A fitting tribute to Scottish football pioneer Joseph Taylor was unveiled this week, following the restoration of his grave at Cathcart Cemetery in Glasgow.
   Taylor was one of the 'originals', a key member of the Scotland team that faced England in the world's first international match in 1872. He went on to play six times for Scotland, twice as captain, and also won the first three Scottish Cups with Queen's Park, the latter two as captain. On giving up playing he was elected President of Queen's Park and continued to guide the progress of the game until tragedy intervened and he was struck down by pleurisy and tuberculosis. He died aged just 37, leaving a wife and four children. 

I first visited the grave in 2012, tracking it down through the undergrowth as part of a project to trace the last resting places of the Scotland team from 1872. All of them are now known with the frustrating exception of the captain, Robert Gardner, as I wrote about a few years ago. 
   I was then contacted by Colin Taylor, a great grandson of Joseph who spotted my article, and we have been in regular contact over the years. To my delight, he told me that some of Joseph's prize possessions remained in the family, including his Scottish Cup medal from 1876 (pictured below).
   However, the grave was in a poor condition, leaning dangerously forward, hidden by ivy, and had lost the fleur-de-lys on top. It needed to be saved before it was too late, and a fundraiser last year raised over £1,000 for its restoration. There were contributions from a number of fans (the biggest from the West of Scotland Tartan Army) but fell short of the goal of £2,500, with the shortfall met by Joseph's descendants. The work took place over the winter.
   Colin Taylor and his cousin Alex were guests of the Scottish FA at the 150th anniversary match between Scotland and England last year, and this week they travelled back to Glasgow for the unveiling of the restored grave. It can now be safely visited and admired at Cathcart Cemetery, where it is in Section I, Lair 567.

Cathcart Cemetery is 'home' to an extraordinary number of Scottish football giants, some of which have now been restored in recognition of their importance to the game. You can read about them at the Scots Football Historians Group website, or with the Friends of Cathcart Cemetery.

Joseph Taylor
Profile from The Men Who Made Scotland

Born 16 December 1850; Wellington Street, Dunoon, Argyllshire.
Died 4 October 1888; Victoria Terrace, Mount Florida, Glasgow.

Son of a hotel keeper in Dunoon, Taylor grew up in the town and was successful locally as a runner, winning numerous athletic contests at the Cowal Gathering in 1869 and 1870. When he came to Glasgow to work around that time, he joined Queen's Park and they soon made use of his athleticism, speed and leadership on the football field. He was selected at full back for the first Scotland international in 1872 and retained his place every year until 1876, captaining the side twice against England. He also won the first three Scottish Cups, the latter two as team captain. According to DD Bone: 'No man who captained the Queen's Park was so much respected both on the field and in private life. None hated unfair or rough play more.' After giving up playing in 1877, still only 26 years old, he continued his involvement with the club and was elected President for 1878-79, while he worked as a clerk for a drapery wholesaler. Sadly, he was struck down with pleurisy and tuberculosis and although he went to New Zealand in an attempt to clear his lungs, it was to no avail. He returned home to Mount Florida and died there in 1888, aged 37, leaving a wife and four children. ​

Honours
Scotland v England 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875c, 1876c; Wales 1876.
Queen's Park player 1870-77 (Scottish Cup winner 1874, 1875c, 1876c).

All historians make mistakes. And now I have to put my hand up and admit I made a mistake in my Who's Who of Scotland Internationalists.
   When the book came out in the summer of 2021 there were many individual biographies which corrected the 'established wisdom' about player dates, so I was prepared for challenges and queries. A few came along, but in each case I was able to demonstrate that my research was correct. Until now.
   I had an email last week from Martin Donnelly, an assiduous researcher who has been tracking down the graves of footballers. He had just found the final resting place of Archie Ritchie, a Scotland internationalist in 1891 while playing for East Stirlingshire and an FA Cup winner with Nottingham Forest in 1898.

Ritchie was thought to have been born in April 1872, which meant he was just 18 when he was capped. However, his gravestone in Church Cemetery, Nottingham, tells a different story: installed after his death on 18 January 1932, it provides a precise date of birth as 21 October 1869.
   As soon as I heard this, I checked my research notes and I can only say I can't have done my job properly in following through his assumed date of birth by comparing it with later records. I found that the Archibald Ritchie born in Kirkcaldy in 1872 could not have been the footballer, as he died aged just 11 weeks of smallpox.
   However, there were no records for an 1869 birth under that name. It took further investigation to get at the truth, which was more complicated than expected as the date on his gravestone also turned out to be wrong.

Archibald Ritchie was actually born in Alloa one year earlier, on 21 October 1868, and in a confusing turn of events his surname was recorded by the registrar as Richardson, yet his father signed his name on the certificate as Ritchieson (which he had also used when he married).
   The Ritchieson family soon moved to Bainsford, a suburb of Falkirk, where there appears to be a gradual change in the surname as they were recorded in the 1871 census as Ritchie, in 1881 as Richardson, and back to Ritchie for 1891.
   1891 was also the year that Ritchie was capped by Scotland, aged 22 rather than 18 as previously thought. He had spent five years with East Stirlingshire by this time, helping them become the top team in the area, and on the back of his international status he turned professional with Nottingham Forest. 

Forest were on a recruitment spree that summer and signed a number of other Scots, including internationalists John McPherson of Hearts and 'Kiltie' Hamilton of Hurlford. Hamilton gave a flavour of the lifestyle of a professional footballer as he was paid £2 15s a week and wrote home: 'Wish I had gone sooner: fed on the best, drink of the best, smoke of the choicest – quite lionised. Never was so happy.'
   Ritchie went straight into the first team where he developed a fine partnership at full back with Adam Scott, and they remained at the heart of the Forest defence for most of the decade, famously winning the FA Cup in 1898 by beating favourites Derby County 3-1 at the Crystal Palace.

He ended his career with brief spells at Bristol Rovers and Swindon Town before retiring to Nottingham, where he married Emily Dodson in 1904. They ran pubs together for many years, the Porter's Rest then the Sawyers Arms, until his death in 1932. They had no children, she later remarried and died in 1971.
   One other thing I found about Archie Ritchie which was new to me was that in August 1897, at the peak of his football career, he was sentenced to 21 days in prison for intimidating a strike-breaker in Nottingham.
   I have amended my Who's Who for future purchasers, and can only apologise to those who have already bought the book. It may just be one wrong date of birth among 615 internationalists, but I am intensely annoyed to have found this error. However, nobody is immune from this kind of thing and, as the old adage goes, 'the man who never made mistakes, never made anything'.


Archibald Ritchie. Born 21 October 1868 at Kellie Bank, Alloa, Clackmannan. Died 18 January 1932 at Greyfriar Gate, Nottingham. One cap for Scotland, v Wales on 21 March 1891 at Wrexham.
​
 
NB a few typos in the book have been corrected over the past year, mostly minor grammar or spelling issues.

However, two key dates for the 1872 Scotland 'originals' have been updated:
For James Smith, I mistyped his date of death as 26 September 1876 when it should read 20 September 1876.
For James B Weir, the date I quoted (23 November 1851) was his baptism, whereas his correct birth date was 21 October 1851.

One of the pioneering personalities of the first decade of Scottish football was Joseph (Joe) Taylor, who played in the first​ six Scotland internationals and won the first three Scottish Cups with Queen's Park. His life was sadly cut short at the age of just 37,
   I have written before about his exploits, but what really brings a story to life is a family connection. Therefore I was delighted to be contacted by his great grandson Colin Taylor, who recently sent me these fantastic photos. This is the gold medal won when Joe  captained Queen's Park to victory in the 1876 cup final, when Third Lanark were beaten in a replay.
   Although this is not the oldest winner's medal in existence - the Scottish Football Museum has JJ Thomson's silver medal from 1874 - it does bear witness to the rapid growth of the game in Scotland, being made of gold and with the Scottish FA's new crest engraved on the front.

What is more, the family also retains the superb gold watch which was presented to him when he married. It reads: 'Presented to Mr Joseph Taylor on the occasion of his marriage by the members of the Queen's Park Football Club in token of their appreciate of his valuable service and of their best wishes for his future happiness. Glasgow, 24th September 1879'. Around 80 club members dined in the St Enoch Restaurant to mark the occasion. ​Joe married Agnes Miller and they had four sons (one of whom, John Benjamin Taylor, would go on to play for Queen's Park as well).

Born in 1850 in Dunoon, where he gained a reputation as a sprinter in local sports meetings, Joe Taylor came to Glasgow for work and, like many young athletes from out of town, joined Queen's Park in 1870. He soon established himself in the team and played a key role at full back on many high profile occasions. At a time when the emphasis was very much on attack, he added a new dimension to football by specialising in defence: 'Considering his light weight, he was a fine tackler, returned very smartly to his forwards, and possessed remarkable speed.'
   Notably, he travelled to London in March 1872 to play against Wanderers in the FA Cup semi-final, when Queen's Park shocked the football establishment by holding the hosts to a 0-0 draw. He played in the first international later that year, and went on to captain Scotland against England in 1875 and 1876, in addition to his club successes. 
   He gave up playing football in 1877 but remained closely involved with Queen's Park and was elected club President for 1878/79. He worked as a clerk for a drapery wholesaler and all was well until 1885 when he was struck down by the first signs of tuberculosis. He went to New Zealand for six months to try and clear his lungs with sea air, which worked for a time but in the days before antibiotics it was really only a matter of time before he succumbed. He died in October 1888 at his home in Victoria Terrace, close to Hampden Park, and laid to rest in Cathcart Cemetery, where you can still see his memorial. 
   After he died, Joe Taylor's obituary in the Glasgow Herald left no doubts about his standing: 'To the older school of players and followers of the game, that gentleman was known as the embodiment of everything that was best, purest and most manly in a football player.' 
   He was held in such high regard that Queen’s Park played a benefit match against Third Lanark on 5 January 1889, attracting around 7,000 spectators to Hampden and raising over £100. The club then added £50 to the fund for his family, an enormous sum which assured his sons' future (and meant they would never have to sell his medals).

Taylor's legacy is that he established the template for intelligent and gentlemanly behaviour, on and off the field. When DD Bone chronicled the early years of the game, he wrote: 'No man who captained the Queen's Park was so much respected both on the field and in private life. None hated unfair or rough play more; he could not endure it in a club companion.'  

You can read the stories of all the early internationalists in my book First Elevens.

​
UPDATE - APRIL 2024

Joseph Taylor's grave at Cathcart Cemetery has been restored. Check out the story: ​https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-history-news-and-blog/scottish-football-pioneer-joseph-taylors-grave-restored

The first black international footballer, Andrew Watson, has been recognised with a place in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as part of its 10th anniversary update.
   Watson, whose full story only came to light last year when my research was published, captained Scotland to an astonishing 6-1 victory over England on his international debut in 1881. For many years his fate was unknown until I tracked down his death in London in 1921, and visited his gravestone. I was delighted to be asked by the ODNB to contribute his entry for the Dictionary.
   Andrew Watson was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1856 to Peter Miller Watson, a Scottish sugar planter and Hannah Rose, a local woman. Despite being black and illegitimate, he was generally accepted by his fellow footballers as he was a 'gentleman' (he was of independent means after his father left him a substantial legacy), but there are hints that he required broad shoulders. 
   While most descriptions were purely about his ability, there was some evidence of discrimination: 'Both on and off the field he is courtesy and unostentation personified and although of a most powerful build he invariably plays a sterling honest game. … Although on more than one occasion subjected to vulgar insults by splenetic, ill-tempered players, he uniformly preserved that gentlemanly demeanour … he is the embodiment of rare geniality and kind-heartedness' (Scottish Athletic Journal, 15 December 1885). 
   Less controversially, the 1880 Scottish Football Annual described him as: 'One of the very best backs we have; since joining Queen’s Park has made rapid strides to the front as a player; has great speed and tackles splendidly; powerful and sure kick; well worthy of a place in any representative team.'
   In over a decade of top level football in Scotland and England he was a significant personality and helped to draw crowds and plaudits wherever he played. Capped three times by Scotland, all comprehensive victories, he missed out on further international honours by moving to England. Having first come to prominence with Glasgow team Parkgrove, he won the Scottish Cup four times with Queen's Park, and played for a range of teams in England including Swifts, Pilgrims, Corinthians and finally Bootle, having gone to Liverpool to pursue a career as a maritime engineer.

Andrew Watson set a number of firsts for a black footballer:

+ First black player to gain representative honours, playing for Glasgow v Sheffield in February 1880;
+ First black player to win Scottish Cup, in 1880/81 with Queen’s Park;
+ First black internationalist, captaining Scotland v England, 12 March 1881;
+ First black administrator, as match secretary with Parkgrove 1878-80 and club secretary with Queen's Park 1881-82;
+ First black player in FA Cup, reaching 4th round in 1882-83 with Swifts;
+ First black match official, as umpire for Old Carthusians v Royal Engineers, FA Cup, 25 Jan 1883;
+ First black player for Corinthians, on their Easter Tour in March 1883
+ First to play for an English county, Surrey v Notts in March 1884 (as a Swifts player);
+ And possibly the first black professional. In December 1887, Great Bridge Unity FC protested to the FA Cup committee against Watson and Hastings of Bootle for professionalism; however the case was dismissed (an investigation by the Lancashire FA also failed to find evidence).

Andrew Watson is the 16th Scottish footballer to be included in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The others are: Walter Arnott, Jim Baxter, Billy Bremner, tommy Burns, Matt Busby, Alex James, Jimmy Johnstone, Arthur Kinnaird, RS McColl, Jimmy McGrory, Ally McLeod, Jock Stein, Fergus Suter, John Thomson and George Young.

There has been a notable movement in the last few years to rediscover the last resting places of famous Scottish footballers, and I have to applaud, in particular, the efforts of supporters at Celtic and Rangers in researching and recognising the pioneers of those clubs.
   This week the excellent Celtic Graves Society is co-ordinating a 125th anniversary celebration of the club's first match in 1888 by arranging for flowers to be placed on the graves of the eleven players in that match. Easier said than done: while eight of the players can be found within a few miles of Glasgow, the other three are in Brooklyn, Pennsylvania and Prague. Read about it at the Celtic Graves website or follow @celticgraves on twitter for updates and photos.
   Meanwhile on the other side of Glasgow, the fine work of the Gallant Pioneers website continues to promote the early history of Rangers. They have a regular Founders Trail to visit key places, and make the point - which applies to so many clubs: 'We were told often enough that people just weren't interested in the history of the Club but time and again the supporters have proved them wrong.'
   And just to prove how much interest there is, Gary Ralston's book on the Gallant Pioneers has just been republished in paperback by the author and is now selling briskly on Amazon.
   Regular visitors to this blog will know I've long had a similar interest in early Scotland internationalists, particularly those who played in the first match in 1872. Pictured above are two gravestones, for Joe Taylor (left) in Glasgow, and JJ Thomson in London. I've now located ten out of the eleven players, although not all have a headstone.
   The team captain, Robert Gardner, continues to elude me. He died in 1887 away from home, in South Queensferry, while working on the Forth Bridge project, and there is no record of a local burial. Chances are, therefore, that he was taken back to Glasgow but I have scoured the available burial records (on barely legible microfilm in the Mitchell Library) without success.  It's a challenge, certainly, but when I do find him I will be making sure he is properly commemorated.

Out of interest, here are the final resting places of the other ten, starting with those in Scotland:
James Smith (1876): Urquhart Old Cemetery, Elgin.
Joseph Taylor (1888): Cathcart Cemetery, Glasgow.
David Wotherspoon (1906): Southern Necropolis, Glasgow.
Alexander Rhind (1923): Tomnahurich Cemetery, Inverness.
William Muir Mackinnon (1942): Westburn Cemetery, Cambuslang.

Elsewhere:
Robert Leckie (1886): Olifants Bosch, South Africa.
James Biggar Weir (1889): Warrina, South Australia.
Robert Smith (1914): Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.
James John Thomson (1915): East Finchley Cemetery, London.
William Ker (1925): Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington DC.

The full stories of why they were in those far-flung places can, of course, be read in my book First Elevens: the birth of international football

Update: an earlier carving of a football is in Wardsend Cemetery, Sheffield, in memory of a footballer called George Beaumont who was killed during a match on Christmas Day 1877. Click here to read his tragic story.