Pickens

Scotland has throughout its history been playing Soccer. Historically Scottish soccer players werent limited to 11 players per team, whole villages of Scottish soccer devotees used to challenge other villages to a game.

The rules of soccer at that point werent very uniform and there was little if any provisions against violence, because of this attempts were made to outlaw the game, with King James I even saying in Parliament, "That na man play at the Fute-ball" (No man shall play football/soccer). Despite the attempts of clerics, sheriffs, mayors and even a King the game was kept alive by Scottish soccer players.

As times changed Soccer became a widely accepted sport again, firstly being played at school and universities. At these institutions the rules for soccer were formalized to something closely resembling todays game. The games popularity then spread beyond the school campuses, and local soccer clubs were formed, soccer became a popular spectator sport with blue-collar workers.

With the wide acceptance and popularity of soccer, the World's first international game was set up, between Scotland and England. The game took place on 30 November 1872. The Scottish side was one of Scotlands oldest and most established Soccer club, Queens Park. Two thousand people came to the game and saw the last and possibly biggest revolution in the playing of the game. The Scottish team introduced a whole new aspect to the game that day, a team based approach utilizing, passing. Up till then the way the game was played was to muscle the ball up the field in Rugby like fashion, after that game the English began adopting a playing style to match the Scottish soccer team, and Soccer in its current form was born.

The Scottish soccer team did not exist that day in the form that we now understand; soccer was played by Universities or Clubs, with no central organization to elect a national team. There was no Scottish team picked from the best players around, but a club to represent the whole country. To cope and control the rising popularity of the game Scotland formed a Football Association three month after the first match between England and Scotland. Wales then followed and formed a FA in 1875, and then Ireland in 1880. England on the other hand had formed their Football Association in 1863. With the formation of a Football Association, Scotland was able to establish leagues, tournament and even a national team.

With forty two different professional teams over two different leagues, it is understandable that Scotland has some of the most dedicated Soccer fans in the world; this also applies to the female fans. Scotland has also always had a strong legion of female soccer lovers and players. Seeming to always be pioneers in the game Scotland and England were also the first two countries to have an international womans match. Fifty three thousand people came to watch this event, in which unfortunately the Scottish soccer team lost 22-0.

Soccer is in the hearts of the Scotts, it always was, and always will be part of their heritage. Visit us at Scottish Heirloom Jewelry, to see how we can help you celebrate your heritage and love of soccer.

Scottish Soccer - league winners

1892 Dunbarton
1893 Celtic Glasgow
1894 Celtic Glasgow
1895 Heart of Midlothian
1896 Celtic Glasgow
1897 Heart of Midlothian
1898 Celtic Glasgow
1899 Glasgow Rangers
1900 Glasgow Rangers
1901 Glasgow Rangers
1902 Glasgow Rangers
1903 Hibernian
1904 Third Lanark
1905 Celtic Glasgow
1906 Celtic Glasgow
1907 Celtic Glasgow
1908 Celtic Glasgow
1909 Celtic Glasgow
1910 Celtic Glasgow
1911 Glasgow Rangers
1912 Glasgow Rangers
1913 Celtic Glasgow
1914 Celtic Glasgow
1915 Celtic Glasgow
1916 Celtic Glasgow
1917 Celtic Glasgow
1918 Glasgow Rangers
1919 Celtic Glasgow
1920 Glasgow Rangers
1921 Glasgow Rangers
1922 Celtic Glasgow
1923 Glasgow Rangers
1924 Glasgow Rangers
1925 Glasgow Rangers
1926 Celtic Glasgow
1927 Glasgow Rangers
1928 Glasgow Rangers
1929 Glasgow Rangers
1930 Glasgow Rangers
1931 Glasgow Rangers
1932 Motherwell
1933 Glasgow Rangers
1934 Glasgow Rangers
1935 Glasgow Rangers
1936 Celtic Glasgow
1937 Glasgow Rangers
1938 Celtic Glasgow
1939 Glasgow Rangers

1947 Glasgow Rangers
1948 Hibernian
1949 Glasgow Rangers
1950 Glasgow Rangers
1951 Hibernian Glasgow
1952 Hibernian Glasgow
1953 Glasgow Rangers
1954 Celtic Glasgow
1955 Aberdeen Celtic
1956 Glasgow Rangers
1957 Glasgow Rangers
1958 Heart Of Midlothian
1959 Glasgow Rangers
1960 Heart Of Midlothian
1961 Glasgow Rangers
1962 Dundee
1963 Glasgow Rangers
1964 Glasgow Rangers
1965 Kilmarnock
1966 Celtic Glasgow
1967 Celtic Glasgow
1968 Celtic Glasgow
1969 Celtic Glasgowv
1970 Celtic Glasgow
1971 Celtic Glasgow
1972 Celtic Glasgow
1973 Celtic Glasgow
1974 Celtic Glasgow
1975 Glasgow Rangers
1976 Glasgow Rangers
1977 Celtic Glasgow
1978 Glasgow Rangers
1979 Celtic Glasgow
1980 Aberdeen Celtic
1981 Celtic Glasgow
1982 Celtic Glasgow
1983 Dundee United
1984 Aberdeen Celtic
1985 Aberdeen
1986 Celtic Glasgow
1987 Glasgow Rangers
1988 Celtic Glasgow
1989 Glasgow Rangers
1990 Glasgow Rangers
1991 Glasgow Rangers
1992 Glasgow Rangers
1993 Glasgow Rangers
1994 Glasgow Rangers
1995 Glasgow Rangers
1996 Glasgow Rangers
1997 Glasgow Rangers
1998 Celtic Glasgow
1999 Glasgow Rangers
2000 Glasgow Rangers
2001 Celtic Glasgow
2002 Celtic Glasgow
2003 Glasgow Rangers

The Author, a Scot, is Stuart Noble, the founder and Chief Executive of the Scottish Heirloom Jewelry Company, manufacturing jewelers, specializing in the production of Scottish Family Clan Crest Jewellery.

You can publish this article if the author's byline is included and all links are hyperlinked.

If you are a soup lover, but you find the soups at the supermarkets in the cans lacking substance, then consider making them into a Super Soup! There are many things that you can load up in a thick brothed or sauced soup to make them an excellent meal and one which will not only fill you up, but fill you up with all the right stuff.

First I recommend some spices such as:

• Fifth Season; Chopped Onions (6 shakes)
• Fifth Season; Crushed Red Peppers (2 shakes)
• Fifth Season; Italian Seasoning (6 shakes)
• McCormicks; Basil and Garlic Seasoning Blend (4 shakes)

Additionally, I recommend a 1000mg soft gel Omega 3 Fish Oil capsule (Spring Valley is a good brand) and a Gingseng Complex capsule (Natural Whole Herbs by Spring Valley is what I use) pull apart the capsule and also be sure to add two table spoons of minced Garlic too. Next I recommend chopping up;

1. Half a carrot
2. Half a Purple Onion
3. Half a Bell Pepper
4. Half a white onion

and tossing this in the soup just prior to pulling it off the stove to eat it. This prevents the vegetables from getting too mushy and losing their structure and nutrients. This is a perfect way to take a good $150 to $2.00 can of soup and turning it into a Super Soup. It works great with nearly any type of soup and you can try different types until you find your favority. I certainly hope this article is of interest and that is has propelled thought. The goal is simple; to help you in your quest to be the best in 2007. I thank you for reading my many articles on diverse subjects, which interest you.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

Have you just built a new site? Is it the jazziest, classiest site on the net? Do all your visitors love it? All five of them?

You are not alone. I think just about everyone has the same problem starting out on the net whatever their site is about, whether business or otherwise. So you buy traffic. You get huge traffic all right, but no sales. The traffic is not targeted. It is usually generated by a pop-up or pop-under. The people who see your advertisement are not looking for it and many close the pop-up immediately without even seeing your site. And that's if the pop-up blockers don't block them.

Banner ads have traditionally been a very good way of getting the message across. But they are losing their effectiveness now. I think the reason this is happening is because people are seeing so many of them that they no longer notice them. It's a bit like walking through a crowd and not seeing the faces you pass. Have you ever passed a friend in the street?

It can be very discouraging to see the reports from these traffic generators saying that you had 10,000 or 20,000 hits or whatever it is and you sold nothing or very little.

Would it not be a better idea to show your site to people who are looking for a site that has what you are offering?

You can do this by using a pay per click (PPC) directory. The directory will list your site by the keywords that you choose, and only charge you when someone clicks on the link to your site. That means that the person that visits is looking for your site. As you can imagine, the conversion rate in far higher than the examples above.

The PPC traffic will be generated regardless of page rank or how long your site is on the net or whether it is indexed in the 'Big Three' search engines.

When looking at traffic generation systems it is sensible to compare prices and shop around. It would be useful to have this information at hand when you do:

1. How many visitors you have to your site, daily, weekly or monthly. And, where they come from, i.e. search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), paid traffic generation, links on other sites etc.

2. Current traffic campaign costs.

3. Your conversion rate. i.e. what percentage of your visitors buy from you.

4. Your average sale amount.

5. Customer acquisition cost. i.e. how much it costs you to sell each item.

6. How much you are willing to spend to make a sale.

Run some test PPC campaigns before you go into it in a big way. You can compare your figures before and after to see if it has been worthwhile. I am confident that you will see a very significant improvement.

A pay PPC directory is better than the usual PPC systems that you see in that your position in the search results depends only on your bid for the keyword you choose.

Let's say you are selling beekeeping equipment. You would bid on the word beekeeping. You may even bid on others like beehive and honey etc. If there are no other bidders for that word in that directory then you get the word for the minimum bid, which may be as low as $0.05. This means that you would top the search results for the word beekeeping, almost guaranteeing a visit from that searcher. Even if there is another bidder for that word he will be higher on the page until but unless there are several bidders you will still be on the front page of the results. Now would you get quality targeted visitors anywhere else for such a low cost?

If nobody clicks on your listing then it has cost you nothing but the few minutes it took to sign up. But if you do get clicks then it will be up to you and your site to convert them into buyers. Dont forget that even at the best of times you will only sell to a small percentage of your visitors, but if you have a quality site they may come back and buy at a later date or tell their friends about it.

Using the smaller, less well known search engines and directories is a good idea when starting out because the clicks are usually cheaper but they usually get less traffic also.

You are unlikely to be in the lucky position of having the marketplace to yourself. So, check out your competitors. See what they are doing. Are they paying for pop-up traffic or PPC?

Gerry Johnson is an administrator at Directory Ireland. An Irish Directory with Global Links. Directory Ireland is a PPC web directory that gives you $10 credit when you sign up so you can try us without cost. You can also place our search box on your web page and get paid for searches. There are no guarantees but, No Gain No Payin'. Yeah, it's a lousy pun. But then that's not what I do for a living. Traffic is.