Early Years

  The 1954 Match

Until recently we thought that the Scotland v England matches in Qatar had only been played for around 25 years and had it's beginnings in the late 1970's. Then to our surprise we were handed some photographs from a match played way back in 1954 - 55 years ago!.

Doha, Qatar, 1954 (left).

 This was a very early stage in the development of Qatar and Doha into the modern country and city we all live in now.

Dukhan, Qatar, 1954 (right).

Dukhan is on the west coast of Qatar about 84 kilometers from Doha. Oil production started there in the mid-1940's.

The photo below is of the earliest known Scotland v England match in Qatar, played in Dukhan in 1954, on an oiled sand pitch. Note the large number of locals in the crowd that day, we can only wonder what they thought watching those crazy oil workers running around on the pitch.

Before anybody tries to argue that there was no colour photography at that time, we should point out that colour photography was developed by the Eastman (Kodak) company in 1943, and was commercially available in North America by 1950. These photographs were taken by a Canadian oil worker, but he probably wasn't able to have them developed down the souq.

We are unaware what the final score was in 1954, but we're sure you'll find these photos as fascinating as we did.

If anybody out there has some old photos from other matches tucked away in a box under their bed we would appreciate you letting us know. We would like to use them to update this website. You can contact through the FEEDBACK page.