Only two male Scottish footballers have ever played in a title-winning side in Italy. It happened way back in 1905, when Jack Diment and James Squair starred for the Juventus team that won the club's first 'Scudetto'.
   Despite that remarkable achievement the pair remain almost unknown, even though precious few Scotsmen have featured at the top level in Italy over the years. The most notable names are Denis Law, Graeme Souness and Joe Jordan, while currently Liam Henderson and Aaron Hickey are starring in Serie A, but none of these fine players ever won a title.
   While it has to be acknowledged that Diment and Squair were amateurs and hardly of the same standard, they have a fascinating story and their lives followed remarkably similar paths through work, football and even in marriage, before tragedy intervened.
   Of the same age and background, they met in Newcastle as they embarked on a career in shipping, and while many records state that they joined Juventus from Newcastle United, the truth is that they were never on the club's books and their names do not appear in any contemporary British football records.
   However, they must have played football at some level in England before they were sent to Turin in the autumn of 1904. Aged 19 and 20, they joined the staff of Walter F Becker, an influential steamship owner with interests in several Italian ports, whose company Navigazione Alta Italia ran the Creole Line. He also had a passion for football, having founded a club in Messina (Sicily) in 1901.  
   Shortly after their arrival, the two young men were pitched straight into the Juventus team. They made their debuts on 13 November 1904 in a 1-0 defeat to Genoa, a contest for the Palla Dapples – the silver ball donated by Henri Dapples for a series of challenge matches which saw the winner retain the elegant trophy. 

They soon became an integral part of the team. Diment at right half was known as 'Il Mulo' – the mule – for his tenacity and no-nonsense approach, while fair-haired Squair at inside left was quick and creative, pitching in with the occasional goal.
   Early in 1905 their influence was an important factor as Juventus lifted the Campionato Prima Categoria title, as Serie A was then known. By modern standards, it was not a lengthy campaign, with Juventus first winning the right to represent Piedmont by beating city rivals Torinese.
   That qualified them for a mini league where they faced the champions of Lombardy and Liguria, US Milanese and Genoa respectively. The three teams played each other, home and away, over six weeks and Juventus had no difficulty defeating Milanese twice, with Squair scoring one of the goals, while both games against Genoa ended in draws.
​   That left them with six points before the final match of the series when, to general amazement, Genoa failed to beat Milanese. This meant that Juventus, a point clear, were declared champions of Italy for the first time (and they would not win it again until 1926). 

Amidst the celebrations the triumphant Juventus team posed for the cover photo of La Stampa Sportiva, with Diment and Squair taking pride of place. But while the two 'foreigners' were widely referred to as English, both were from Scottish families and many of their descendants still live in Scotland.
   James Macgregor Squair was born in Edinburgh in 1884 and spent his early years there but sadly his mother died when he was only three. When he was about eight he moved briefly to London, where his father remarried, then to Newcastle, where he went to school. He started working as a shipbroker's clerk in the city but there is no record of his sporting activities in the local press apart from an appearance for a minor cricket club.
   John Bowman Diment, known as 'Jack', was born in Plymouth in 1885 but that was only because his father, a Sergeant in the Gordon Highlanders, was posted briefly to Devonport Barracks. Jack was only on the south coast of England for the first six months of his life and when the family returned to Scotland he was brought up in the village of Durris, west of Aberdeen. When his father left the army they moved to Newcastle where Jack found a job with a shipping agency. He, too, was not mentioned in local sports reports.
   After their title success, Diment and Squair continued to feature regularly for Juventus for three eventful seasons. The side came close to retaining the title in 1906 but when a play-off against Milan ended in a draw, Juventus refused to replay the match in protest at the venue being in their opponents' city, and Milan were awarded the title.
   During the 1906-07 season Juventus recruited another British player, goalkeeper James McQueen, also with Scottish roots but born and brought up in London.
   However this was a time of discord within the Juventus ranks and when a breakaway club was formed in the city, called Torino, several players moved across. Almost their first act was to knock Juventus out of the 1907 Campionato, in the very first Turin derby, which prompted more players to leave.

Among them were the Juventus foreigners, with McQueen first to leave and he was followed in the summer by Diment and Squair. They all played for Torino in 1907-08, concluding the season with an international tournament, but after that the team started to break up and they went their separate ways.
   McQueen, who was a language teacher, headed for a new job in the south of France where he played for Olympique de Marseille and eventually won the French title in 1913 with Stade Helvetique.
   Squair, meanwhile, went to Naples having been appointed as local manager for Peirce Brothers, an off-shoot of Becker's shipping agency. This marked the end of his football career, even though there was a club in Naples, as he had other things on his mind: he was in love with Mabel Stroud, daughter of an English lace manufacturer who was based in Turin.
   Mabel followed Squair to Naples and they were married at the British Consulate in March 1909. In November they had a daughter called Emily but tragically he died just five days later, probably from illness although his death certificate does not state the cause. He was only 25.
   Meanwhile, Diment remained in Turin and was in a relationship with Mabel's sister Olga. He spent another season with Torino, playing his last matches for them in March 1909 when the team won the Palla Dapples on two consecutive weeks.
   His work then took him to Milan and within a week of moving, he joined Milan Cricket and Football Club (which became AC Milan) and played regularly with them for a year. In December, in the newly-expanded Prima Categoria, he showed he had lost none of his combative spirit when he punched an Andrea Doria player in retaliation for an off-the-ball kick, provoking a crowd invasion and an abandonment.

By then, Olga had returned to England for the birth of their daughter Ruby, and that probably prompted Jack to leave Italy in the summer of 1910 to come home. This seems to have been the end of his football career as he married Olga and they returned to Newcastle.
   During the First World War, Diment joined the Royal Army Service Corps as a driver and spent five years in uniform, serving in Salonika until he was invalided home in 1916. As a personal note, I was fascinated to find that he travelled back on the hospital ship Britannic, on which my own grandmother Sheila Macbeth was serving as a nurse; the ship was sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea on its very next voyage but she survived to tell the tale.
   After he recovered, Jack was posted to France, but surprisingly when the conflict was over he volunteered to remain in the army for an extra year in Germany. This was perhaps an indication that his marriage to Olga was on the rocks, as he later divorced her.
   The lure of Italy was still strong as he returned to the country, remarried to Kate Clarke in 1932, and their son Donald was born in Turin. After the second world war, Jack and Kate settled near Hull, where he died in 1978 at the grand old age of 93.
   Not many Scottish footballers have found success abroad, so let's celebrate Jack Diment and James Squair, whose exploits with Juventus, Torino and Milan are little known, and whose Italian title win in 1905 remains a unique achievement.
 

John Bowman Diment
Born 1 June 1885 in Devonport, Plymouth
Died 12 October 1978 in Castle Hill Hospital, by Hull, Yorkshire
Juventus 1904-07
Torino 1907-09
Milan 1909-10
 
James Macgregor Squair
Born 28 September 1884 in Edinburgh
Died 30 November 1909 in Fuorigrotta, Naples
Juventus 1904-07
Torino 1907-08


​NB in the opening sentence I specified 'male footballers' because at least a dozen Scottish women have played professionally in Italy, with several of them winning league titles including Rose Reilly, Edna Neillis, June Hunter and Maria Blagojevic.

The Victorian era saw the launch of a plethora of sporting titles, aimed at an audience which was thirsting for knowledge and insight.
   Many of them faltered as the 20th century progressed, thanks to the First World War and changing social habits, and the titles are now largely forgotten. Yet to sporting historians the periodicals - such as the Badminton Magazine, Sporting Mirror and Baily's Magazine - are packed with intrigue and information. They cast a light on an era when sporting pursuits looked very different to what they do now, with invaluable first-hand accounts of people, events and techniques.
   Now, thanks to the renowned sports historian Chris Harte, they have become accessible and searchable thanks to his extraordinary work in indexing a range of these titles. Not only that, he has written the history of each title, with biographies of the editors and contributors, and reproduced a vast number of the illustrations that made them so attractive. Although his books are aimed at academic researchers, and are printed in limited numbers, the pricing makes them accessible to anyone.
​   Chris's work is, without doubt, a labour of love which will benefit sports researchers around the world.

Here is a quick summary of recent titles:

Baily's Magazine of Sports and Pastimes (1860-1926). A monumental book which covers 796 monthly issues, 380 pages. £30.

The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes (1895-1923), 406 pages. £19.95.  There is also a volume entitled Strange Stories of Sport (508 pages) which are extracted from the Badminton Magazine, £12.95.

The Sporting Mirror (1881-86), 162 pages. £7.95.

Fores's Sporting Notes and Sketches (1884-1912), 200 pages. £9.95.

The Captain (1899-1924), 394 pages. £10.99.

Currently in preparation is the history and index of CB Fry's Magazine of Sports and Outdoor Life. 

The books can be ordered online from major retailers including Waterstones and amazon. They can also be found on ebay.

St Andrew Boat Club, founded in 1846 in Edinburgh, is Scotland's oldest open boat club and recently celebrated its 175th anniversary.
   The club was only two years old when seven of its members members appeared in these photos, which were preserved within the albums of the Edinburgh Calotype Club. Those books are now held by the National Library of Scotland, and the albums were fully digitised for the Pencils of Light exhibition.
   Photography was in its infancy: the calotype process was invented by Henry Fox Talbot in 1841, and taken up in Edinburgh by Hill & Adamson a couple of years later. They took the first known sports photos of John Laing, a tennis or rackets player, who I have already written about.
   It was a step forward from having a single subject who was standing motionless for a long exposure, to taking a photograph of a group, and the challenge was taken up by Hugh Lyon Tennent. He was a member of both the Calotype Club and the Rowing Club, and is credited with taking the photos, perhaps with the assistance of his brother Robert. The venue is almost certainly the club house at Fountainbridge, on the Union Canal.
   Identifying the seven men was a challenge, as the caption for the first photo simply named the rowers as 'T Dickson, Hastie, Hugh Lyon Tennent, Rd Campbell, Seton, JS Tytler, Arbuthnot'. The second photo has the same subjects but Tennent has moved to the right of the group.
   However, the recent publication of a history of St Andrew Boat Club has helped, not only to confirm all their identities, but also to pinpoint the date.

The club history published a list of members, starting with the 18 founders in April 1846, and detailing all who signed up in succeeding years. The Ordinary Members are those who lived in Edinburgh, while Extraordinary Members are mainly those who were in the military and therefore only in the city for a short time.
   Dickson, Campbell, Tennent and Seton were all founding ordinary members in 1846, while Tytler joined the following year. The other two were only in Edinburgh for a short time and joined as extraordinary members: Hastie in 1848, and Arbuthnot for 1847-48. The date of the photo can therefore be pinpointed to the latter year.
   The seven men in the photo can now be identified with some degree of certainty:
 
Thomas Goldie Dickson (1819-1905), an accountant who lived at 3 Royal Circus. Educated at Edinburgh Academy, he was also a member of John Hope's Foot-Ball Club in 1836. He was later notorious for his involvement in the Ardnamurchan clearances.
 
Charles Nairn Hastie (1809-1868), a solicitor from East Grinstead, Sussex, he was only in Edinburgh briefly and stayed at 136 Princes Street. In May 1848 he joined the Boat Club and was elected a Member of the Highland Agricultural Society.
 
Hugh Lyon Tennent (1817-1874), an advocate of 9 Lynedoch Place. Educated at Edinburgh Academy 1826-32. Related to the Tennents of brewing fame.
 
Ord Graham Campbell (1816-1890), a lawyer and Writer to the Signet, of 102 George Street. He was also a prominent golfer, member of the Royal & Ancient, and the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers.
 
George Seton (1822-1908), an advocate of 13 Coates Crescent. Educated at Royal High School, then Edinburgh and Oxford Universities, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an expert genealogist and served in the Royal Company of Archers.
 
James Stuart Fraser Tytler (1820-91), a lawyer and Writer to the Signet, of 27 Rutland Square. Educated at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University, he became a Professor of Conveyancing at the university.
 
Charles George Arbuthnot (1824-1899), Born in Ireland and educated at Rugby, he was a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, based at Leith Fort. He went on to a prestigious army career, serving in Crimea, Afghanistan and India, becoming Lieutenant General Sir Charles Arbuthnot.

St Andrew BC remains a vibrant organisation, which only last week opened a new boathouse at Meggetland in Edinburgh. Rowing legend Dame Katherine Grainger, who has represented the club throughout her career, did the honours.
   The history of the club is a fascinating read with many interesting photos, a 90 page paperback which is available from the club, price £10.
   For further research, the club's extensive archives are held at the National Records of Scotland (Ref GD418). 

Sporting history continues to throw up surprises, the latest being the discovery of Louis Bruce, who in 1908 became Britain's first black competitor at the Olympic Games. His story was published today in The Guardian, and I was delighted to play my part in uncovering the details of his life, not least the fact that he was born in Scotland. 

Louis Bruce's identity had been lost to history in the past century. He was known as an early black tram driver but his first name was mistakenly recorded as Lewis. In Olympic records, his name was thought to be Lawrence. It was only the discovery of his original entry form to the 1908 Olympic Games that the truth started to emerge, and a team of sports historians set to work.
   He comes across as a remarkable character. He was born in Edinburgh in 1875, an illegitimate birth to a widowed mother from Plymouth, then brought up in Devon by his grandmother before heading to the capital for work. He was taken on by London United Tramways, passed his tram licence in 1900 and worked for the company for at least 20 years, based at Fulwell Depot, rising to the rank of Inspector.
   Being a tram driver was a tough job, standing on the open platform in all weathers, directing a large machine with a load of passengers on board. However, he was clearly good at it, being the personal driver for the managing director of the company, Sir James Clifton Robinson, who had a private tram at his house for going to and from work.
   He was not the only black driver at LUT as, in contrast to the racist attitudes of the time, Robinson was enlightened enough to be quoted as saying: 'I make no distinction in race, colour or creed; all I want is steady, reliable men of good character, no matter what they have been.' (Weekly Dispatch, 6 September 1903)
  Sadly, not everyone agreed with those sentiments. Another black driver with LUT was Alexander Frazer, born in Jamaica. In 1905 he had lost his job and was convicted (probably unfairly) of street gambling near his home in West London. At his trial, the presiding magistrate was reported as saying to him 'Why don't you get back to Jamaica and grow bananas?'.

Bruce was also a keen sportsman and took part in the annual tramway sports with success, winning events ranging from race walking to boxing. But it was as a wrestler that he earned his fame. He was a member of Hammersmith Amateur Wrestling Club, one of several who were selected for the GB team in 1908. He reached the second round of the heavyweight catch-as-catch-can (ie freestyle) wrestling contest.
   During WW1, being too old for military service, he left his tram duties to work as a hospital auxiliary for the British Red Cross. Then, after the war he continued as an Inspector before opening a newsagent shop. He died in Sutton aged 82 in 1958. 

There remains one significant mystery about Louis Bruce: the circumstances of his birth, including the identity of his father. 
   He has a complicated family background. His mother was Jane Elizabeth Mortimore (1842-1925) who married Henry Doney, a cab proprietor, in Plymouth in 1862. They had six daughters in quick succession before Henry died in 1870 aged just 33.
   In the 1871 census, the newly-widowed Mrs Doney had four daughters with her in Plymouth, while the other two were staying nearby with her mother and sisters. There is nothing to indicate Jane Doney had ever been outside Devon before, but four years later she was in Edinburgh, giving birth to an illegitimate son. What took her to leave her family and travel to Scotland is unknown, although she described herself on the birth certificate as a Lady's Nurse.
   The full name given to the boy was Louis Bruce McAvoy Mortimore or Doney. His father was not named but, assuming the mother was white, he must have been black. 
   The place of birth was Paradise Cottage in Morningside, which was then a growing suburb at the southern edge of Edinburgh. It was close to the entrance to the Royal Edinburgh Asylum but there is nothing to link Jane Doney with the institution - neither she nor any potential father is named on their staff lists.
   The assumption must be that Jane took up a job as a Nurse and, despite the need to leave her daughters behind, that job somehow took her to Scotland where she had the relationship that led to Louis being born. She spent at least several weeks in Edinburgh as the birth was not registered until February, but then appears to have returned to Plymouth as she remarried there in 1879; she had another son with her new husband, Richard Dingley Hobbs. Louis, meanwhile, was now using the surname of Bruce, and was brought up in the village of Plympton St Mary by his grandmother and aunts.
   The only clue to the identity of his father comes from Louis' marriage certificate, where he named him as William King Bruce, medical practitioner. So far, all attempts to identify this man have failed, so perhaps this was a false name, or someone who was only briefly in this country. There is also a mystery about the origin of Louis' other given name, McAvoy, as there is nobody of this name in his mother's family, so again one can only speculate. 
   While the search for the full story of Louis Bruce continues, his discovery as a pioneering black athlete is yet another example of sports history having to be rewritten. 

Louis Bruce, Olympic wrestler
Born 17 December 1875 in Edinburgh
Died 31 March 1958 in Sutton

A headless corpse on a railway line. A fatal head injury in a football match. A soldier killed on active service.
   Three deaths, in different decades, and all relate to the same man: Claud Lambie, Scottish footballer. Twice his demise was mistakenly reported in the press, but there was no doubting the outcome when it finally came on a summer's night in 1921. He found a deserted spot on a suburban railway line and lay down in front of an approaching train to end his eventful life.
   Lambie is best remembered as the man who transformed Burnley Football Club in 1890. He joined a club which was rock bottom of the Football League, banged in enough goals to lift them to respectability, and maintained an average of a goal a game over the next season. Then he left as suddenly as he came, because of issues with drink and discipline.
   Born in Renfrewshire in 1867, Lambie and his family moved to Dennistoun in Glasgow’s east end when he was about 12. His first name was spelled Claud although it was widely reported with an 'e' at the end.
   Where he started his football career is not clear, it may have been locally with Shettleston, but he suddenly found himself at the centre of national attention aged 19, after he played for Clyde against Queen's Park in November 1886. A collision with Welsh international Humphrey Jones left him winded but he picked himself up and played until the end of the match.

However, a few days later the Glasgow papers reported the sensational news that Lambie had died of a 'brain fever', having complained of a sore head after the game and then deteriorating. The story was repeated all around the country, but almost as quickly the truth emerged that it was all a ghastly rumour. The press had to print a correction, confirming that Lambie was fine after all. He was even able to play in Clyde's next match that weekend, away to Hibs, no doubt bemused by the fuss. One paper even described him as 'the reported dead man'.
   Over the next four years he developed into a capable centre forward as he moved around various clubs. From Clyde he probably had a year at Arthurlie and then played for Shettleston and Glasgow Thistle. Later biographies stated he was selected for Renfrewshire, his birth county, and that appears to have been in 1888 while he was at Arthurlie.
   For all that Lambie was a decent player, it was something of a surprise when Burnley persuaded him to turn professional, but Burnley were desperate, having not won a single match all season. Their offer would have been hard to refuse, a signing fee of £40 on top of a wage of £2 10s a week, and in January 1890 he went south along with the Glasgow Thistle goalkeeper, Archie Kay.
   Although it took a few weeks for Lambie to find his shooting boots at Turf Moor, on 1 March he hit the jackpot as Burnley hammered Bolton Wanderers 7-0 to win their first league game of the season. Lambie was the star of the show, scoring a hat trick, also having two goals disallowed and hitting the post. Burnley went on to win four games in a row and Lambie finished as the club's top scorer with eight goals in seven appearances.

Then came the icing on the cake as Burnley won the Lancashire Cup for the first time, defeating the mighty Blackburn Rovers (who had just won the FA Cup) 2-0 in the final. The proud team posed for a photo with the trophy.
   It seemed Lambie could do no wrong as he was direct, forceful and just as good with his head as his feet, which earned him the nickname 'the Leap'. However, the summer of 1890 brought the first indication that all was not well with his personal life, as he was prosecuted before Burnley magistrates for drunkenness, although the case was ultimately dismissed.
   In the new season he continued his fine form at centre forward, knocking in the goals for Burnley with three hat tricks along the way, but in October the club suspended him for a fortnight for 'misconduct'. And although he was top scorer, they did so again in March which caused him to miss the last three league games.
   He went home to Glasgow where he took advantage of a Scottish FA amnesty for professionals (the game was still notionally amateur) and rejoined Clyde in time for their end of season fixtures. However, the press were not quick to notice that he was a shadow of his former self and Clyde's form in the 1891/92 season, with Lambie leading the attack, was utterly unpredictable. Incredibly, two league matches ended with a 10-3 scoreline: a thrashing of Vale of Leven in August and a humiliating defeat to Hearts in October. By then, Lambie was so far off the pace that Clyde showed him the door.
   He next popped up in the unlikely setting of Auchterarder in Perthshire, where he played a county cup-tie for Vale of Ruthven. Back in Glasgow he joined Glasgow Wanderers, a short-lived side in the Scottish Federation, and also played a Scottish Cup tie for Cowlairs against Celtic in January. This brought the comment: 'He has been under a cloud for some time and when at last he emerged from obscurity he did not create a very favourable impression, on the contrary he was far too fleshy and palpably unfit. He scored all the same.'
   With his fitness and form having deserted him he took drastic action: in March 1892 he joined the Army, signing a seven year term for the Highland Light Infantry.

​And remarkably, for a second time he was falsely declared to be dead. In April 1900 the Burnley Express reported that someone called Lambie was on the casualty lists in South Africa, and they had been informed that this was the famous centre forward. It took six months for the truth to be discovered, when another soldier reported he had seen Claud, alive and well. 
   When the war was over he was unscathed and came home to be discharged. Now a veteran, there was still time for a final piece of football action, playing for and coaching Auchterarder Thistle in 1902-03. Remarkably his team qualified for the Scottish Cup where they were drawn against Rangers, although he did not play in the 7-0 defeat at Ibrox.
   Settling back into mundane life as a joiner in Glasgow, he married Jessie McAlpine in 1904 but there were no children and she died ten years later. Distraught and alone, he went where the work was, and although his base was Glasgow there were frequent contracts south of the border.
   So it was in 1921 he was working in the Midlands. He turned up at a Burnley match in Leicester, which prompted the Burnley Express to remind its readers what transformative player he had been. Then during the summer, who knows what his state of mind was, but 54-year-old Claud was now out of work and decided to end it all.
   In the small hours of 22 July 1921 a railway guard reported a man walking on the main line from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. Then just after 3am a headless corpse was found near Galton Bridge in Smethwick; the head was some distance away.

He was identified by a former soldier who served alongside him in South Africa, and this time there was no doubt that Claud Lambie really was dead (although bizarrely some newspapers reported that the dead footballer was John Lambie, formerly of Queen’s Park and Scotland). His elder brother Robert came down from Glasgow to the inquest, which came to the inevitable conclusion that it was suicide.
   Even thirty years on he was still fondly remembered as one of Burnley's greatest players and the papers paid fulsome tributes to his goalscoring exploits. Sadly, this time, there was to be no retraction of the news of Claud Lambie's death.
 
 
Claud Lambie
Born 30 July 1867 in Barrhead, Renfrewshire to William Lambie and Ann Dunipace
Died 22 July 1921 near Galton Bridge, Smethwick, Staffordshire
 
Football career
Shettleston 1885-86 (unconfirmed)
Clyde 1886-87
Arthurlie 1887-88
Shettleston 1888-89
Glasgow Thistle 1889-90
Burnley Jan 1890-March 1891
Clyde May-Oct 1891
Vale of Ruthven Nov 1891
Glasgow Wanderers Dec 1891-Feb 1892
Cowlairs Jan 1892 (Scottish Cup tie)
Highland Light Infantry 1892-1902
Burnley Dec 1892 (four matches)
Clyde Dec 1894 (one match)
Auchterarder Thistle 1902-03
 
Honours
Renfrewshire v Dunbartonshire, 1888
British Army v London, 1894
Governor's Challenge Cup (Malta), 1896
 
NB there are references in the press to appearances for other representative teams including Renfrewshire, Glasgow and even reserve for Scotland but I have been unable to substantiate these.

Tom Brandon was one of the most prominent Scottish footballers of the 1890s, a powerful full back who was capped against England and won the FA Cup with Blackburn Rovers. Yet despite his rugged image he is remembered in a surprisingly unique way, as he must be the only player ever to have a dancing school named after him.
​   I write this on the 80th anniversary of his death, having uncovered the mystery of his life story. For years, Brandon was thought to have emigrated to the USA after losing a court case when he was shamed for abandoning his wife and son. However, there was no further trace of him and it was assumed he had died there. Quite by chance I found he had later returned to Scotland, and settled into a new life in Edinburgh, where he died in 1941. He was one of the last players to be discovered while I was researching The Men Who Made Scotland.
   Brandon was born in the Ayrshire mining village of Glengarnock, near Kilbirnie, in 1867. His Irish Catholic parents registered him as William but as he was known throughout his life as Tom I believe they added Thomas at his baptism. He had a fine football pedigree as his elder brothers Robert and James were also professionals on both sides of the border, as was a cousin called Harry, but Tom was the finest of them all. The family moved when he was very young to Kilbarchan in Renfrewshire, where he started his football career with local clubs Johnstone, Port Glasgow Athletic and St Mirren where he played alongside his brothers. 

​Tom was recognised as a talent early on and was selected several times for Renfrewshire from 1887, also winning the Renfrewshire Cup with St Mirren in 1888. He was considered the finest full back in Scotland when he was signed by Blackburn Rovers in 1889, who spent freely that summer to attract the best. Their investment paid off as Rovers won the FA Cup in 1890 but Brandon was discovered to be ineligible under the rules of the time, and after playing in every other game that season he had to be dropped for the semi-final and final.
   However, he did win an FA Cup medal in 1891 when Rovers retained the cup, beating Notts County in the final, and was selected for the Football League against the Football Alliance. By then, he had signed a controversial pre-contract agreement to move to Sheffield Wednesday, and part of the deal was him taking over the Woodman Inn.
   He returned to Blackburn in September to get married to Elizabeth Duckworth, whose sister had already married fellow internationalist George Dewar. Appointed club captain, he fulfilled two years with Wednesday then wanted to return to Blackburn in 1893 but his club refused to grant him a transfer, as they were entitled to do under Football League regulations. As a way out of the impasse he signed for Nelson, in the Lancashire League, until Wednesday caved in and took a fee for his transfer to Rovers in December – one of the earliest examples of a transfer fee, with the amount widely quoted (and then denied) as £150.
​   He made his international debut in 1896 when the SFA finally ended its policy of selecting only Scottish-based players, and Brandon was one of several to feature against England. Although he did well in a 2-1 victory at Celtic Park, it turned out to be his only cap as his life took an unfortunate turn.
   That summer he hit the headlines for the wrong reasons, as he was charged with persistent cruelty to his wife, who appeared in the witness box with a black eye and was duly granted a separation order and a weekly maintenance payment. Tom remained in Blackburn but his career was clearly waning, and he played his last match for Rovers in March 1900.
   He returned to St Mirren that autumn but within a month he was back in court, charged with arrears on maintenance for his wife and was sent to prison for one month with the option to settle the arrears. He chose the latter, made his last appearance for Saints in January 1901 and left the country. 

​He was soon reported to be living in Rhode Island, USA, and that was the last anyone heard of him.
   However, it appears that after the First World War he returned to Scotland to go back to work as a coal miner. He settled in central Edinburgh with his new partner, Mary Kemp, and while she called herself Mrs Brandon they never married. He lived with her and her family in Keir Street until his death. 

Unusually, the Brandon name lived on after his death. Mary Kemp had three daughters from her first marriage to William Morrison, and one of them was Betty, a talented dance teacher. When she set up a dance school in the 1930s she decided to name it after her mother's partner, so the Betty Brandon School of Dancing was founded. It became renowned as one of the best dance schools in Edinburgh for many years, and many hundreds of young girls and boys passed through its doors until at least the 1970s, little suspecting the footballer origins of the school's name.
   Tom Brandon rests in Warriston Cemetery, his gravestone lying flat after falling from its plinth. It is the last reminder of a man who made a lasting impact not just as a footballer but in other fields as well.


William Thomas Brandon
​Born  3 October 1967 at 136 Glengarnock, Ayrshire, to Robert Brandon and Eliza Smith.
​Died 24 November 1941 at 18 Keir Street, Edinburgh.

Edwin Oxley was one of Scotland’s leading rugby players in the 1930s, captain of Edinburgh side Heriot's FP, yet he was never capped by his country. According to some accounts, including his old school, the reason for this snub was that he was black.
   However, while he was undoubtedly discriminated against in a time of endemic racism, there is perhaps a more prosaic reason for his non-selection for Scotland: he was born in England. In fact, he spent the first 13 years of his life in Staffordshire before he was able to join his birth mother in Edinburgh.
   His father was James Oxley, a black medical student from Trinidad at Edinburgh University. While in Scotland he had a relationship with Isabella Nichol, the unmarried daughter of a local joiner, and when she fell pregnant she went far away to Burton-on-Trent to have the baby, presumably to avoid the inevitable stigma of an illegitimate child, and a black one at that.

Born on 4 May 1907 in a small terraced house in Burton, the infant Edwin was fostered to a local family, his foster mother Mary Lukin taking care of him until he was 13, while he attended school in the town.
   Meanwhile his parents did marry in Edinburgh early in 1910, using the Scottish system of 'marriage by declaration' but it appears to have been purely for practical reasons as six weeks later his father sailed for America, never to return. Dr James Edwin Tyndall Oxley, who had just graduated with first class honours in medicine, settled in Pennsylvania, where he married for a second time in 1919 (apparently without seeking a divorce) and raised another family. He died in 1927 of pneumonia.
   Edwin's mother, meanwhile, remained in Edinburgh and he finally joined her there in 1921, enrolling at George Heriot's, a fee-paying school. Clearly her financial circumstances had improved and it may be that the father sent money to cover the boy's education.
   At school he was given the nickname Sam, short for 'Sambo', which went unquestioned at the time and stuck throughout his life. He stood out as probably the only black pupil but, as an athletic and personable young boy, he fitted in well, and ended up captaining the school rugby team as well as playing for its cricket eleven.
   When he left school in 1927 it was a daunting time for a black man to enter adult life in Edinburgh. This was the year of the infamous 'colour bar' in the city, imposed by some bars and restaurants against African and Asian students. Although that racist ban caused such condemnation that it was soon withdrawn, it reflected a society where feelings about race could run high.
   It was little surprise that he stuck to the people he knew, and continued to play rugby with Heriot's FP. They were then one of Scotland's top sides, and were the country's unofficial champions in 1928 and 1929. A wing forward, he remained with the club throughout the following decade, captaining the team for three seasons and regularly praised in the media, but whenever representative sides were named, he was never in the mix.

It is easy to speculate that the Scottish Rugby Union, a notoriously reactionary body, would have baulked at the idea of picking a black man for Scotland. At the time, it was not the done thing to challenge the selectors, yet one wonders if they knew he was English-born and had a simple excuse at the ready.
   At the very least, he would have been a natural fit for the Edinburgh team in the annual inter-city clashes with Glasgow (and would not have been the first black player for Edinburgh, as James Robertson did so in the 1870s). But perhaps because the inter-city matches were seen as trials for the international team, he never got the nod.
   His only honour was being picked for a one-off Glasgow & Edinburgh Select which faced the All Blacks at Old Anniesland in October 1935. The match was narrowly lost 8-9 but although he did well he was not named in the next Edinburgh fifteen – 'a notable omission' according to one newspaper.

One area where Oxley excelled was Rugby Sevens, and he led Heriot's to a superb haul of medals in the prestigious Borders tournaments. With him in the team, they won at Jedforest three times, Melrose twice, Langholm four times, Hawick and Selkirk once each.
   He finally retired from the game in 1939 and was immediately taken onto the Heriot’s selection committee, retaining his link to the club for many years.
   Meanwhile he went into business as a commercial artist, running Oxley Studios in Cockburn Street, and his work sometimes turns up at auction. In 1947 he married Inga Peace, a fashion illustrator, and although they had no children they remained together until his death. Sadly, he died early in 1969, aged 61, after taking an overdose.

While Oxley's story is little known, thankfully he has not been forgotten, and the Heriot's School Magazine The Quadrangle recently published a lengthy article about him. They paid tribute to his achievements: "We know that Eddie Oxley was a great player who was undoubtedly deprived of an international career because he was black; that this charismatic man was a gifted artist and a creative and successful businessman. What we don't know is how he coped with and felt about the social mores of the time; with being a black man operating in, and apparently embraced by, polite Edinburgh society; a person patronised with what we now know as the 'casual racism' of his popular moniker 'Sam', and yet loved and revered by so many people."
   From my researches in recent years, it is clear that Eddie Oxley is just one example of Scotland's hidden history of black sportsmen and women, who overcame discrimination to make their mark in sport. I hope that bringing their achievements to a wider audience will inspire a greater appreciation of the challenges they faced, and I am convinced that there are more stories waiting to be uncovered.

Edwin James Oxley, rugby player.
Born 4 May 1907 in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Died 19 January 1969 in Balerno, Edinburgh.

After buying a copy of a rare football handbook, I was intrigued to find out more about the author and his other sporting books.
   The little volume by 'Straw Hat' on Rugby & Association Football was one of Dean's Champion Handbooks, which had attractive cover designs and were published to capitalise on the growing desire of the population to take up sport. They came out in the 1890s, and are now very difficult to find.
   'Straw Hat' was the pseudonym of James Jeffery, who had an interesting story as a talented sportsman who combined school teaching with journalism.

Jeffery, born in 1834, went to school in Clapham and then qualified as a teacher at Battersea Training College. In 1858 he was appointed as Assistant Master at Epsom College, where his duties included running the school cricket team and he probably also played football. He held the post until 1879 when he set up a private Preparatory School for the College, which he ran until about 1900. He died in Epsom in 1907.
   Meanwhile, he also carved out a career as a sports writer, initially concentrating on angling as 'Straw Hat' in the Licensed Victuallers' Gazette. His enthusiasm for sports must have appealed to Dean & Son Ltd of Fleet Street, who had started a series of sporting handbooks in the early 1890s based on previously published works about cricket, cycling and swimming. To expand their range, they employed Jeffery and he churned out several books including Football, Croquet, Tennis and Rowing, with an adaptation of the book on Swimming. The cheap editions sold for sixpence, while the hardbacks with colourful covers were a shilling.

Jeffery was not just an enthusiastic writer, he also tried to improve the sporting experience and invented various gadgets such as a new type of batting glove, a kind of cricket practice net, and a spinning reel for angling.
   While most of his book about football is about playing technique, he does provide an interesting anecdote about the early days of football before codification, describing a match played at Wimbledon in the 1860s when his team, which was a 'non-hacking club', came up against a school which did play the hacking game. I believe, from his description, that 'Josh' was the athlete GR (George Richard) Nunn, who was schooled at Epsom.

At the end of the day, James Jeffery was not a hugely important writer on sport, but his work in the Champion series does provide an interesting insight into the late Victoria era. And if nothing else, the attractive cover designs deserve to be appreciated by a wider audience.
   Illustrated below are three more of Dean's Champion Handbooks, on billiards, swimming and golf. The images come from dealer catalogues, so they are not particularly sharp.

There used to be a strict rule in British international football, that you had to be born in the country you would represent. That's why Scots such as John Goodall and Joe Baker played for England, while English-bred players such as Alex Donaldson and Jack Lyall were capped by Scotland. Until the agreement changed in the 1970s to allow parental birthplaces to be considered, very few slipped through the net - I wrote recently about the cases of Willie Watson and James McKee.
   However, there was one notable exception when the Scottish Football Association was quite happy to break the rule. Jimmy Wardhaugh of Hearts was capped twice for Scotland and nine times for the Scottish League despite a birthplace on the 'wrong' side of the border in Northumberland.
   Wardhaugh was a goalscorer supreme in the outstanding Hearts team of the 1950s, part of the 'Terrible Trio' alongside Alfie Conn and Willie Bauld. Known as Twinkletoes for his quick feet, he scored no less than 376 goals for the club, a record that stood until it was beaten decades later by John Robertson.
   Not surprisingly, Wardhaugh came into contention for international honours and his first call-up was for the Scottish League in January 1951. This prompted a lively debate in the press: was he really Scottish?

Wardhaugh himself confirmed he had been born in the hamlet of Marshall Meadows, the first settlement south of the Scotland-England border. He had moved to Edinburgh as a young boy and spent virtually all his life there, stating unequivocally: 'I am a Scot'. In football and geographical terms, however, despite spurious claims that the cottage where he was born was actually a few yards inside Scotland, there was no doubt about it: he was English.
   Then, to general surprise, George Graham, the Secretary of the SFA, weighed into the debate with a curious piece of logic. He told the press: 'The SFA does not work to a foot-rule or feel itself bound by a matter of a few yards which are debatably English or Scottish ground. We have always regarded the Tweed as the border. Berwick Rangers are a Scottish club - they are playing at Brechin in the Scottish Cup next Saturday. And Wardhaugh is a Scotsman who I can say quite categorically will be brought into the selectors' reckoning when future teams are being chosen.'
   George Graham, normally a pedantic stickler for rules, gave no explanation for this policy of blurred national boundaries. He also managed to contradict himself in his statement, as Berwick Rangers' home at Shielfield Park is actually south of the River Tweed, in Tweedmouth.
   However, there were no complaints from the FA about his eligibility, and Wardhaugh scored on his debut for the Scottish League, against the League of Ireland. Despite his goal-scoring prowess he had to wait a while to be selected for the full national team, and finally made his Scotland debut against Hungary at a packed Hampden on 8 December 1954. He was capped just once more, against Northern Ireland on 7 November 1956.
   Curiously, however, Wardhaugh was not born in Marshall Meadows, even though he claimed he was. Accounts of his life have always stated that was his birthplace, but they are all wrong. I recently ordered up his birth certificate and it clearly says James Alexander Douglas Wardhaugh was born on 21 March 1929 in Berwick itself, at 65 High Street (now named Marygate). This was the home of his mother's family, the Egans, who lived in a flat above a chemist shop; the building is still there although the business is now a charity shop. 
   Winniefred Egan had married Alexander Wardhaugh at Berwick Barracks in January 1928. Alexander, born in Tweedmouth, was a career soldier who had been in uniform since 1912 and was serving with the Royal Scots Greys, based at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh, by the time Jimmy was born. Winnie was born in northern India while her own father was serving there, and was brought up in Berwick.
​   When Alexander retired from the Army in 1933 the family remained in Edinburgh, where Jimmy was brought up and spent the rest of his life. ​There is nothing to indicate that the Wardhaughs ever lived in Marshall Meadows, although it is possible the mother and baby stayed there for a short time.

The SFA's recognition of Berwick as part of Scotland, for footballing purposes, appears to have been a one-off. Later internationalists to have been born in the town, Trevor Steven and Lucy Bronze, have played for England without any quibble. Also born in Berwick was Thomas Burn, who represented the 'Great Britain' football team in the 1912 Olympic Games; he played for the England amateur team yet his club side was London Caledonians.
   In Jimmy Wardhaugh's case, England's loss was Scotland's gain. There is nothing unusual today about an English-born player with Scottish connections playing for Scotland, but in the 1950s he was a unique exception, thanks to the SFA's loose grip of geography. 
   Although he only won two caps, Jimmy remains a legendary figure at Tynecastle. His goals and teamwork helped Hearts to win the Scottish Cup in 1956, the Scottish League in 1958, and two League Cups. After retiring in 1961 he remained in football as a journalist until his sudden death on 2 January 1978, aged just 48.


* With thanks for David Speed, historian at Heart of Midlothian FC, for his input.  I also recommend reading Tom Maxwell's book The Lone Rangers on the issue of nationality for a football fan in Berwick.

It's amazing what can turn up. This silver buckle, attached to its original belt, was presented in 1865 by the 14th Earl of Eglinton for competition by cricket clubs in Cunninghame, north Ayrshire. I believe this was the world's first knock-out cricket tournament, a distinction which has apparently not previously been recognised. 
   In fact the Earl presented three prizes that summer: a silver ball for the winners, the silver-mounted belt for the runners-up, and a cricket bat for third place. Having added the belt to my collection following a chance find on eBay, I decided to look into its history, and the wider sporting patronage of the Earls of Eglinton in the Victorian era. 

It was first announced in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald on 13 May 1865: 'CRICKET - The Earl of Eglinton has resolved to come out as a patron of this fine manly game and has intimated to the cricketers in the district of Cunninghame that he intends giving them three prizes, to be competed for annually.'
   The prizes attracted five local cricket clubs to enter the competition. It was an awkward number for a knock-out competition, but the ties were drawn and in the first round Ardeer beat Kilmarnock Junior on 3 June, then Kilwinning Monkcastle beat Kilmarnock Winton on 17 June, while Irvine Eglinton were given a bye. In the second round, effectively the semi-final, Irvine Eglinton beat Ardeer on 1 July while Kilwinning Monkcastle received a bye.
   This set up a final which was played on 22 July at the Earl's own cricket pitch at Eglinton Castle. Kilwinning Monkcastle took the honours, and the silver ball, by beating Irvine Eglinton by 45 runs after two innings.

There was still a need for a third place match, and Ardeer won the silver-mounted bat on 19 August, defeating Kilmarnock Winton by 17 runs.
   The Eglinton prizes for Cunninghame clubs continued each year until 1882 when the silver ball was won by Beith. by this time, there was no mention of a silver belt for the runners-up, and the current whereabouts of the silver ball is (I believe) unknown. 
   Hence the little belt and buckle, which I now own, appears to be Scotland's oldest surviving cricket trophy. There were earlier cricket cups in England, but only for direct competition between two teams. I can find no earlier instance of a knock-out tournament. 
   The original winners of the belt, Irvine Eglinton, had been founded in the town in 1858, and not surprisingly the club's patron was the Earl of Eglinton himself. The club was one of the leading sides in Ayrshire in the 1860s but had a chequered history, having to bounce back from losing its ground to coal mining in 1867 and then became homeless again in 1874, after which it was wound up.
   The 14th Earl was clearly a cricket enthusiast and delighted at the success of his tournament, so in 1867 he went one bigger and provided a trophy for the whole of Ayrshire (or more formally for Carrick, Kyle and Cunninghame). He had announced the previous summer that he would offer a silver cup, value £40, and the first edition of the competition attracted eleven entries. The first winners were Irvine Eglinton, defeating Ayr in the final. In succeeding years the winners always came from Ayr until Ayr CC won it three years in a row to take permanent possession of the trophy in 1875. It was in fact three trophies, a silver gilt claret jug with two goblets, all in the same velvet-lined box.
   The Eglinton Cup, still held by Ayr CC, came back into public view in 2017 when it took pride of place at a Scottish cricket exhibition within the Football Museum at Hampden Park. 

At that time, the Eglinton cup was hailed as the world's oldest cricket trophy but I think I can now dispute that claim by two years (although whether a silver belt can claim to be a trophy is another question).

While the 14th Earl, who died in 1892 aged 50, can be credited with creating the first cricket tournaments, it has to be said he was a sporting lightweight compared to his father, who had an extraordinary record of patronage that endures to this day.
   The 13th Earl of Eglinton (1812-1861) is perhaps best known for his extravagant Eglinton Tournament which he hosted in 1839. However his lasting legacy was in sport. Described as 'the generous patron of every manly exercise', over the following two decades until his death he lavished his wealth on a huge variety of prizes which encouraged sporting competition in Scotland and far beyond.
   His personal passion was horse racing and he kept a large racing stud, the greatest exponent being Flying Dutchman which won the Derby and the St Leger in 1849. The Earl also provided the Eglinton Cup at the Curragh racecourse in Kildare while he was Viceroy of Ireland.
   In bowls, he donated the Eglinton Gold and Silver Bowls for clubs in Ayrshire (1854) and the magnificent Eglinton Silver Jug (1857) for annual competition between Ayrshire and Glasgow. These are all still competed for today.
   In curling, he presented the Eglinton Jug in 1851 for Ayrshire clubs and it is also still going as a vibrant competition.
   In golf, the Earl was a founder of Prestwick Golf Club in 1851 and provided the silver belt which was won on the course by Willie Park at the very first Open Championship in 1860. It continued to be the prize for the winner of the Open each year until Tom Morris junior won it outright in 1871, and it was replaced with the famous claret jug. The belt now resides in the R&A World Golf Museum in St Andrews.

Those are the best known Eglinton trophies but he also provided a silver cup for Glasgow Regatta, a silver cup for shooting by the West of Scotland Volunteers, and a gold belt and quiver for Irvine archers. He founded the Eglinton Hunt and gave the Eglinton Hunt Cup to Ayr races. What is more, Eglinton Castle was superbly equipped with a rackets hall, a cricket pitch, a curling pond and a croquet lawn. Most of the castle is now ruins in the country park, but the rackets hall is a rare survivor, the oldest indoor sports building in Scotland.
   Overall the patronage of the 13th Earl of Eglinton helped to encourage Scottish sport in many fields. After his death, the 14th Earl was less extravagant but he still made a key contribution to cricket and I am delighted to have discovered one of his original prizes.