Reading the obituary of Rangers player Sammy Baird, a 1950s inside left who won three league titles with the club, I notice his place in place in football history is marked by one of the less spectacular footballing firsts – he was the first Rangers player to score for Scotland in a World Cup Finals match.

Hardly headline stuff, but it’s a claim-to-fame nonetheless, and one that has inspired this article. I got me wondering, are there any ‘football firsts’ left to achieve? After 150 years or so of the game, has everything there is to be done, been done?

I suppose we’re still waiting for the first Hayes & Yeading player to score for England at a World Cup Finals, but I’m talking headline stuff here. Nowadays the only time the words ‘first time’ seem to come into football coverage, they are accompanied by the word ‘since’ or some other qualifying term.

Does it matter? Does anyone care if there aren’t any more firsts to be firsted? Well, Notts County and Sheffield United still squabble over who is the oldest club in the world – try telling them first doesn’t matter.

And even the most obscure kind of trivia will add a little extra pride to a football supporter.

Nottingham Forest fans will glow with pride when they reflect on their side being the first to wear shinpads.

Lancashire-based Darwen FC may never have won a trophy of note since being founded in 1870, but nobody can take away the fact that they were the first team to install floodlights at their ground.

Hibernian can claim above all other British sides to be the first to compete in Europe, though they didn’t qualify again until 1989. (They didn’t ‘qualify’ in 1955 either, if you want to be pedantic.)

It’s been a while since a Blackpool- Bolton game was featured on the television, but in 1960 the two teams became the first to have a game broadcast live.

Some less enviable football firsts:

David Wagstaffe of Blackburn Rovers was the first player to receive a red card in a league game in 1976, though Alan Mullery of Spurs had seen one while playing for England in 1966.

Goalkeeper Mike Rose has the dubious honour of being the first player subbed off in English football, though he was injured when midfielder Keith Peacock replaced him in a 1965 Charlton Athletic game.

When tactical substitutions were introduced to the game shortly afterwards, Jim Clunie had to make way for Archie Gemmill in a 1966 St Mirren game after only 23 minutes!

So, I’d like to throw the forum open to any potential football firsts we have left to look forward to, if indeed any remain. Have some footballing landmarks been reached recently that passed me by?

One footballing first we can guarantee this summer is the first World Cup being held in Africa. [http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/internationals/the-host-nation-could-be-the-real-winners–whoever-lifts-the-world-cup-1950314.html] Perhaps we will see the first African winners too?

Written By Dean Wilkes