immediately thought that this contains either a misprint or is a misquote of the book – you see, the streets in the area of Belfast in which I now live are named after Derby winners, and the one parallel to the street I live in is called ‘Ladas Drive’. To clarify this, the first stop was to look at the list of Derby winners – Ladas won the Derby in 1894 and “his career attracted an unusual amount of attention as his owner, Lord Rosebery, became PM of the UK at the height of his success” (sothe date of the Derby win in the article is also incorrect). In fact, in 1895, whilst PM, another of Rosebery’s horses, Sir Visto won the Derby (and also Cicero in 1905, which is another street in the area). There is a picture of Ladas and the jockey in the racing colours with the 5th Earl of Rosebery on the far right illustrated above.

So the Rosebery colours were worn due to the Hon President of the SFA, who had in fact also been the Prime Minister before this role and before the 1900 match? Further research into the man and the family was fascinating – Archibald Philip Primrose (1847-1929), was the 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian, the lineage going back to Archibald Primrose, 1st Earl of Rosebery (1664- 1723). As a young man he apparently boasted that he would marry the richest woman in England, become Prime Minister and own a Derby winner; he succeeded in all three. The 5th Earl of Rosebery was a wealthy man, and his fortune increased hugely when he married Hannah de Rothschild, who had inherited her family fortune in 1874 and became the richest woman in Britain. Upon the death of the 6th Earl of Rosebery, the de Rothschild ancestral home was sold, and the family have since been settled in the Primrose family home on the Dalmeny estate, in what became Midlothian.

He entered the cabinet in 1885 and served twice as foreign minister, paying special attention to French and German affairs. He succeeded Gladstone as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party in 1894, but the Liberals lost the 1895 election, and he resigned the party leadership in 1896 and never again held political office. 

But what is the connection to the Scottish National football team and colours? The Earl of Rosebery’s horse-racing colours (registered with the Jockey Club in 1868), are often inaccurately described - they are primrose and rose which are puns derived from the family name, which is Primrose, and the title which is Rosebery. The 5th Earl of Rosebery developed a keen in interest in association football and was an early patron of the Scottish FA, although the family are not quite sure how he got involved in football governance. In 1882 he donated a trophy, the Rosebery Charity Cup, to be competed for by clubs under the jurisdiction of the East of Scotland FA. The competition lasted over 60 years and raised thousands of pounds for charities in the Edinburgh area. This trophy now resides in the museum at Hampden. 

Moreover he became the Hon. President of the SFA and of Hearts F.C and his colours were worn on 9 occasions between 1881 and 1951, and in 1900 when Scotland defeated England 4-1 (at least that is correct in the original article), he apparently told the Scotland captain Jacky Robertson, “I have never seen my colours so well sported since Ladas won the Derby.” Queen’s Park’s Robert S. McColl (who went on to set up a chain of sweet shops, earning the nickname ’Toffee Bob’) scored a hat-trick.