Which is the true home of football: Scotland or England?

It's coming home, football's coming home... It's a phrase you might hear over and over, especially when England are competing in major tournaments.

But could the home of football actually be in... Scotland?

For centuries, England has laid claim to being the birthplace of the beautiful game.

But now one football historian believes the origins of the world's most popular sport could lie in Scotland.

Historian Ged O'Brien believes a letter from a very cross church minister holds the key to Scotland's claim.

The letter by Reverend Samuel Rutherford, who served between 1627 and 1638, mentions a patch of land, at the former Mossrobin Farm close to Anwoth Kirk, in southwest Scotland.

He was annoyed that people would gather to play football on Sunday afternoon, the Sabbath, also known as the Christian day of rest.

He was so cross that he carried out the 17th Century version of sticking up a "no ball games" sign, by ordering parishioners to move a line of stones across the pitch to prevent anyone playing.

Working with a team of archaeologists, Mr O'Brien discovered a line of 14 stones on the land.

Soil tests suggest they were placed there around the time of Rutherford's football ban.

Mr O'Brien believes the discovery could force historians to "rewrite everything they think they know" about the game and its early development.

"I have always thought football has been played in Scotland for hundreds of years. Not mob-football, but proper football," Mr O'Brien told BBC.

There are earlier recorded football matches than the one mentioned in Scotland, however these are sometimes described as 'mob football' which is quite different to the modern version of the game we know today.

One such event happened 60 miles away and around 60 years earlier at Carlisle Castle in England, just south of the border with Scotland.

William Wyeth is a curator of history at English Heritage, he explained that a letter written in 1568 about Mary Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned at the castle, described how one day, "twenty two halberdiers - who were basically bodyguards - went with Mary and some servants to a green and played 'foot-ball' for around two hours while she watched."

He adds that the game was played with 'no foul play' which suggests it was a gentle contest.

Asked whether games of football may have taken place even earlier than that, historian Will says it's a complicated question.

"The short answer is yes, people played a kind of team sport where they kicked a ball around before Mary Queen of Scots. So we have records from the 12th century, for example, from London, where there are people who went out and played a sport with a ball in a group that was played on certain days - like a holiday thing.

"However, historians have said there were two different kinds of football in the past. Most of these are probably what's called a 'mob football', which is where you have large groups of people, not necessarily a limited number, chasing around a single ball. And you find traditions like that still survive in a few places in Britain.

"And that kind of suggests to me that probably what Mary Queen of Scots and her servants and followers were doing was a version of mob football, that was a bit tamer."

Explaining that due to there being a lack of evidence in other parts of the UK, the site at Anwoth Kirk in Scotland can "reasonably claim to be the earliest", says Will.

"I think what we're looking at is more of a lack of evidence from kind of everywhere, rather than there being something decisive," he told BBC Newsround.

"So we'll stick to the facts - one of the earliest references to a game we can reasonably call football, appears in the 12th century in London."

He also explained that archeologists doing building works at Stirling Castle in the middle of Scotland, actually found a football behind a wood built in the 1540s. It was made of pieces of leather sewn together, more like football that we know today.

"The first modern football club that is widely recognised as such by the Football Museum, for example, was founded in Edinburgh in 1824, the first women's game also took place in Edinburgh in 1881 but we know that association football was formalised in England in 1863."

So with all that to consider, when asked which country is the home of football, Will says...

"I'm not going to give you an answer. I think I'll leave it up to your readers to decide."