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Scotland's attempt to mimic the Corinthians

20/9/2013

2 Comments

 
I'm always intrigued by little discoveries about Scottish football, things I wasn't aware of before. I recently stumbled across this little announcement in the Dundee Courier on 23 April 1896 about the formation of a new football club which, frankly, I knew nothing about:
   A New Amateur Organisation - A new combination of amateurs has just been organised by Mr R Smellie, Queen's Park; T Devlin, ex-treasurer SFA; and other gentlemen. It is intended to run the club on the lines of the famous Corinthians, without interfering with the desires of players to play for their own clubs. A good start has been made, and over thirty players have already signified their intention of joining. On Saturday first the team, to be known as the "Scottish Amateurs" will make their debut at Helensburgh, where they tackle the local combination of that name. The following will play for the Amateurs:- Anderson (Dunoon); Graham (West of Scotland Rugby FC) and Smellie (QP); Robertson (St Bernards and QP), Jones (Blair Lodge and QP); and D Stewart (QP, who has now completely recovered); A Stewart (Third Lanark and QP),W Berry (QP), Gray (Motherwell), Howie (QPS), and Cooper (Blair Lodge and West of Scotland Rugby FC). Among others who have thrown in their lot are Waddell and Sillars (QP).
   It is an impressive, if eclectic, list of recruits, including several Scotland internationalists as well as Humphrey Jones of Wales, who was teaching at Blair Lodge school in Polmont.
   Following their fortunes is hit-and-miss as, being an amateur side only playing friendlies, not all their results are reported and team lines are rarely given. But while the Scottish Amateurs never reached anything close to the fame of the Corinthians, they did keep going for a number of years, possibly up to the outbreak of the First World War.
   

2 Comments
John Meffen link
20/9/2013 01:40:07 pm

Andy, I had always assumed that the Scottish Amateurs that played several matches against Club sides [there are reports of matches v Falkirk, East Stirlingshire & King's Park in the Falkirk Herald] in the late 1890s were trial matches for the Scottish Amateur national side. I will have to go back and look at the playing members of the teams.

Interesting - John

Reply
Graham Crowe
28/8/2021 01:50:43 pm

(this seems to be the most appropriate place to ask) Andy, do you have any further info on the 'other' Robert Smellie who played for Sunderland? All I have been able to confirm is that they are not the same same man, as both played for different teams on the same day on a few occasions. Unfortunately the useful StatCat site has the QP player's personal info for the Sunderland player so no clue there, and while there are team photos from 1892-93 I haven't been able to identify the correct player (i think it was either the whole squad without names, or the most common starting XI with names which didn't include him). Have not been able to find any press reports on him despite his role in a title winning team!

I think many have assumed that as an amateur, the QP guy could float between teams, and while that's true to an extent I don't think the club would have accepted someone playing in the 'mercenary' English league (even with amateur status) then going back to play for them when it suited him?

Any clue on other clubs, origins etc would help me to piece together a short story for him so I can extract his stuff from that of the internationalist.

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    All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell, who is researching Scottish sport on a regular basis.