SPORTS HISTORY BLOG
Over 250 articles on all aspects of Scottish sport
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Dunblane FC with the Perthshire Cup in c1889, including WW1 casualty Robert Christie (back, second left)
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.
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.
- Published on
Eadie Fraser (1860-1886), one of the most celebrated Scottish footballers of the Victorian era before his premature death
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog about the footballer Eadie Fraser; this was spotted by a distant relative of the player who contacted me with some extraordinary information: he had the player's diary, letters and photos. Consequently, I have pieced together this tragic story of the player's life and early death.
Early in 1886, Reverend Alex Miller hurried to a Sydney hospital where he had heard a family friend from Scotland lay dying. He was too late. The young man called Eadie Fraser had already passed away, and the minister could only undertake the sad task of conducting the 25-year-old’s funeral, before writing to his family - news which took six weeks to arrive.
With this death in Australia, Scotland lost one of her most gifted footballers. The precocious talent known as ‘Graceful Eadie’ had broken into an exceptional Queen’s Park team as a teenager and won five Scotland caps along with two Scottish Cup medals. “His movements were perfect,” wrote the club historian. “His popularity was extraordinary. On the field and off it he was a thorough gentleman, and never descended to those tricks which tend to bring the game into disrepute.”
The recent rediscovery of Fraser’s personal diaries has shed new light on a short but extraordinary life that spanned four continents: born in Canada, he grew up in Scotland, went to work in Nigeria and died in Australia.
Born in 1860 to a deeply religious family in Ontario, where his father John (originally from Grantown-on-Spey) was a Presbyterian minister, he was named after Dr John Eadie, a professor of biblical literature. Two years later he came to Scotland when his father took charge of a congregation in the Gorbals.
Young Eadie started out in football with Kerland, a team in Crosshill, and at 18 was invited to join Queen’s Park. After making the Glasgow select team he won his first cap for Scotland against Wales in 1880 and further international honours followed as he enthralled spectators with his effortless dribbling down the left.
Early in 1886, Reverend Alex Miller hurried to a Sydney hospital where he had heard a family friend from Scotland lay dying. He was too late. The young man called Eadie Fraser had already passed away, and the minister could only undertake the sad task of conducting the 25-year-old’s funeral, before writing to his family - news which took six weeks to arrive.
With this death in Australia, Scotland lost one of her most gifted footballers. The precocious talent known as ‘Graceful Eadie’ had broken into an exceptional Queen’s Park team as a teenager and won five Scotland caps along with two Scottish Cup medals. “His movements were perfect,” wrote the club historian. “His popularity was extraordinary. On the field and off it he was a thorough gentleman, and never descended to those tricks which tend to bring the game into disrepute.”
The recent rediscovery of Fraser’s personal diaries has shed new light on a short but extraordinary life that spanned four continents: born in Canada, he grew up in Scotland, went to work in Nigeria and died in Australia.
Born in 1860 to a deeply religious family in Ontario, where his father John (originally from Grantown-on-Spey) was a Presbyterian minister, he was named after Dr John Eadie, a professor of biblical literature. Two years later he came to Scotland when his father took charge of a congregation in the Gorbals.
Young Eadie started out in football with Kerland, a team in Crosshill, and at 18 was invited to join Queen’s Park. After making the Glasgow select team he won his first cap for Scotland against Wales in 1880 and further international honours followed as he enthralled spectators with his effortless dribbling down the left.
Queen's Park, Scottish Cup winners in 1882. Back (from left): Archibald Rowan, George Ker, Eadie Fraser, Arthur Geake (Secretary), Andrew Watson, William Anderson, David Davidson; front: Andrew Hair Holm, Charles Campbell, John Leck Kay, William Harrower, James Tassie Richmond.
He even served as club secretary for Queen’s Park, but in the amateur age he also had to make a living and was offered a lucrative job in Africa with Miller Brothers, Glasgow-based traders in palm oil. He played his last match for the club in February 1884, a Scottish Cup semi-final victory over Hibs, and a few days later set sail for the Niger Delta (now in Nigeria), keeping a diary of his progress during the five week journey.
There was almost a party atmosphere on board the SS Benguela as a group of 18 young men headed for postings in the colonies, putting on light entertainments and playing deck games. Fraser was the only non-drinker which gave him at least one advantage on the voyage: “The chaps are all up and many of them are wishing they had been like me last night and they would have no headaches this morning.”
Stopping over on Madeira, he had a surprise encounter: “We were sitting on the roadside when two gentlemen on a bullock car passed us. I noticed one of them looked very hard at me. About a dozen yards further on the car stopped and the gentleman got out. He came back to us, and looking at me he asked “Is your name Fraser?” I felt astonished but said “It is”. “Is it Eadie Fraser?” he asked again. “Man, man, the last time I saw you was when your club the QP were playing against the Dumbarton at Boghead in the cup-tie last year”.”
There was almost a party atmosphere on board the SS Benguela as a group of 18 young men headed for postings in the colonies, putting on light entertainments and playing deck games. Fraser was the only non-drinker which gave him at least one advantage on the voyage: “The chaps are all up and many of them are wishing they had been like me last night and they would have no headaches this morning.”
Stopping over on Madeira, he had a surprise encounter: “We were sitting on the roadside when two gentlemen on a bullock car passed us. I noticed one of them looked very hard at me. About a dozen yards further on the car stopped and the gentleman got out. He came back to us, and looking at me he asked “Is your name Fraser?” I felt astonished but said “It is”. “Is it Eadie Fraser?” he asked again. “Man, man, the last time I saw you was when your club the QP were playing against the Dumbarton at Boghead in the cup-tie last year”.”
This engraving from the Pictorial World depicts the Dumbarton v Queen's Park cup-tie of 1883. A year later Eadie Fraser met one of the spectators in Madeira.
As the ship reached the west African coast, his fellow passengers were dropped off one by one at their posts, before it was his turn, greeted at the New Calabar river by the Miller Bros agent.
Fraser’s first impressions were positive: “Opobo is a very nice place, indeed it is the prettiest and healthiest of all the rivers on the West Coast. There are five factories on the one side of the river, and ours is the only one on this side. I make the third white man in the employment. We have a splendid dwelling house – it is very airy and has a splendid veranda all around it. The food is very good. I have a black boy to wait on me alone. He works from 6 in the morning until 6 o’clock in the evening and we rest on Sunday.”
The first year went well, his father sent him copies of Scottish Umpire to keep him up to date with football news, and in a lively letter home early in 1885 he talked of hosting a successful visit from the firm’s agent, Captain Hooper, who was “awfully well pleased with us and the way the business has been carried out”.
Ominously, he also mentioned the oppressive heat reaching 130 degrees F (54C) and he soon fell seriously ill with tuberculosis, returning to Scotland to convalesce in a nursing home, before being advised to try the dry climate of Australia to effect a cure. Queen’s Park and Rangers played a benefit match to send him on his way and in September 1885 he bade a tearful farewell at Greenock, seen off by his brother Bob (who, although not so talented, would later win the Glasgow Cup with Queen’s Park).
In stark contrast to his African trip, the three month voyage to Australia was a desperate trial as his health went downhill. The sole paying passenger on the cargo ship Ardmore, Fraser was utterly miserable and after catching a chill he collapsed, coughing up blood, and spent much of the trip in delirium, confined to his bunk, getting bedsores as he could only lie on one side.
He was taken straight to hospital on arrival where, reviving briefly, he wrote what turned out to be his last letter home: “I hope to be all right in a couple of months. I am in the finest hospital in Sydney, best attention medical and nursing,” he said, but made it clear he was worried about finance: “I am paying £1 a week and I have only £8 altogether so I badly require money.”
Even on the other side of the world, Fraser was well known and was visited in hospital by David Walker, chairman of the Sydney YMCA and a keen footballer, who then summoned a Presbyterian minister, Alex Miller, who had studied divinity with one of Fraser’s Queen’s Park colleagues, WW Beveridge. He came too late, and Miller had the sad task of returning the young man’s belongings to his family.
Miller also set up an Eadie Fraser Memorial Fund in Sydney to pay for a headstone at his grave, but the appeal failed to gather sufficient funds from local footballers; even a request for a contribution from Queen’s Park fell on deaf ears. Sadly, his final resting place in the city’s vast Rookwood Cemetery remains unmarked.
Fraser’s African adventure and the struggles of the final voyage might have remained unknown had it not been for the rediscovery of his diaries and letters by his great great nephew Alex Cochrane. While some of the originals are too fragile to handle, they have been transcribed: “They were copied to my mother from a North American member of the extended Fraser clan,” he said. “The final letter is the most poignant with a description of the awful time he had.” Mr Cochrane, who lives in Glasgow, also has photos of Eadie alongside some of the Queen’s Park greats.
The diaries bring home the tragedy of a brief but much celebrated life, which one contemporary sports writer summed up: “I question very much if any forward of that time exercised such a potent influence over the spectators, and no style of play was more followed by the younger dribblers than that of Fraser.”
Malcolm John Eadie Fraser
Born 4 March 1860 at Goderich, Ontario
Died 8 January 1886 at Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Fraser’s first impressions were positive: “Opobo is a very nice place, indeed it is the prettiest and healthiest of all the rivers on the West Coast. There are five factories on the one side of the river, and ours is the only one on this side. I make the third white man in the employment. We have a splendid dwelling house – it is very airy and has a splendid veranda all around it. The food is very good. I have a black boy to wait on me alone. He works from 6 in the morning until 6 o’clock in the evening and we rest on Sunday.”
The first year went well, his father sent him copies of Scottish Umpire to keep him up to date with football news, and in a lively letter home early in 1885 he talked of hosting a successful visit from the firm’s agent, Captain Hooper, who was “awfully well pleased with us and the way the business has been carried out”.
Ominously, he also mentioned the oppressive heat reaching 130 degrees F (54C) and he soon fell seriously ill with tuberculosis, returning to Scotland to convalesce in a nursing home, before being advised to try the dry climate of Australia to effect a cure. Queen’s Park and Rangers played a benefit match to send him on his way and in September 1885 he bade a tearful farewell at Greenock, seen off by his brother Bob (who, although not so talented, would later win the Glasgow Cup with Queen’s Park).
In stark contrast to his African trip, the three month voyage to Australia was a desperate trial as his health went downhill. The sole paying passenger on the cargo ship Ardmore, Fraser was utterly miserable and after catching a chill he collapsed, coughing up blood, and spent much of the trip in delirium, confined to his bunk, getting bedsores as he could only lie on one side.
He was taken straight to hospital on arrival where, reviving briefly, he wrote what turned out to be his last letter home: “I hope to be all right in a couple of months. I am in the finest hospital in Sydney, best attention medical and nursing,” he said, but made it clear he was worried about finance: “I am paying £1 a week and I have only £8 altogether so I badly require money.”
Even on the other side of the world, Fraser was well known and was visited in hospital by David Walker, chairman of the Sydney YMCA and a keen footballer, who then summoned a Presbyterian minister, Alex Miller, who had studied divinity with one of Fraser’s Queen’s Park colleagues, WW Beveridge. He came too late, and Miller had the sad task of returning the young man’s belongings to his family.
Miller also set up an Eadie Fraser Memorial Fund in Sydney to pay for a headstone at his grave, but the appeal failed to gather sufficient funds from local footballers; even a request for a contribution from Queen’s Park fell on deaf ears. Sadly, his final resting place in the city’s vast Rookwood Cemetery remains unmarked.
Fraser’s African adventure and the struggles of the final voyage might have remained unknown had it not been for the rediscovery of his diaries and letters by his great great nephew Alex Cochrane. While some of the originals are too fragile to handle, they have been transcribed: “They were copied to my mother from a North American member of the extended Fraser clan,” he said. “The final letter is the most poignant with a description of the awful time he had.” Mr Cochrane, who lives in Glasgow, also has photos of Eadie alongside some of the Queen’s Park greats.
The diaries bring home the tragedy of a brief but much celebrated life, which one contemporary sports writer summed up: “I question very much if any forward of that time exercised such a potent influence over the spectators, and no style of play was more followed by the younger dribblers than that of Fraser.”
Malcolm John Eadie Fraser
Born 4 March 1860 at Goderich, Ontario
Died 8 January 1886 at Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
Early in 1885, Eadie Fraser sent this letter home from Nigeria to his little sister Maggie
Article copyright Andy Mitchell; pictures copyright Alex Cochrane.
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As the first Scots-born Olympic gold medallist, Sandy Hall has outstanding credentials to be a national sporting icon. Yet this prolific goalscorer from Peterhead remains unheralded in his native land - because his greatest achievement came with a Canadian team.
The son of a whale fisherman, Alexander Noble Hall was brought up near Peterhead harbour but spurned the sea to earn his living by cutting granite. The hard physical work kept him fit and he played centre forward for his home town team, but there were few signs of the glory to come, an Aberdeenshire Cup final being a rare highlight.
That would all change when the young man travelled to Canada in 1901 in search of adventure, picking up work on construction projects. After a couple of years his stonecutting took him to Galt, west of Toronto, a small nondescript town which just happened to have the top football team in Ontario. With the added ingredient of Hall's goals, the Galt eleven would achieve an extraordinary triumph: Olympic gold.
The 1904 Olympiad in St Louis was the first where medals were awarded in association football, the winners recognised by the International Olympic Committee even though the competition was limited to just three teams from two countries. Galt defeated the University of Toronto for the right to represent Canada, then headed south to Missouri in exuberant fashion on the Grand Trunk Railway. They were backed by 50 supporters, including the town's mayor, who paid $10.70 each for the round trip on a special train decked in red and white.
Hall, the only non-Canadian in the eleven, scored a hat-trick in the opening match on 16 November, as Galt thrashed Christian Brothers College 7-0; the following day they defeated St Rose Parish 4-0. Without conceding a goal against these two local sides, the Galt players were duly declared Olympic football champions and trooped off to the Department of Physical Culture to be presented with gold medals. One of those precious prizes, won by fellow forward Fred Steep, is now on show at the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame.
The son of a whale fisherman, Alexander Noble Hall was brought up near Peterhead harbour but spurned the sea to earn his living by cutting granite. The hard physical work kept him fit and he played centre forward for his home town team, but there were few signs of the glory to come, an Aberdeenshire Cup final being a rare highlight.
That would all change when the young man travelled to Canada in 1901 in search of adventure, picking up work on construction projects. After a couple of years his stonecutting took him to Galt, west of Toronto, a small nondescript town which just happened to have the top football team in Ontario. With the added ingredient of Hall's goals, the Galt eleven would achieve an extraordinary triumph: Olympic gold.
The 1904 Olympiad in St Louis was the first where medals were awarded in association football, the winners recognised by the International Olympic Committee even though the competition was limited to just three teams from two countries. Galt defeated the University of Toronto for the right to represent Canada, then headed south to Missouri in exuberant fashion on the Grand Trunk Railway. They were backed by 50 supporters, including the town's mayor, who paid $10.70 each for the round trip on a special train decked in red and white.
Hall, the only non-Canadian in the eleven, scored a hat-trick in the opening match on 16 November, as Galt thrashed Christian Brothers College 7-0; the following day they defeated St Rose Parish 4-0. Without conceding a goal against these two local sides, the Galt players were duly declared Olympic football champions and trooped off to the Department of Physical Culture to be presented with gold medals. One of those precious prizes, won by fellow forward Fred Steep, is now on show at the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame.
Galt's 1904 gold medal winners (pictures courtesy canadasoccer.com)
Until then, the only athlete with Scottish connections to have won an Olympic title was strongman Launceston Elliot in 1896, but he was born in India and brought up in England. Sandy Hall thus became Scotland's first home-grown Olympic winner, and to this day remains our only footballer (the Great Britain gold medal teams of 1908 and 1912 were all English).
Yet when Hall returned home a year later, his Olympian status counted for little, and after a trial with Aberdeen reserves he picked up again for Peterhead in local amateur football. There the story might have ended but he was spotted by Edinburgh side St Bernard's, who liked his direct bustling style, and they offered him the chance to play professionally. He made a sensational start to his senior career at the age of 25, scoring a hat-trick against Dumbarton, and his goals in 1906/07 were a major factor in Saints winning the second division championship.
This scoring prowess brought him to the notice of bigger clubs, and there was none bigger than Newcastle United, who had just clinched the English first division title. They paid £200 to take him to Tyneside in 1907, and again he made an immediate impression with ten goals in three end-of-season tour games in Germany; but when it came to the rigours of the Football League he made little headway and played just six times, scoring twice. United were happy to sell him to Dundee before the season was out.
Again he made an early impact, netting a cup double against Aberdeen on his debut, but Hall was used only sparingly as cover for Dundee's established forward line, and had to be content with banging in the goals for the reserves. His chance to shine eventually came in the 1909-10 season with an extended run at centre forward, replacing first the ageing John 'Sailor' Hunter then George Langlands. Hall scored a hat-trick that saw off Motherwell in the Scottish Cup quarter-final; but after failing to find the net in the semi he was dropped for the final, cruelly missing out on Dundee's epic cup victory over Clyde. He played his part nonetheless, as a fixture backlog forced Dundee to play 12 games in April, and he turned out in several league matches to keep the stars fresh for the final. There was no medal for him, but Hall's role as understudy was acknowledged with a place in the cup-winning squad photo.
No sooner had the season ended than he was off to Portsmouth, where he was offered work as a stonecutter, but he failed to settle with just three goals as his team finished bottom of the Southern League. He returned to Scotland with Motherwell, ironically signed by their new manager John Hunter, who had taken Hall's place in Dundee's cup final team, but failed to find the net even once.
While playing success eluded him, Hall hit the headlines for a different reason in the summer of 1912 while visiting his mother in Peterhead. Hearing shouts that a boy was drowning, he ran down the harbour embankment, shed his clothes, and swam out against a strong current to save 5-year-old Alick McKenzie. Both the Carnegie Hero Fund and the Royal Humane Society recognised his bravery.
Yet when Hall returned home a year later, his Olympian status counted for little, and after a trial with Aberdeen reserves he picked up again for Peterhead in local amateur football. There the story might have ended but he was spotted by Edinburgh side St Bernard's, who liked his direct bustling style, and they offered him the chance to play professionally. He made a sensational start to his senior career at the age of 25, scoring a hat-trick against Dumbarton, and his goals in 1906/07 were a major factor in Saints winning the second division championship.
This scoring prowess brought him to the notice of bigger clubs, and there was none bigger than Newcastle United, who had just clinched the English first division title. They paid £200 to take him to Tyneside in 1907, and again he made an immediate impression with ten goals in three end-of-season tour games in Germany; but when it came to the rigours of the Football League he made little headway and played just six times, scoring twice. United were happy to sell him to Dundee before the season was out.
Again he made an early impact, netting a cup double against Aberdeen on his debut, but Hall was used only sparingly as cover for Dundee's established forward line, and had to be content with banging in the goals for the reserves. His chance to shine eventually came in the 1909-10 season with an extended run at centre forward, replacing first the ageing John 'Sailor' Hunter then George Langlands. Hall scored a hat-trick that saw off Motherwell in the Scottish Cup quarter-final; but after failing to find the net in the semi he was dropped for the final, cruelly missing out on Dundee's epic cup victory over Clyde. He played his part nonetheless, as a fixture backlog forced Dundee to play 12 games in April, and he turned out in several league matches to keep the stars fresh for the final. There was no medal for him, but Hall's role as understudy was acknowledged with a place in the cup-winning squad photo.
No sooner had the season ended than he was off to Portsmouth, where he was offered work as a stonecutter, but he failed to settle with just three goals as his team finished bottom of the Southern League. He returned to Scotland with Motherwell, ironically signed by their new manager John Hunter, who had taken Hall's place in Dundee's cup final team, but failed to find the net even once.
While playing success eluded him, Hall hit the headlines for a different reason in the summer of 1912 while visiting his mother in Peterhead. Hearing shouts that a boy was drowning, he ran down the harbour embankment, shed his clothes, and swam out against a strong current to save 5-year-old Alick McKenzie. Both the Carnegie Hero Fund and the Royal Humane Society recognised his bravery.
Sandy Hall's citation from the Carnegie Hero Fund
Back to the football, he joined Dunfermline, who had just been elected to the second division and needed experience up front. Hall rewarded their confidence with a Fife Cup victory in his first match and scored 18 league goals in his debut season. Also working as groundsman, he was into his third campaign with the Pars when war intervened and he signed up as an artillery gunner, travelling to the front to bombard the Germans. In a letter home, published in the Dunfermline Journal, he complained about squalid conditions and weak beer: "You can get a dozen into you and still belong to a temperance lodge." It was a tough existence and within months he became so seriously ill that he was sent home, suffering from rheumatic fever.
The war inadvertently revealed that his family life was quite a tangle. Hall and his partner Elizabeth Gibson had had three sons, but although each time they stated on the birth certificates that they were married, in fact they only tied the knot late in 1915, perhaps with the realisation that there would be dire financial consequences for her in the event of his death.
As it happened, he survived unscathed and after demob in 1919 was still fit enough to embark on a football swansong at home in Peterhead, coaching and playing well into his forties. However, while he won another winner's medal in the Aberdeenshire Charity Cup, the episode ended in farce in 1923 when most of his team refused to play Aberdeen in a Scottish Cup tie. They were upset at the club's decision to sell ground rights, and Hall led out a hastily-assembled makeshift eleven who suffered a record-breaking 13-0 thrashing at Pittodrie. It may have been a factor in his decision that summer to emigrate to Toronto with his family, this time for good.
As Sandy Hall faded into distant memory, his death in Canada in 1943 went almost unnoticed in Scotland, even in his native Aberdeenshire. Yet the first Scots-born Olympic gold medal winner retains a unique place in our sporting history, and deserves to be remembered as a local hero in the truest sense of the word.
Alexander Noble Hall
Born Aberdeen, 3 December 1880
Died Toronto, 25 September 1943
Football career
Peterhead 1898-1901
Buckie Thistle 1901
Toronto Scots 1902-03
Galt 1904
Westmount, Montreal 1905
Aberdeen A 1905
Peterhead 1905-06
St Bernard's 1906-07
Newcastle United 1907-08
Dundee 1908-10
Portsmouth 1910-11
Motherwell 1911-12
Dunfermline Athletic 1912-15
Peterhead 1920-23
Honours
Olympic gold medal 1904
Scottish Second Division Championship 1906-07
Lanarkshire Cup 1912
Fife Cup 1912, 1914
Aberdeenshire Charity Cup 1921
Carnegie Hero Fund award 1912
Royal Humane Society award 1912
Wartime service medals
Article copyright Andy Mitchell. With thanks to Les Jones, Colin Jose, Gordon Baird and the Andrew Carnegie Hero Fund Trust for their input.
The war inadvertently revealed that his family life was quite a tangle. Hall and his partner Elizabeth Gibson had had three sons, but although each time they stated on the birth certificates that they were married, in fact they only tied the knot late in 1915, perhaps with the realisation that there would be dire financial consequences for her in the event of his death.
As it happened, he survived unscathed and after demob in 1919 was still fit enough to embark on a football swansong at home in Peterhead, coaching and playing well into his forties. However, while he won another winner's medal in the Aberdeenshire Charity Cup, the episode ended in farce in 1923 when most of his team refused to play Aberdeen in a Scottish Cup tie. They were upset at the club's decision to sell ground rights, and Hall led out a hastily-assembled makeshift eleven who suffered a record-breaking 13-0 thrashing at Pittodrie. It may have been a factor in his decision that summer to emigrate to Toronto with his family, this time for good.
As Sandy Hall faded into distant memory, his death in Canada in 1943 went almost unnoticed in Scotland, even in his native Aberdeenshire. Yet the first Scots-born Olympic gold medal winner retains a unique place in our sporting history, and deserves to be remembered as a local hero in the truest sense of the word.
Alexander Noble Hall
Born Aberdeen, 3 December 1880
Died Toronto, 25 September 1943
Football career
Peterhead 1898-1901
Buckie Thistle 1901
Toronto Scots 1902-03
Galt 1904
Westmount, Montreal 1905
Aberdeen A 1905
Peterhead 1905-06
St Bernard's 1906-07
Newcastle United 1907-08
Dundee 1908-10
Portsmouth 1910-11
Motherwell 1911-12
Dunfermline Athletic 1912-15
Peterhead 1920-23
Honours
Olympic gold medal 1904
Scottish Second Division Championship 1906-07
Lanarkshire Cup 1912
Fife Cup 1912, 1914
Aberdeenshire Charity Cup 1921
Carnegie Hero Fund award 1912
Royal Humane Society award 1912
Wartime service medals
Article copyright Andy Mitchell. With thanks to Les Jones, Colin Jose, Gordon Baird and the Andrew Carnegie Hero Fund Trust for their input.
Sandy Hall (circled) with Dundee's 1910 Scottish Cup winning squad
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As regular readers of my blog will know, I am working on a new Who's Who of Scotland internationalists. The project is slowly making progress, and I am now down to just 20 footballers whose life details are still unknown (and for 12 of those I have a date of birth, at least).
A breakthrough this week came with the discovery of what happened to John Walker, a forward who not only won five caps for Scotland but was also a key player with Hearts, Liverpool, Rangers and Morton. He won two League Championships and the Scottish Cup with Hearts - (he is pictured above with the 1897 Hearts side, fourth from left in back row) but is perhaps most famous for scoring the goal that clinched Liverpool's first Football League Championship. His goal against West Brom on 29 April 1901, the final match of the season, secured a 1-0 win for Liverpool, who won the league by two points from Sunderland.
As with many players, the first challenge was that his widely-quoted date of birth (31 May 1874) is wrong. Thanks to Hearts historian David Speed, and with confirmation from SFA registers which provide his address in Woodend Rows, Torphichen, by Armadale, he was in fact born in Shotts on 24 August 1873. His parents were Thomas Walker and Elizabeth Reid.
John Walker started his football career in Armadale and signed for Hearts in 1893, moving to Liverpool with teammate Tom Robertson in 1898. They can both be found in the 1901 census, boarding with the Liverpool trainer, James Chapman, who had also come from Hearts (centre of back row in above photo). The following season Walker returned to Scotland with Rangers, and three years later ended his career at Morton.
What happened after that has long been a mystery, but after finding a reference in an Armadale history that said he settled in Canada, I had a new angle to follow. More searching finally turned up his name on a family grave (pictured below) in Woodend cemetery outside Armadale, just a stone's throw from where he was brought up. From that it can be confirmed that John Walker died on 17 February 1937 in the small community of Louise, Manitoba, where he had lived with his sister Lilias.
Finally, the record can be put straight for another famous Scottish footballer.
A breakthrough this week came with the discovery of what happened to John Walker, a forward who not only won five caps for Scotland but was also a key player with Hearts, Liverpool, Rangers and Morton. He won two League Championships and the Scottish Cup with Hearts - (he is pictured above with the 1897 Hearts side, fourth from left in back row) but is perhaps most famous for scoring the goal that clinched Liverpool's first Football League Championship. His goal against West Brom on 29 April 1901, the final match of the season, secured a 1-0 win for Liverpool, who won the league by two points from Sunderland.
As with many players, the first challenge was that his widely-quoted date of birth (31 May 1874) is wrong. Thanks to Hearts historian David Speed, and with confirmation from SFA registers which provide his address in Woodend Rows, Torphichen, by Armadale, he was in fact born in Shotts on 24 August 1873. His parents were Thomas Walker and Elizabeth Reid.
John Walker started his football career in Armadale and signed for Hearts in 1893, moving to Liverpool with teammate Tom Robertson in 1898. They can both be found in the 1901 census, boarding with the Liverpool trainer, James Chapman, who had also come from Hearts (centre of back row in above photo). The following season Walker returned to Scotland with Rangers, and three years later ended his career at Morton.
What happened after that has long been a mystery, but after finding a reference in an Armadale history that said he settled in Canada, I had a new angle to follow. More searching finally turned up his name on a family grave (pictured below) in Woodend cemetery outside Armadale, just a stone's throw from where he was brought up. From that it can be confirmed that John Walker died on 17 February 1937 in the small community of Louise, Manitoba, where he had lived with his sister Lilias.
Finally, the record can be put straight for another famous Scottish footballer.
Since writing this article, I have been made aware that there is a superb tribute to John Walker and his brother Thomas on the Military Museums of Calgary website. You can read it here:
https://themilitarymuseums.ca/mmural/51-100/074/m074.html
https://themilitarymuseums.ca/mmural/51-100/074/m074.html
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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
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
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Scottish football historians will know that the youngest ever internationalist was John A Lambie, who made his debut against Ireland in 1887 aged 18 years and 63 days; however, he was first selected the previous year aged 17, although unable to play. It will surprise many to know that he was not the first 17-year-old to be selected for Scotland.
I recently spent a few hours in the library of Glasgow Academy, going through the school registers. Although this is a rugby-playing school, the blurred distinctions between round and oval ball games in the early days of organised football resulted in several Academicals becoming prominent association football players and I have found at least four Scotland internationalists: Frederick Anderson (capped 1874), Alexander McGeoch (1876-77), William Turner (1885-86) and Woodville Gray (1886).
Pictured above, Woodville Gray has a fascinating story. Born in 1866, he was the son of William Gray, the proprietor of Gray Dunn & Co, a well-known Glasgow biscuit manufacturer. Their factory at Kinning Park is still a prominent city landmark next to the M8 motorway, although derelict. The Grays were Quakers, and young Woodville was sent to the Bootham School in York, a Quaker establishment, from 1879-82. There he learned to play association football, so when he returned to Glasgow Academy for the final year of his education, 1882-83, he joined Pollokshields Athletic rather than play rugby for the school.
He was fast and talented so, despite being just 16 and still at school, in April 1883 he was selected by the Scottish FA for the Glasgow select against Edinburgh. After leaving the Academy that summer, the honours continued and he played again for Glasgow v London (in London) in December 1883, then was named in the Scotland team to face Ireland in Belfast on 26 January 1884. He would have been 17 years and 230 days but 'was compelled to decline the honour' (Scottish Athletic Journal).
Gray was named as a reserve for two more internationals (v Wales 1884 and Ireland 1885) before finally winning his solitary cap against England in March 1886, three months before his 20th birthday.
Meanwhile, his club career was also interesting. Although he remained with Pollokshields Athletic until the end of the 1880s, he guested for Queen's Park from time to time, winning the Glasgow Merchants' Charity Cup in 1883 (age 16) and 1885. Even more notably, he was brought into the Queen's Park side for the 1885 FA Cup Final against Blackburn Rovers, as a replacement for the injured William Harrower - a perfectly acceptable substitution under the rules of the time.
Woodville Gray married Gulielma Payne in 1891, had two sons and two daughters, and moved to Birkenhead where he worked as a printer. He died there in 1938. His elder son, Henry Woodville Gray, signed for Everton in 1919 as an amateur but never made the first team and had to give up the game a couple of years later after a bad injury.
More info on the Gray family can be found here: http://www.guise.me.uk/gray/index.htm
I recently spent a few hours in the library of Glasgow Academy, going through the school registers. Although this is a rugby-playing school, the blurred distinctions between round and oval ball games in the early days of organised football resulted in several Academicals becoming prominent association football players and I have found at least four Scotland internationalists: Frederick Anderson (capped 1874), Alexander McGeoch (1876-77), William Turner (1885-86) and Woodville Gray (1886).
Pictured above, Woodville Gray has a fascinating story. Born in 1866, he was the son of William Gray, the proprietor of Gray Dunn & Co, a well-known Glasgow biscuit manufacturer. Their factory at Kinning Park is still a prominent city landmark next to the M8 motorway, although derelict. The Grays were Quakers, and young Woodville was sent to the Bootham School in York, a Quaker establishment, from 1879-82. There he learned to play association football, so when he returned to Glasgow Academy for the final year of his education, 1882-83, he joined Pollokshields Athletic rather than play rugby for the school.
He was fast and talented so, despite being just 16 and still at school, in April 1883 he was selected by the Scottish FA for the Glasgow select against Edinburgh. After leaving the Academy that summer, the honours continued and he played again for Glasgow v London (in London) in December 1883, then was named in the Scotland team to face Ireland in Belfast on 26 January 1884. He would have been 17 years and 230 days but 'was compelled to decline the honour' (Scottish Athletic Journal).
Gray was named as a reserve for two more internationals (v Wales 1884 and Ireland 1885) before finally winning his solitary cap against England in March 1886, three months before his 20th birthday.
Meanwhile, his club career was also interesting. Although he remained with Pollokshields Athletic until the end of the 1880s, he guested for Queen's Park from time to time, winning the Glasgow Merchants' Charity Cup in 1883 (age 16) and 1885. Even more notably, he was brought into the Queen's Park side for the 1885 FA Cup Final against Blackburn Rovers, as a replacement for the injured William Harrower - a perfectly acceptable substitution under the rules of the time.
Woodville Gray married Gulielma Payne in 1891, had two sons and two daughters, and moved to Birkenhead where he worked as a printer. He died there in 1938. His elder son, Henry Woodville Gray, signed for Everton in 1919 as an amateur but never made the first team and had to give up the game a couple of years later after a bad injury.
More info on the Gray family can be found here: http://www.guise.me.uk/gray/index.htm
Glasgow v Edinburgh in 1883, with 16-year-old Woodville Gray sitting at the front of the group
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Scotland v England 1884. Back: J Lindsay (Dumbarton), JK McDowall (SFA), J McAulay (Dumbarton), J Sinclair (referee), RM Christie (Queen's Park), J Forbes (Vale of Leven), J Macpherson (Vale of Leven). Front: W Anderson (QP), FW Shaw (Pollokshields Ath), C Campbell (QP), Dr J Smith (QP), W Arnott (QP), W McKinnon (Dumbarton).
I recently wrote the story of Robert Main Christie, the Dunblane man whose amazing list of sporting achievements included playing for Scotland against England aged 18, scoring a goal in an FA Cup final, winning the Scottish Cup, curling for Scotland, and founding the local golf club. You can read the article, published in the Scotsman, here.
It was a timely coincidence that Andy Murray, a major contemporary sporting talent from the town, was showered with awards this week, including freedom of Stirling and an honorary degree.
By contrast, Christie's life was all but forgotten and only in death is he commemorated, having been gassed in the final year of the first World War. He was such an interesting man that many details had to be left out of the article, not least that as I write this I can see the schoolhouse where Christie's father was the dominie, next door to the family home where he was brought up. Contemporary accounts describe how Christie and his friends founded a football team in about 1877 aged just 12 or 13, and in time Dunblane FC grew to be a power in Perthshire, winning the county cup eleven times; the story of the team could well be my next big project.
He was also very active in curling, a regular player in the local rink and also a vocal critic of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club at their annual meetings. And an enthusiastic golfer, and angler, and billiards player.
His death was as horrible as it was tragic. Aged 52, he could probably have stayed at home with his wife and five kids, but spent most of the war in khaki: in France, Greece and back to France. In May 1918, while commanding the 101st Labour Company, he and his troops came under a bombardment of German shells at the little village of Foncquevillers. The high explosives did plenty of damage, but unknown to the men who survived was that other shells contained mustard gas, silent and odourless but utterly deadly: a few hours after exposure the first symptoms began to show, and soon the skin and lungs were covered with burns and ulcers for which there was no treatment, no respite apart from death. Christie died after four days of agony, but I came across others who suffered for weeks, even months, before dying. Some of the memorials to him in Dunblane are pictured below: on the main war memorial, in the cathedral and in the masonic lodge.
He was one of over 100 local residents to be killed in the conflict, and they are all commemorated in a fascinating new book by local historian Ed Campbell: Dunblane War Memorial: Remembering Dunblane's Fallen (£12.99, on sale from local shops or Reveille Press).
It was a timely coincidence that Andy Murray, a major contemporary sporting talent from the town, was showered with awards this week, including freedom of Stirling and an honorary degree.
By contrast, Christie's life was all but forgotten and only in death is he commemorated, having been gassed in the final year of the first World War. He was such an interesting man that many details had to be left out of the article, not least that as I write this I can see the schoolhouse where Christie's father was the dominie, next door to the family home where he was brought up. Contemporary accounts describe how Christie and his friends founded a football team in about 1877 aged just 12 or 13, and in time Dunblane FC grew to be a power in Perthshire, winning the county cup eleven times; the story of the team could well be my next big project.
He was also very active in curling, a regular player in the local rink and also a vocal critic of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club at their annual meetings. And an enthusiastic golfer, and angler, and billiards player.
His death was as horrible as it was tragic. Aged 52, he could probably have stayed at home with his wife and five kids, but spent most of the war in khaki: in France, Greece and back to France. In May 1918, while commanding the 101st Labour Company, he and his troops came under a bombardment of German shells at the little village of Foncquevillers. The high explosives did plenty of damage, but unknown to the men who survived was that other shells contained mustard gas, silent and odourless but utterly deadly: a few hours after exposure the first symptoms began to show, and soon the skin and lungs were covered with burns and ulcers for which there was no treatment, no respite apart from death. Christie died after four days of agony, but I came across others who suffered for weeks, even months, before dying. Some of the memorials to him in Dunblane are pictured below: on the main war memorial, in the cathedral and in the masonic lodge.
He was one of over 100 local residents to be killed in the conflict, and they are all commemorated in a fascinating new book by local historian Ed Campbell: Dunblane War Memorial: Remembering Dunblane's Fallen (£12.99, on sale from local shops or Reveille Press).
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Something extraordinary happened 130 years ago today: a Scottish club played in the FA Cup Final. The remarkable events of 29 March 1884 reflected the fact that Scottish football in general, and Queen’s Park in particular, were dominant forces in the 1880s.
The national team was almost unassailable, losing just once in a 15 year period from 1873 to 1888, while Queen’s Park could count numerous Scottish Cup successes including four of the first five tournaments of the 1880s. Under the structure of the time, they could also enter the FA Cup but apart from a cameo appearance in the very first contest of 1872 they had scratched every time.
Following repeated appeals from English clubs to bring their style of play and undoubted box office appeal to the party, Queen’s Park finally decided to take part in 1883/84. Few doubted their ability to lift the trophy after they destroyed a succession of English opponents with scores that would be unimaginable today: Crewe Alexandra lost 10-0, Manchester 15-0, Oswestry 7-1 and Aston Villa 6-1. Old Westminsters were more obstructive but still fell to a single goal, and in the semi-final the cup holders, Blackburn Olympic, were dumped 4-1. Their city rivals, Blackburn Rovers, lay in wait.
The Glasgow side already had the Scottish Cup in the trophy cabinet, albeit with a slightly hollow ring as old rivals Vale of Leven had refused to play the final and Queen’s Park were awarded the cup by default. They travelled to London with confidence for what was seen as a showdown between England and Scotland, and were widely considered favourites to win.
There were 12,000 spectators at Kennington Oval including trainloads from Lancashire and a fair number of Scots but the latter left the stadium feeling bitterly disappointed – according to the club's official history they were ‘refereed out of the game’ as Major Francis Marindin made decisions which were ‘peculiar and vain’. After intense pressure which saw the post struck twice, Christie scored for Queen’s Park but it was disallowed for offside, then in a flurry of activity all the goals were scored in a fifteen minute spell. Blackburn Rovers went into a two goal lead through Brown and Forrest, then towards the end of the half Christie scored a legitimate goal, but it did not herald a second half fightback and his side fell to a 2-1 defeat.
The Scots were upset by the thinly-veiled professionalism of the Blackburn team and tried to protest, but had no proof. However, what really rubbed salt into the wounds was the referee coming to the team hotel the day after the game. Major Marindin told the players that not only did they have the ball through the Rovers goal by a foot but did not claim, but that the first goal scored against them was distinctly offside but no appeal was made – this was at a time when, as in cricket, an appeal had to be made to the umpires. In effect, he told them they should have won the cup.
The goalscorer is of particular interest: Robert Christie achieved the unique distinction of being the only man ever to score a goal for a Scottish club in an FA Cup Final. Earlier that month, the schoolmaster’s son from Dunbane had become one of Scotland’s youngest ever internationalists against England, aged 18 years and four months. His top level playing career was as brief as it was meteoric, cut short by a painful knee injury just two years later, but he went on to be President of the Scottish FA in 1903 and an international curler, before his life ended prematurely, killed in action in the final year of the First World War.
Queen’s Park reached the final again the following year, only to come up against the same opponents. The outcome was also the same, only the score in 1885 was 2-0 for Blackburn Rovers. A flurry of Scottish teams entered the FA Cup the following two seasons, hoping to emulate QP, with Rangers coming closest by reaching the semi-final. Then in 1887 the Scottish FA ruled that no team from Scotland could enter any national cup competition apart from their own, and that was that (apart from the cameos by Gretna in the 1990s, but that’s another story).
NB by a strange coincidence, also on 29 March 1884, Scotland defeated Wales 4-1 in Glasgow to win the first British Championship, having already beaten England 1-0 and Ireland 5-0. It was Scotland's 12th consecutive international victory - what we would give for that kind of record now!
The national team was almost unassailable, losing just once in a 15 year period from 1873 to 1888, while Queen’s Park could count numerous Scottish Cup successes including four of the first five tournaments of the 1880s. Under the structure of the time, they could also enter the FA Cup but apart from a cameo appearance in the very first contest of 1872 they had scratched every time.
Following repeated appeals from English clubs to bring their style of play and undoubted box office appeal to the party, Queen’s Park finally decided to take part in 1883/84. Few doubted their ability to lift the trophy after they destroyed a succession of English opponents with scores that would be unimaginable today: Crewe Alexandra lost 10-0, Manchester 15-0, Oswestry 7-1 and Aston Villa 6-1. Old Westminsters were more obstructive but still fell to a single goal, and in the semi-final the cup holders, Blackburn Olympic, were dumped 4-1. Their city rivals, Blackburn Rovers, lay in wait.
The Glasgow side already had the Scottish Cup in the trophy cabinet, albeit with a slightly hollow ring as old rivals Vale of Leven had refused to play the final and Queen’s Park were awarded the cup by default. They travelled to London with confidence for what was seen as a showdown between England and Scotland, and were widely considered favourites to win.
There were 12,000 spectators at Kennington Oval including trainloads from Lancashire and a fair number of Scots but the latter left the stadium feeling bitterly disappointed – according to the club's official history they were ‘refereed out of the game’ as Major Francis Marindin made decisions which were ‘peculiar and vain’. After intense pressure which saw the post struck twice, Christie scored for Queen’s Park but it was disallowed for offside, then in a flurry of activity all the goals were scored in a fifteen minute spell. Blackburn Rovers went into a two goal lead through Brown and Forrest, then towards the end of the half Christie scored a legitimate goal, but it did not herald a second half fightback and his side fell to a 2-1 defeat.
The Scots were upset by the thinly-veiled professionalism of the Blackburn team and tried to protest, but had no proof. However, what really rubbed salt into the wounds was the referee coming to the team hotel the day after the game. Major Marindin told the players that not only did they have the ball through the Rovers goal by a foot but did not claim, but that the first goal scored against them was distinctly offside but no appeal was made – this was at a time when, as in cricket, an appeal had to be made to the umpires. In effect, he told them they should have won the cup.
The goalscorer is of particular interest: Robert Christie achieved the unique distinction of being the only man ever to score a goal for a Scottish club in an FA Cup Final. Earlier that month, the schoolmaster’s son from Dunbane had become one of Scotland’s youngest ever internationalists against England, aged 18 years and four months. His top level playing career was as brief as it was meteoric, cut short by a painful knee injury just two years later, but he went on to be President of the Scottish FA in 1903 and an international curler, before his life ended prematurely, killed in action in the final year of the First World War.
Queen’s Park reached the final again the following year, only to come up against the same opponents. The outcome was also the same, only the score in 1885 was 2-0 for Blackburn Rovers. A flurry of Scottish teams entered the FA Cup the following two seasons, hoping to emulate QP, with Rangers coming closest by reaching the semi-final. Then in 1887 the Scottish FA ruled that no team from Scotland could enter any national cup competition apart from their own, and that was that (apart from the cameos by Gretna in the 1990s, but that’s another story).
NB by a strange coincidence, also on 29 March 1884, Scotland defeated Wales 4-1 in Glasgow to win the first British Championship, having already beaten England 1-0 and Ireland 5-0. It was Scotland's 12th consecutive international victory - what we would give for that kind of record now!
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An interesting little project for a Danish speaker would be a translation of these books by Carl Hansen into English. The Danish international joined Rangers in 1921 and spent three years in Scotland, one of the earliest foreigners to play here. He was widely known in Denmark as Carl Skomager (or Skoma'r), ie shoemaker.
I've picked up enough Danish watching the likes of Borgen and The Bridge to work out some anecdotes in his life, and he goes into great detail about his time in Scotland. He arrived at Leith on the boat without speaking any English other than 'Yes' or 'No', to be met by Rangers manager Bill Struth who drove him to Glasgow. He made his debut in some style against Queen's Park at Hampden, scoring a hat trick in a 3-2 win on 22 November 1921 (it was a match in the Lord Provost's Rent Relief Cup). However, he never really established himself as first choice, playing just 23 league matches over three seasons, with a broken leg effectively ending his career.
His time at Rangers was influential enough for him to choose an aerial photo of Ibrox on his autobiography Et liv i fodbold (A life in football) which came out in 1954. The stadium is packed, but there is nobody on the pitch, and the picture seems to have been taken during a sports meeting.
More poignantly, in 1945 he had published a much darker volume Carl Skomager i tysk Faengsel (in a German prison) which details his wartime experiences, including four months imprisonment by the Nazis. When arrested he was taken to Kastellet, the old fortress in Copenhagen, having already been beaten up. Putting his bleeding hand into his trouser pocket he felt a small badge which he knew he had to get rid of, and surreptitiously threw it into the fireplace: 'Det var Scottish Football-Associations Maerke, og havde Tyskerne funded det paa mig, var det sikkert blevet mig en dyr Historie'. (It was a Scottish Football Association badge, and if the Germans had found it on me, there would certainly have been more blood in this story). So, perhaps somewhere in this Danish castle, a little SFA badge or medal lies waiting to be discovered!
****
Update: over a decade later, Hansen's book has been translated into English! Read my updated blog: https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-history-news-and-blog/carl-hansens-wartime-experiences-have-just-been-translated
I've picked up enough Danish watching the likes of Borgen and The Bridge to work out some anecdotes in his life, and he goes into great detail about his time in Scotland. He arrived at Leith on the boat without speaking any English other than 'Yes' or 'No', to be met by Rangers manager Bill Struth who drove him to Glasgow. He made his debut in some style against Queen's Park at Hampden, scoring a hat trick in a 3-2 win on 22 November 1921 (it was a match in the Lord Provost's Rent Relief Cup). However, he never really established himself as first choice, playing just 23 league matches over three seasons, with a broken leg effectively ending his career.
His time at Rangers was influential enough for him to choose an aerial photo of Ibrox on his autobiography Et liv i fodbold (A life in football) which came out in 1954. The stadium is packed, but there is nobody on the pitch, and the picture seems to have been taken during a sports meeting.
More poignantly, in 1945 he had published a much darker volume Carl Skomager i tysk Faengsel (in a German prison) which details his wartime experiences, including four months imprisonment by the Nazis. When arrested he was taken to Kastellet, the old fortress in Copenhagen, having already been beaten up. Putting his bleeding hand into his trouser pocket he felt a small badge which he knew he had to get rid of, and surreptitiously threw it into the fireplace: 'Det var Scottish Football-Associations Maerke, og havde Tyskerne funded det paa mig, var det sikkert blevet mig en dyr Historie'. (It was a Scottish Football Association badge, and if the Germans had found it on me, there would certainly have been more blood in this story). So, perhaps somewhere in this Danish castle, a little SFA badge or medal lies waiting to be discovered!
****
Update: over a decade later, Hansen's book has been translated into English! Read my updated blog: https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-history-news-and-blog/carl-hansens-wartime-experiences-have-just-been-translated
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I have quite a large programme collection, covering many memorable games, but the above issue is one of the most poignant. From sixty years ago this week, it represents the last match ever played by Leith Athletic.
The port club had struggled for years in the shadow of Hearts and Hibs, a fate also reserved for St Bernard's, Edinburgh City and latterly Meadowbank Thistle. Post-war reorganisation meant Leith found themselves confined to the wasteland of Scottish League Division C in the 1950s. The club and its supporters needed a better level of competition to bring in crowds to New Meadowbank, and in the face of the Scottish League's refusal to admit them (and other 'wee' teams) to Division B, in the summer of 1953 they took the drastic step of resigning from the League altogether.
However, the club remained in existence and was duly entered into the Scottish Cup for 1953/54, given an away tie at Highland League side Fraserburgh. The skeleton club recruited a mixture of free transfers and half-forgotten players, played a few friendlies to prepare, and headed north for the cup match on 30 January 1954, backed by a busload of supporters. If they could beat this modest opponent, who knows what riches the second round draw might bring?
The match was a cliffhanger: Finnie put Leith ahead after half an hour, Fraserburgh quickly equalised, half time 1-1. Goals flowed in the second half: 2-1, 2-2 (McKenna), 3-2, 3-3 (Dalziel), 4-3, 5-3, and finally 5-4 (Peat) with just a few minutes left. Fraserburgh's fifth goal was hotly disputed by the visitors, the linesman saying the ball had not crossed the line, but the referee overruled him. And so Leith were out, facing a long trip home, and oblivion. Attendance 2,181, gate receipts £189.
Fraserburgh's reward? A home tie against Hearts! Just imagine what that could have done for Leith's finances, to keep the club going until 1955, when the Scottish League did, after all, reorganise. But it was not to be: the club had no means of starting up again and was formally wound up the following year.
A new Leith Athletic now plays in the East of Scotland League, but it is not a direct relation to the old team. I know a fellow football historian is currently writing and researching the history of the original club, and I look forward to reading the full story.
The port club had struggled for years in the shadow of Hearts and Hibs, a fate also reserved for St Bernard's, Edinburgh City and latterly Meadowbank Thistle. Post-war reorganisation meant Leith found themselves confined to the wasteland of Scottish League Division C in the 1950s. The club and its supporters needed a better level of competition to bring in crowds to New Meadowbank, and in the face of the Scottish League's refusal to admit them (and other 'wee' teams) to Division B, in the summer of 1953 they took the drastic step of resigning from the League altogether.
However, the club remained in existence and was duly entered into the Scottish Cup for 1953/54, given an away tie at Highland League side Fraserburgh. The skeleton club recruited a mixture of free transfers and half-forgotten players, played a few friendlies to prepare, and headed north for the cup match on 30 January 1954, backed by a busload of supporters. If they could beat this modest opponent, who knows what riches the second round draw might bring?
The match was a cliffhanger: Finnie put Leith ahead after half an hour, Fraserburgh quickly equalised, half time 1-1. Goals flowed in the second half: 2-1, 2-2 (McKenna), 3-2, 3-3 (Dalziel), 4-3, 5-3, and finally 5-4 (Peat) with just a few minutes left. Fraserburgh's fifth goal was hotly disputed by the visitors, the linesman saying the ball had not crossed the line, but the referee overruled him. And so Leith were out, facing a long trip home, and oblivion. Attendance 2,181, gate receipts £189.
Fraserburgh's reward? A home tie against Hearts! Just imagine what that could have done for Leith's finances, to keep the club going until 1955, when the Scottish League did, after all, reorganise. But it was not to be: the club had no means of starting up again and was formally wound up the following year.
A new Leith Athletic now plays in the East of Scotland League, but it is not a direct relation to the old team. I know a fellow football historian is currently writing and researching the history of the original club, and I look forward to reading the full story.
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Author
All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell.