One hundred years ago today, on 3 May 1917, two Dunblane footballers were killed in action in the First World War.  They were among no less than 19 footballers from the town who lost their lives in the conflict, all of whom are are recorded in my book Come Awa' the Heather, the story of Dunblane Football Club.
   Lance Corporal David McInroy, who lived in Bridgend, was a stonemason on the Kippendavie Estate when he signed up to the Lothian Regiment of the Royal Scots in 1915. He had played for Dunblane Rovers, the juvenile team, and was also a member of the town's angling and curling clubs. He was killed in France aged 34, leaving his wife Jeanie and four children. His nephew James McInroy DCM had already been killed in 1915, so it was a second tragedy for the family.​ 

Private Hugh Bruce had been a forward for Dunblane FC for a decade up to 1912, and was described in his obituary as 'a prime favourite with the followers of the team, a most gentlemanly, cool and clever exponent of the game.' Also a stonemason, working for a local builder, he lived in Well Place and enlisted with the Black Watch in 1916. However, he was seconded to the Royal Scots Fusiliers and was killed by a sniper while working behind the lines. He was 35 years old and left a wife and four children.
   One hundred years on, the memories of Dunblane's fallen is kept alive, not just by the ceremonies at the war memorial but also by the annual trips to the battlefields run by the High School.

One hundred years ago, a Doune man took part in one of the most famous raids of the First World War.
   James Morrison fought in an Australian uniform and is lauded as one of the ‘Black Anzacs’, yet he spent most of his life at Mains Farm in Doune, near Stirling, where he was born and died.
   As a young man, James worked on his father Peter’s farm and was also a talented footballer with his local amateur side Vale of Teith. They were good enough to give St Johnstone a hard fight in the Perthshire Cup final of 1907, which went to three replays before Saints won, and again in 1908.
   He played a few games for Dunblane, who were at that time a senior team, then returned to captain newly-formed Doune Castle to victory in the Perthshire Consolation Cup. The photo of the winning team from 1909 (above) has Morrison sitting proudly in the middle of the front row.
   With limited employment opportunities at home, he emigrated in 1913 in search of adventure, heading to Perth, Western Australia, where his uncle lived, and found work building the new Trans-Australia railway.
   When war broke out the call went out throughout the Empire for men to fight and he enlisted in March 1915.  Serving with the 28th Battalion of the AIF (Australian Imperial Force), he arrived at Gallipoli in September 1915 and was immediately pitched into action.
   The death toll of the Anzacs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) at Gallipoli was appalling, but Morrison’s life was saved by illness after a few weeks of heavy conflict. His army medical record shows that he was admitted to hospital on 13 November suffering from enteritis and dysentery, and was shipped out to Malta to recover. It took three long months before he was deemed fit again for active service, and as the conflict in Turkey was coming to an end he spent a further month in Egypt before embarking for a different front line, this time in France.

It was there that he took part in the first serious action by Anzac forces on the Western Front. On 6 June 1916, 73 Australian soldiers volunteered for a night raid at Armentieres. Crawling on hands and knees through no man’s land in the pitch dark, cutting their way through 40 yards of barbed wire, they waited for a pre-arranged covering barrage before jumping into the German lines. Rushing along the trenches, throwing bombs into each dugout, they killed a number of men and took several prisoners, before withdrawing. It was all over in minutes.
   Although two of the raiders were killed in a retaliatory barrage (including another Scot, Duncan MacLeod, born near Nairn), the raid was heralded as a success and gave a much needed boost to morale after the horrors of Gallipoli. The press seized the opportunity, dubbing the solders the ‘Black Anzacs’ as they had blackened their faces with burnt cork for camouflage. The authorities were equally keen to celebrate some good news, and as a reward, the soldiers who took part were invited to the AIF headquarters in Westminster, where they were served strawberries and cream.
   While most of his battalion had to satisfy themselves with a short leave in London, Morrison took the opportunity to head north to Doune, where he was given a rapturous reception. He brought with him an Australian comrade, John McHugh (who would die of wounds the following year).
   Morrison travelled home on leave again before the end of the conflict but spent most of his three years living on the front line. The places where he fought read like a catalogue of the First World War: Poizieres, Ypres, Ancre, Bapaume, Passchendale, Amiens, Somme and many others, yet when the conflict ended, astonishingly, he was virtually unscathed.  Promoted to Corporal, he suffered his only wound at Morlancourt in the summer of 1918 but remained at his post.
   Demobilised in 1919, James decided not to return to Australia and came back to Doune where he assisted his elder brother William on the family farm. When William died suddenly two years later, James took over the tenancy and settled back into peacetime life as a member of the kirk session at Bridge of Teith Church, and was president of the town’s bowling club.
   Doune’s quiet war hero died in 1941, having gone full circle, in the very farmhouse where he was born.

James Morrison
Born 1 May 1887
Died 7 December 1941
 
The story of the ‘Black Anzacs’ is told by Australian historian Doug Walsh on his website, http://blackanzacs.org.au/ and he has also recently written a book on the raid.

You can read about football in Doune on the Doune Castle AFC website.

When researching the lives of footballers, I have come across some fascinating tales but few can match RW Neill, who captained Scotland to victory over England in 1880 (above) and won the Scottish Cup four times with Queen's Park.
   Late in life he vanished from his Glasgow home and covered his tracks so successfully that his wife declared herself a widow and remarried. Yet Neill was not dead, he was in Australia and so much alive that he tried to fight for the Anzacs.
   For much of his life, Robert Walker Neill was a fairly typical Queen's Park player: born in 1853, son of a head teacher in the southside of Glasgow, he pursued a career as a commercial agent for an engineering company. In the 1880s he spent a couple of years in South America, and married Janet Johnston on his return.
   His football career was exemplary and he was described in the Scottish Football Annual as 'one of the finest backs Scotland ever produced'. That was in 1880, the year in which a knee injury in the Glasgow Charity Cup final - when he captained QP to victory over Rangers - ended his playing days. 

   He and his wife had four children, although only two survived to adulthood, and they lived in Shawlands. In the 1911 census the family are at 106 Kilmarnock Road in Shawlands, and he is described as a 58-year-old machine maker and employer.
   Then something happened. There is nothing in the press about his sudden departure, but indications are that he simply walked out. A year later he arrived on the SS Monaro in Fremantle, Western Australia, where he found work as a 'station hand', in other words a general labourer. He had no financial resources and lived in the Salvation Army 'Palace'.
   When the War broke out, there was of course a major recruitment drive for the Anzac forces. Neill was in his sixties, far too old: the normal upper age limit was 45, although for those with mining and engineering experience an exception was made for those up to 50. However, on 17 May 1917 he walked into the recruiting office at Blackboy Hill camp, near Perth, declared himself to be 48 years old with no next of kin, and signed on the dotted line. His attestation papers are available online.
   Private Neill passed the physical examination (despite needing extensive dental work) and was taken into the Mining Corps. He underwent his initial training before being appointed as a sapper on 31 July. Then a week later he was found out, and summarily discharged as over age. It was a brave attempt to join the war, and in fact he was not the only old man to try: several other Australians in their 60s actually kept up the deception and saw active service in Europe. For him, however, the war was over.

He went back to the Salvation Army hostel, and latterly worked as its caretaker. Meanwhile, back in Scotland, his wife Janet remarried in 1922 and declared herself a widow on the marriage certificate. Robert Neill, however, did not die until 1928.
   He was apparently well regarded in Perth, as his funeral at Karrakatta Cemetery drew a good crowd: 'The respect and esteem in which the deceased was held was demonstrated by the number of friends who attended at the graveside and the beautiful wreaths and floral tributes received' (Daily News). There also seems to have been no knowledge of his family back home, as a series of probate notices appeared in the local press.
   Unanswered questions remain about Robert Neill.Why did he leave? Did his family ever find out what happened to him? Only now, with the digitisation of records, has it been possible to track down the man who disappeared.


The younger brother

As a postscript to RW Neill's story, it is also worth highlighting his brother Quintin, another prominent footballer.
   There were actually seven brothers in the family, and Quintin was 13 years younger than Robert. However, he started on the same path and joined Queen's Park in 1886, becoming a first team regular two years later. Then in December 1888 something unprecedented happened: 'for the first time in their existence, the QP have had to submit to the English agent'. To general shock, he turned professional with Lincoln City.
   In Lincoln, Quintin Neill worked as an accountant while captaining the football team and was considered as one of its finest early players. In 1894 he was awarded a benefit match against Burnley, but at the end of the year he went to South Africa to set up in business. He joined the Durban Light Infantry as a volunteer, then when the Boer War broke out he became a Trooper with Driscoll's Scouts. Sadly, he died of fever in a Durban hospital and is buried there.

Curiously, he has been wrongly identified in some reference books which call him Quentin Durward Neill - Quentin Durward was the name of a Walter Scott novel. However, he was actually Quintin Dick Neill, named after his father's lawyer in Glasgow, called Quintin Dick.

Robert Walker Neill: born Glasgow, 4 August 1853; died Perth, Western Australia, 19 August 1928.
Quintin Dick Neill: born Glasgow, 16 April 1866; died Durban, South Africa, 9 August 1901.

While the story of the Hearts footballers who went to war in 1914 is well known, and rightly so, another important side to the City of Edinburgh's support for football during the First World War has received little publicity.
   In this centenary year, I have digitised The Sport in War, an account of the extraordinary campaign which raised enough money to send 1,700 footballs to British soldiers, sailors and prisoners of war. This little-known booklet was published in 1930 by John McCartney, who was manager of Hearts throughout the conflict. Having retired the previous year, he turned his hand to writing and also compiled a history of the Scottish Football League.

You can read the booklet in full on my Sporting Anthology page, but it is worth pointing out some key elements. The story began early in the war when Heart of Midlothian FC received some letters from troops requesting footballs for their free time. The club could not cope with the demand so a charitable campaign was set up by the Edinburgh Evening News to raise money for balls, which could be sent on request to anyone in the armed forces, whether serving or imprisoned.
   No doubt some of these footballs were kicked during the famous Christmas truce of 1914, and the campaign continued throughout the war, battling at times against bureaucracy but managing to reach some extraordinary places, as far away as Mesopotamia and Palestine. There are quotes from letters of thanks, not just from ordinary servicemen but from Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, General Joseph Joffre and other high-ranking soldiers - all testament to the boost to morale that a football could bring.
   There were players from Hearts and Hibs among the many recipients, and a Sgt McCready of the RAF summed up the mood when he wrote "Our English mates can't understand how you not only send footballs, let alone of such quality. Their clubs don't respond. I told them they could expect nothing else from the Capital of Scotland. We were very tired when the ball came, but it was just the thing to brighten and revive us."
   McCartney said: "We set out to prove generally that the spirit of sport in the Soldiers and Sailors of the Allied Forces brought about the downfall of the Central Powers. We claim to have succeeded, even although a great part of our story is bound up in and around the City of Edinburgh."

   John McCartney spent a lifetime in football. From humble origins in Glasgow, where he was born in 1866, he had a fairly unremarkable playing career with Cartvale, Glasgow Thistle, Rangers, Cowlairs, Newton Heath, Luton Town and Barnsley. At Oakwell he stepped up in 1901 to become secretary/manager and found his metier. He joined St Mirren in 1904 and took them to their first Scottish Cup final, then joined Hearts in 1910, spending a decade at Tynecastle. He went south in 1920 to Portsmouth, taking them from the Southern League to the First Division, and concluded with two years at Luton where he fought back from a leg amputation before ill health ultimately forced his retiral. He died in Edinburgh in 1933.

Postscript: the story of the footballs has been picked up by the Evening News.

   The distinctive clock tower was recently restored to near its original position after Edinburgh's notorious tramworks were completed. A big crowd is expected this weekend at Haymarket (details on the Hearts website) but when it was unveiled in April 1922 by the Secretary of State for Scotland an extraordinary 50,000 people were in attendance. This is how Aitken Brown viewed the memorial:

   Football in Verse is a flimsy book and few copies have survived, but I will try and digitise my copy at some stage. Meanwhile, it is available in the National Library of Scotland.

In September 1914, Dunblane FC was due to play a Scottish Qualifying Cup tie against Tulloch but was unable to raise a team. 
   The decision to scratch from the competition, and indeed to undertake no further matches that season, was reported in the local paper with a glow of pride: 'Well played Dunblane!' said the Perthshire Advertiser. 'No football will be played at Duckburn Park this season. Nearly all the players on the club's books, not forgetting the officials, have resolved to serve their King and country in the present emergency.'
   No-one could have foreseen was that this would be the end of the club known as 'The Heather', not just for the war, but for ever. At least a dozen former players lost their lives in the conflict and Dunblane, which had been one of the county's most successful clubs, would never play a match again. 
   Since its formation in 1876 by local schoolboys, Dunblane had won the Perthshire Cup no less than 12 times; only St Johnstone had a better record. However, the club had declined in the professional era and there were dire forecasts in the summer of 1913: the annual meeting of the club showed a deficit of £16, and there were so few nominations for the committee that its future was said to be in doubt. The deficit was cleared by holding a cycle parade at Duckburn Park but it was a short term fix and it is quite possible that the club would not have lasted much longer in any case.
   The signing-up of the players and officials en masse took a heavy toll. In June 1915 it was reported that 'between thirty and forty past and present members of Dunblane FC are in service at present'. By 1918, the Stirling Observer wrote that a whole team had been lost, mostly with the Black Watch. Of those who were killed, the best known was Robert Main Christie, former Scotland internationalist and President of the SFA, killed in a mustard gas attack in 1918. Another well-known name was William Eadie, a goalkeeper who won the Perthshire Cup with Dunblane in 1906 and had also played for Queen's Park, St Mirren, Partick Thistle and East Fife. The others included the town postman, Peter Gardiner, and 38-year-old John Bayne who had served in the South African war and was a former player with Reading and St Johnstone. 
   Here is a list of all those known to have been killed in action:

Pte Alex McKay, Black Watch, killed 1 April 1915
Sgt William Eadie, Canadian Infantry (Alberta Regiment), killed 23 April 1915 
Pte John Bayne, Black Watch, killed 21 July 1915
Pte James McInroy DCM, Black Watch, killed 26 Sept 1915
Sgt-Major Peter Gardiner, Black Watch, killed 30 July 1916
L/C William Crawford, Black Watch, killed 19 October 1916
L/C David John McInroy, Royal Scots, killed 3 May 1917
Pte Hugh Bruce, Black Watch, killed May 1917
Pte Thomas Cullen, Black Watch, killed 26 September 1917
Pte John Waller, Black Watch, killed 10 December 1917
Pte John Strang MM, London Post Office Rifles Regt, killed 23 April 1918
Major Robert Main Christie QM, Labour Corps, killed 15 May 1918.

After the war, there was no prospect of the original Dunblane FC getting back off the ground. However, the local juvenile club, Dunblane Rovers, stepped up to the junior leagues, and they too played at Duckburn Park. Probably the highlight of their short existence was a 4-0 victory in 1931 over a strong Rangers side, in a fund-raising friendly. However, Rovers also struggled to draw crowds and ironically they closed with the outbreak of the Second World War.
   While it is still my intention to write a full history of 'The Heather', and more information will surely follow, it is important to mark this, the 100th anniversary of the demise of Dunblane's football club and the sacrifice of its players.

Sometimes an autograph book has a sad story to tell, and this was really poignant: I found this photo of the Edinburgh Academy rugby team from 1914, taken at the start of term just after the Great War broke out. Opposite the photo are the signatures of the players, all of whom joined up to fight straight from school. 
   The attrition rate was high, as six were killed in action: they included an early victim of the Red Baron, the Dux of the school, and a boy killed within days of his brother. Four more were wounded and only six came through unscathed.
   I have now donated the autograph book to the school in the hope they can use it for research and education. Here is a look at the sixteen players in the squad, starting with the fallen:

Andrew Blyth McCulloch Bogle (Lieutenant, Royal Scots) Killed on 14 July 1916 at Delville Wood, he is buried in Quarry Cemetery, Montauban.

William Graham Notman (2nd Lieutenant, 3rd Highland Light Infantry) Dux of the school, he was killed on 13 August 1916 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, also on a family grave in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery.

Thomas Arthur Ritchie (Lieutenant, East Lancs Regiment) Missing, presumed killed in action on 18 October 1916.

Ian Gilmour Cameron (2nd Lieut, Cameron Highlanders, attached to Royal Flying Corps) Shot down on 9 November 1916 by Manfred von Richthofen, the ‘Red Baron’, over the Somme at Beugny.

[Thomas] Ian [Thomson] Sloan (2nd Lieutenant, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders) Killed during an attack at Roeux on 23 April 1917. He was a piper in the school band and the Ian Sloan Cup, commissioned by his brothers, is awarded to this day as a piping trophy at the Academy.

James MacLaren (Captain, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders) Having survived a gas attack at Ypres in 1915, he was killed on 21 November 1917 during the Battle of Cambrai, just two days after his brother William.

Four were wounded:

Patrick Millar Matthew (Lieutenant, Royal Field Artillery) Invalided out after being wounded and gassed in 1917, suffering from shellshock. He took over the Victoria India Rubber Company from his father and died in 1977.

John Lindsay (Captain, Black Watch) Captain of the rugby XV and also a member of the cricket XI, he was son of a minister in Bathgate. Joined Black Watch in 1915, won the Military Cross, and was wounded and taken prisoner in 1918. Died 1972.

John Hyndford Carmichael (Lieutenant, A&S Highlanders) Wounded in France 1918, awarded the Military Cross, he remained in the army, serving in India until his retirement as Lt Col. Died 1968.

Alan Dunlop Foster (Lieutenant, King's Own Scottish Borderers) Captain of the XV in 1915/16 he was commissioned in the KOSB on leaving school and was wounded in France 1918. Went to Durham University where he played in the cricket and rugby teams, and spent most of his career on hydro-electric schemes in Iran, dying there in 1948.

The remaining six all came through the conflict without injury:

William Playfair Vassie (Captain, Black Watch) Later a poultry farmer in Essex, he died in 1945.

Claude William Macgregor (Lieutenant, Royal Navy) Remained in the Navy after the war, becoming a Commander. Died 1956.

Alan Daniel Mackinlay Gordon Laing (Lieutenant, 114th Mahrattas, attached to RAF). Qualified as MRCVS (vet) and emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand. Died 1975.

Henry Munro Somerville (Lieutenant, Royal Scots) Won the Military Cross. Became a Chartered Accountant in Leeds and died in 1977.

Thomas Gibson (Captain, Tank Corps) Qualified as Doctor of Science (in agriculture), died in 1973

George Alexander Bain (Captain, 3rd Gurkhas) Remained in the army, rising to Brigadier, made an OBE. Retired to Chagford, Devon and died in 1982, the last survivor of the team.

Edinburgh Academy was, of course, not alone in losing so many young sportsmen. Here is a story about its counterpart in Glasgow: http://www.glasgowacciesrfc.com/glasgow-academicals-1st-xv-1913-14/ 

In the initial rush for everyone to ‘do their bit’ on the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, many unofficial units were quickly set up around the country. Of particular interest to sports historians is the Athletes’ Volunteer Force, formed by sporting journalists in London just ten days after the outbreak of war.
   The inaugural meeting on Friday 14 August was chaired by Henry Batty-Smith, editor of The Sportsman, and a four-page recruiting leaflet was printed the following day. In its appeal to cricketers, cyclists, football players, rowing men, athletes, golfers and swimmers, it clearly states that it is for men not eligible for the regular army, the territorials or any other recognised force; the AVF was never designed for active service, but for home defence, hence its emphasis on drill and rifle shooting.
   The initiative quickly gained nationwide support, with several hundred branches formed throughout the country, and was amalgamated in 1916 into the Central Association of Volunteer Training Corps.
   The AVF organisers mentioned inside have strong sporting credentials. Its President was the Earl of Lonsdale, Hugh Cecil Lowther (1857-1944), a well-known aristocrat, founder of the National Sporting Club and later a director of Arsenal.
   National Honorary Organising Secretary was Thomas Albert Edge (1863-1929), a racehorse owner and cyclist, while the organising secretary for London and the Home Counties was Samuel Robert Noble (1861-1921) who has been General Secretary of the National Cyclists Union since 1896. A section on drill was written by retired Brigadier-General Noel Lake (1852-1932) of the Royal Engineers.
   Members of the AVF could wear its distinctive enamel badge which is now an affordable collectible, and can be picked up for around £15 on ebay. The one illustrated here, still with its original box, was made by WJ Carroll of Fenchurch Street, London, and there are other versions by makers such as Fattorini.

The illustrated poem by Leo Munro, a sports journalist and artist, sums up the mood:

Manhood of Britain, our country is calling
Put by your toys, for no longer ‘tis play
Ours will be no shirking while comrades are falling
Rally we now, and let ours be “the day”.

Prove we the lessons our clean sports have taught us,
The pluck that endures and the scorning to yield,
No matter the strength of the foemen who fought us –
That was the spirit that won us the field.

That was the object of sport as a training,
Each for his side, none for personal fame.
Prove now its value, give all uncomplaining,
Give for your country, though sterner the game.

There is a growing body of literature and research into sport during the First World War, and an excellent addition is this excellent new book by Alan Brown, World War One and Scottish Football.
   The Ayrshire-based researcher has put together a comprehensive review of senior football from 1914 to 1919, much of it published for the first time. Alongside a commentary of major events, there are full team lines and goalscorers for every Scottish League match (note that the Scottish Football League continued during the conflict, unlike the situation in England), as well as local cup competitions. He has identified over a hundred professional footballers with a Scottish connection who were killed in the conflict, with a short biography of each.
  The book is A4 with 120 pages and costs £10 plus £2 postage direct from the author. Full details here: http://scottishfootballhistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/book-advertisement.jpg