Historic Print Series - Queens Park v Wanderers, 1876 - First World Championship Game

Queen's Park v Wanderers, The First World Club Championship

Kennington Oval, Lambeth – 4 November 1876

150th Anniversary of World Club Competition (1876–2026)

The match between Queen’s Park and Wanderers, played at the Kennington Oval on 4 November 1876, is now widely recognised as the first World Club Championship — a contest between the leading club sides of Scotland and England at a time when those two nations represented the highest standard of association football anywhere in the world.

In an era before organised international club competitions, such Anglo-Scottish challenge matches functioned as de facto world championships, determining supremacy between the game’s two dominant footballing cultures. Queen’s Park, pioneers of the passing game and the most influential club side of the early period, delivered a commanding performance, defeating Wanderers by six goals to nil. Contemporary observers regarded the result as confirmation of Queen’s Park’s position as the foremost club team in the world.

As with much football history of the 1870s, surviving records of playing attire are incomplete. It is known that Wanderers faced Queen’s Park the previous year wearing plain white shirts, and in the absence of definitive evidence indicating a change for the 1876 fixture, the same white tops have been used here. This reflects common practice of the period, when clubs routinely reused existing garments across multiple seasons and important fixtures.

Research collated by Historical Kits Online further indicates that Queen’s Park themselves wore variable-width hooped shirts during this period, with no fixed or standardised stripe dimensions. This variation is entirely consistent with the realities of early football, when shirts were hand-produced, reordered irregularly, and subject to natural differences in materials, cutting, and manufacture. The depiction here therefore reflects authentic non-uniformity rather than later, modern expectations of standardised kits.

Kit standardisation lay many years in the future. Shirts, stockings, caps, and boots were often sourced independently, reused over extended periods, and displayed natural variation in colour, stripe width, and banding, even within the same team. The multi-coloured and banded stockings shown are consistent with contemporary practice and contribute to a faithful representation of early association football.

The caps and boots depicted have been modelled on documented examples worn by members of the Charterhouse School football team in the early 1870s. Surviving imagery from the 1873–74 period provides some of the clearest visual evidence of contemporary football equipment, and given the close links between public school football and the early development of the association game, such details are entirely representative of elite amateur play during this formative era.

This match marks the birth of world club competition, establishing a tradition of international club supremacy that continues into the modern game. In 2026, this print commemorates the 150th anniversary of the very first World Club Championship, a foundational moment in the global history of football.

Queen’s Park — World Champions, 1876.

Product details:

• You will only pay shipping/postage for 1 item, no matter how many items you purchase.
• Discounts are given for multiple purchases.
• Size: A3, A4, A5
• Single Sided
• Paper: 400gsm premium art stock
• Print quality: Museum-grade, high-resolution
• Finish: Unframed
• Watermark shown in images does NOT appear on the final print
• Carefully packaged for safe delivery

A striking piece of football history — ideal for collectors, historians, and lovers of our national game.

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