The newest addition to my page of digitised books is the small volume of Football Reminiscences, written by Third Lanark's Frank Walker in about 1928. It is a fascinating tale that reveals a lot about playing conditions and attitudes in Scottish football between his senior debut in 1916 and his last match ten years later.
   It is a curious feature of Scottish sporting biography that very few footballers committed their story to print in the early days, and not until the 1950s was there any kind of vogue for publishers to attack the market: George Young's Captain of Scotland (1953) was the first hardback of the genre. Before then, just a few paperbacks were produced: James B Niven's Scottish Football Story (1906), Mattha Gemmell o' Clyde (1943), Jerry Dawson's Memoirs (1949) and A Lifetime of Soccer by referee Peter Craigmyle (1949) being the others that come to mind. There were ephemeral pamphlets such as those by Walter Arnott and Tommy Walker, while some footballers were interviewed about their lives for newspapers, but few of these stories are readily available. All of which makes Frank Walker's little booklet particularly valuable for the historian.
   Walker was a talented but not particularly famous footballer, with one international cap to his name, a defeat to Wales in 1922. That match was a bit of a farce, with two inches of snow on the ground at kick-off and snow continuing to fall through the game; yet players in those days seemed to accept challenging conditions without complaint: "It was very difficult to pass at all accurately, as the weight of the ball was continually changing. On one occasion the ball would be coated with snow, whereas on the next occasion you might receive it direct from a throw-in after the half-back had carefully removed all the snow. It was practically impossible, therefore, to judge correctly on the spur of the moment the exact weight necessary to transfer the ball the desired distance."
   Another anecdote told of the time he scored a hat-trick for Third Lanark against Aberdeen, and on returning to the pavilion at the end of the game the club chairman, a Colonel Wilson, presented him with 'a crisp treasury note wherewith to provide the necessary hat'.
   Frank Walker served in France in the Great War with the Royal Field Artillery, and was lucky to escape unscathed. He combined his football career with work in the civil service as an income tax inspector and died in Edinburgh in 1949, aged just 52. 
   To read the book, and a range of other Scottish sporting works, go to the Digitised Books page.
   

The latest addition to my collection of digitised Scottish sports books is Football Described by Giants of the Game. Originally published in 1904 on poor quality paper, few copies have survived and even the National Library of Scotland's copy is missing.
   The book is unusual as it gives prominent footballers the opportunity to describe in detail their approach to their specialisms, at a time when there were 11 distinct positions on the field from goalkeeper to outside left, and players would stick to their allotted role. Here, they offer advice to young players but also talk about their own science.    Here, for example, is goalkeeper Harry Rennie talking about narrowing the angle: "I think a goalkeeper should not be content to stand and catch cold in his goal, letting his opponents shoot at their own sweet will. He should try and inflict his will on them by leaving his goal (within easy reach) and thus inducing his opponents to throw away their chances by shooting from impossible distances." He writes of special bending, twisting, stretching and breathing exercises, and how to distribute the ball upfield.
   Welsh genius Billy Meredith talks of crossing the ball from the goalline, Jack Bell about the importance of teamwork, Dickie Boyle on good communication. It all adds up to the conclusion that footballers by the end of the Victorian era thought a great deal about tactics, practice and coaching.
   The chapter headings are: 
Goalkeeping: Harry Rennie (Hibernian)
Right back: Walter Arnott (Queen’s Park)
Full back: Dan Doyle (Celtic)
Right half: Richard Boyle (Dundee)
Centre half: James Kelly (Celtic)
Left half: Jackie Robertson (Rangers)
Outside right: Billy Meredith (Manchester City)
Inside right: John Campbell (Third Lanark)
Centre forward: Bob Hamilton (Rangers)
Inside left: Alex McMahon (Celtic)
Outside left: John Bell (Preston North End)

Click on the image above to download a pdf of the book.

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.

Scotland hosting the Commonwealth Games is a good excuse for a celebration of the nation’s ‘historic purpose-built sporting architecture’. Historic Scotland is taking steps to ensure we treasure Scotland’s sports buildings, and to raise awareness of their importance it recently undertook a comprehensive review of the nation’s sporting buildings as well as commissioning this book.
   Scotland’s Sporting Buildings admits to being more of a primer than a definitive guide, showcasing buildings and pavilions chosen by author Nick Haynes (the book gives no explanation as to who he is, but a quick web search reveals he is a historic buildings consultant based in Edinburgh).
  He has compiled an interesting selection. Some are famous but many are not. They stand out in their environment for a variety of reasons: the innovative, the quirky, the imposing and the cute. The oldest surviving work of sporting architecture in Scotland is the royal tennis court at Falkland Palace (1539-41). There are some stunning swimming pools from the Victorian splendour of Arlington Baths to the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh. Bowling, cricket, golf and curling all have hidden gems, my own favourite being the Grange Cricket Club’s two tier pavilion.
   There is a lot packed into Scotland’s Sporting Buildings, but frustratingly a lot is also left out. Historic Scotland’s review itself is not referenced; in fact it seems not to have been published anywhere. Instead of the inordinately long (and obscure) bibliography, it would have been much more informative and useful to include at least an index of Scotland’s listed sporting buildings.
   The author chose to omit several sports, most surprisingly rowing which has an impressive architectural heritage, but even within the book’s stated scope there are surprising pictorial gaps. Hampden Park, our national stadium, is nowhere to be seen. For a book using the Commonwealth Games as its hook, where is Meadowbank Stadium and Velodrome? Also missing are Archie Leitch’s designs at Tynecastle and Dens Park, not to mention the fine stand at Firhill (actually Tynecastle appears in an aerial photo of Murrayfield but is not even acknowledged in the caption).
   They are certainly not omitted through lack of space. Despite the stated aim not to feature buildings less than 30 years old, there are images of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and Celtic Park, while several photos are not of buildings at all: an early tennis player, the 1877 Scotland rugby team, ancient trophies and portraits – all nice to look at but really not relevant. There are a few errors which a proof reader should have picked up: eg Celtic formed in 1877 (p52), and footnotes in the rugby chapter which don’t relate to their numbers.
   But what really struck me was the almost complete absence of human beings from the photos. The swimming pools, the football terraces, the bowling greens are all devoid of people, sterile and empty. Without players and spectators, what use are these buildings?
   For anyone interested in the subject of sports architecture, there will be an inevitable comparison with the Played in Britain series, and in particular Ged O’Brien’s Played in Glasgow, and it has to be said that this book comes off a distant second.
   Scotland’s Sporting Buildings is published at £11.99.

Response from Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland has provided this welcome feedback to the above review, which answers some of my criticisms:

As this is the first in a new series of books we are producing your feedback is very welcome and we will take it into account for future titles.
   You noted that the nationwide review of sporting buildings which the Listing and Designed Landscapes Team at Historic Scotland undertook and which informed this book has not been published. In fact it is published online in the form of the listed building records which were updated or created as part of the project. You can search for these on our website at:
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/historicandlistedbuildings
 
I’ve pulled out a couple of examples below for your interest, the Grange Cricket Club which had its category of listing changed from B to A as part of the project in recognition of its national importance and Abdie Curling House in Fife which was newly listed at category B as a result of the project.
 
http://data.historic-scotland.gov.uk/pls/htmldb/f?p=2200:15:0::::BUILDING,HL:43497,grange
 
http://data.historic-scotland.gov.uk/pls/htmldb/f?p=2200:15:0::::BUILDING,HL:52182,abdie
 
We thought long and hard about having an index of listed sporting buildings at the end of the book. The issue for us in doing this is that as soon as it is printed it would be out of date. The list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest changes almost daily with buildings coming on to the list, being removed from the list or having their category of listing and/or descriptions changed. As the database of listed buildings is already searchable online we took the difficult decision that it would be a more appropriate source for that type of information.
   The remit of the review of sporting buildings and consequently the book was concentrated on public sporting buildings. This is because while there are a great many sporting buildings on private estates these need to be looked at in a slightly different way from more standalone public sporting buildings. Those on private estates are part of a wider complex of buildings often including such diverse structures as a large country house, lodges, walled gardens, stable blocks, home farms etc and in many cases there is a particular architectural style of period for those buildings and they need to be considered as a group in themselves. We decided that sporting buildings on private estates would best be reviewed as part of reviews of those individual estates. This explains some of what you mentioned as omissions, there are numerous listed boathouses on country estates for leisure (again not within the scope of the book as this is not a competitive sport) but very few and not enough to make up a chapter which are directly associated with competitive rowing.
   You mentioned disappointment that the Rossie Priory Cricket Pavilion is not in the book. It is in fact mentioned briefly on page 40. As it is on a private estate and would be best considered within that type as noted above it was not part of the study. It is not listed in its own right but might be considered by the local authority to be curtilage of one of the many listings on the Rossie Estate, the local authority would need to give a view on this. You can see the listings at Rossie Priory using the map-based search facility at Pastmap:
http://pastmap.org.uk/
 
However, anyone can propose a building for listing and if you would like to propose the Cricket Pavilion for listing we would be delighted to hear from you. You can download our proposal form here:
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index/heritage/historicandlistedbuildings/listingproposal.htm
 
In relation to the typo about Celtic’s date of founding we definitely hold our hands up to that one – proofreading will be as rigorous as possible in the next titles.

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

With all the recent excitement of the winter Olympics, this is an excellent time for a history of ice hockey to be published. And Bill Marshall's book, out today, fills an enormous gap as he presents the first detailed examination of the halcyon days of ice hockey in Scotland.
   Frozen in Time: the lost history of Scottish ice hockey 1895-1940 highlights the pioneering days with a particular focus on the inter-war period, when there was a competitive Scottish League with numerous professional imports. There is also a definitive records section.
  According to the author: "As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the debt owed to ice hockey missionaries from the Land of the Maple Leaf cannot be overstated. Ice hockey represents a unique link in the long and happy social relationship which has always existed between the people of Scotland and Canada."
   Frozen in Time is published by the Grimsay Press, paperback, 424 pages, and is on sale price £18.95.
   I have also added a bibliography of Scottish ice hockey books to this site, with thanks to David Gordon for providing the information.
   NB, on a personal note, I'm tickled that one of the most prominent promoters of ice hockey shares my name. Andrew Mitchell donated the Mitchell Trophy which was effectively the 'Scottish Cup' in the 1930s. He was also a director of Third Lanark and helped organise the football club's 1921 tour of North America.



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.

I've just finished reading a fascinating new book on Canadian football, and while that may not immediately seem relevant to Scottish sport, there is a wealth of material unearthed by Les Jones in Soccer: Canada's National Sport.
   This excellent coffee-table size volume is packed with anecdotes and photos in its 250 pages. Of particular interest to Scotland there are the stories of pioneers such as Perthshire-born David Forsyth, considered as the father of Canadian football, and David Kerr Brown from Ayrshire, who promoted the ambitious 1880 tour of Canada by the Scottish FA (which was abandoned following the death of SFA secretary William Dick).
   Football was played in Canada by Scots long before the foundation even of the Scottish FA: as early as 1823, Hudson's Bay employees played a Christmas challenge; and in 1864 the St Andrew's Society of Ottawa organised matches. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, the SFA's official annual contained detailed accounts of Canadian soccer, emphasising the links that were sealed by tours of the British Isles in 1888 and 1891. 
   And there is much more, through the tours of the 1920s and 1930s, to the modern era. It is, primarily, a celebration of the sport and all makes for an entertaining and informative volume.
   You can read all about Canada Soccer Stories at this link, and while airmail postage may make it expensive for UK purchasers, it does represent a worthwhile investment.

As a change from my usual writings on football, here's a fascinating book that was published exactly 100 years ago, in November 1913. The Royal Caledonian Curling Club annual - still published today - is a superb source of information. In those far-off days it had over 560 pages, with reports on every conceivable aspect of the sport such as competitions, meetings, news from abroad, obituaries and membership lists of every member club. With almost 750 clubs, that takes up a large proportion of the book, and if you look hard there are some real gems that show curling's broad appeal.   For example, there was a curling club based at Crystal Palace on the outskirts of London (see below), and one of its committee members is none other than the famous cricketer, WG Grace.   As a football historian, I am intrigued by the high profile of Captain RM Christie of Dunblane CC, who spoke several times at the annual meeting. He was a Scotland football internationalist in 1884 aged just 18, and president of the SFA in 1903-04; he would later be one of the older casualties of the first war, dying of wounds in 1918 at the age of 52. In fact, my home town of Dunblane had three clubs in membership, the others being Dunblane Thistle and Keir.   Social historians will be intrigued to see places with a curling club that might seem unlikely today, such as the Glasgow suburbs of Ruchazie and Shettleston.   The RCCC was flush with funds, overseas tours were contemplated, and the overall sense is one of aristocratic patronage, contentment and success. Little did they know that a year later the old order would disappear: the annual could not be published, most clubs would be dissolved for the duration of the war, and many of the young men would never play again.

The launch of a new magazine, the Aberdeen Football Historian, is the latest bit of sports heritage to come out of the Granite City. Together with a recent book and a couple of websites, it demonstrates a real commitment to celebrating the glorious (and less than glorious) past of the club.
   The magazine, put together by local aficionados including club historian Kevin Stirling, is a fascinating read of 24 pages in full colour, with a cover price of just £3. The first issue, almost inevitably, starts by marking the 30th anniversary of Gothenburg but also has some original features such as the club's first mascot and the strong Aberdeen connections to Scotland's first international team.
   There is a dedicated website, which adds to the existing AFC Heritage website, and combined they are a great resource.
   For serious historians wanting to know what happened in Aberdeen before the present club was formed in 1903, I can strongly recommend Fraser Clyne's book The Aberdeen Men Can't Play Football (above right), which is an early history of football in Aberdeen from 1881 to 1903. Published last year at £12.99, it is a tour de force of original research, telling the story together with detailed statistics and many previously unseen photos. He gets to the bottom of the famous Bon Accord team that lost 36-0 to Arbroath, and turns up fascinating anecdotes such as the launch of a matchday programme by Orion FC in 1895 and various visits to the city by Scotland XIs and top English sides like Sunderland and Liverpool. Somewhat belately, it's my Scottish sport history book of 2012.