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SPORTS HISTORY BLOG

Over 250 articles on all aspects of Scottish sport

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When I recently digitised the 1928 Hearts booklet Tales from Tynecastle (now available for download on my Sporting Anthology page), I was intrigued by some of the adverts. 
   Two of them featured former players George Sinclair and Paddy Crossan, which adds an extra dimension to the interest of the booklet. Much could be, and has been, written about the relationship between football and alcohol, but it is fascinating how many players went into the pub trade, perhaps using a testimonial pay-off to set themselves up.    Paddy's Bar felt obliged to advertise that it offered 'sitting accommodation' for 'connoisseurs of the finest wines, beers and spirits' which is probably a reflection of how basic some pubs could be in the 1920s. It remained an institution in Rose Street long after the player died in 1933, in fact until recent living memory, but has since changed identity a few times and is now the Black Rose.    Sinclair made a surprising choice of location for a Hearts player, as Montrose Terrace is at the top of Easter Road, but promised his customers 'prompt attention, excellent quality and civility' with Dryburgh's Starbright Ale always in the best of condition. It was obviously a good business as he kept it until his death in 1959. The bar retained his name to about the end of the century but now it is a rather douce coffee and deli bar called Just the Ticket.
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The latest instalment in my digitisation programme of early Scottish sporting histories is this 1924 booklet on St Mirren. It was published by GW May of London, who produced a series of similar volumes on football clubs and cricket counties. In Scotland, they commissioned the veteran journalist RM Connell to write the text, and he was able to draw on his considerable experience to provide a very informative look back. As well as St Mirren, the other clubs featured in the series were Raith Rovers, Queen's Park and Partick Thistle, and needless to say they are all very rare now. Robert Morrison Connell (1864-1940) was also known by his pen name 'Bedouin'. He was the first president of the Scottish Junior FA and wrote quite a number of booklets that are invaluable when researching the early years of the game in Scotland.
   This publication came at a great time for Saints, who had a well-stocked trophy cabinet and a vast stadium with a 50,000 capacity. They would win the Scottish Cup two years later. You can read the full text on my Publications page, or just click on the image above.
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I've spent a bit of time recently digitising early football texts, and will continue to upload more to this website from time to time, posted on the publications page. 
   To start with, these rare histories of Ayr FC and Kilmarnock FC are now available online to fellow historians for the first time.
   The Ayr booklet was produced in 1901, for a fund-raising bazaar - so financial difficulties are nothing new for Scottish football clubs. In this instance, the club had overspent on installing a cycle track and had to raise over £500 to clear the debt. At that time, Ayr (which merged with Ayr Parkhouse in 1910 to become Ayr United) was a multi-sports club, so football lived alongside athletics, cycling and tug of war. In an obscure coincidence of football history, the bazaar was opened by Sir William Arrol, the local MP, whose main claim to fame was the construction of the Forth Bridge; his cousin Mary Arrol had married Scotland's first football captain, Robert Gardner, who died in 1887 while working on ... the Forth Bridge.
   The Kilmarnock history is more straightforward, having been issued to commemorate the club's jubilee in 1919.
   To read either text, just click on the front cover images or visit my Sporting Anthology.
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I've been spending a bit of time recently on the biographical details of early Scotland internationals. The standard reference work is Doug Lamming's Scotland Who's Who, published in 1987, but in the 25 years since then the technology revolution has opened up a wealth of resources which were not available to him.   So, a first point of call is the Scotland's People family history centre in Edinburgh, which has digitised census, birth, death and marriage records, among a lot of other information. I've also trawled through the player registration books at the Scottish Football Museum, which provide home addresses for many players, an essential pointer to identifying those with common names. And the outcome is an opportunity to identify for the first time quite a number of Scotland caps, and correct some false information which is circulating. It's an ongoing project, but here are some results:   William Barbour Agnew (3 caps 1907-08), who played for Kilmarnock, Newcastle and others. Date of birth generally given as 16 December 1879, but this was a twin who died six weeks later. His parents had another boy the following year, born 30 December 1880, and this was the footballer. He died on 19 August 1936 in Moffat.   David Alexander (2 caps 1894). From an era when an East Stirlingshire player could be capped, Alexander's address is in the SFA register, and by tracking him in the census it was possible to work out that he was born in Cambusnethan, Wishaw, on 22 April 1869. An iron moulder by profession, he died in Glasgow on 14 January 1941.   William Bowie (1 cap 1891). The only Linthouse player to be capped. He was born in Govan on 31 December 1869 and died in the same area on 9 June 1934. He was a ship plater.   Thomas Hamilton (1 cap 1891). Capped with Hurlford in the same game as Bowie, he could be tracked from his address in registration books and comparing that with the census. He was born in Dundee on 22 March 1872 and moved to Ayrshire at an early age. He died on 17 October 1942 in Kilmarnock.
   Bernard Breslin (1 cap 1897). An early Hibernian great, Breslin was working as a bartender in Harthill when he died of tuberculosis on 10 November 1913. His birth was a bit harder to locate, but eventually I found it had been recorded phonetically as Bracelan, as his illiterate father had signed the birth certificate with an X. He was born on 2 May 1874 in Carfin.
  There are too many others to list here, but this gives a flavour of what can be done with newly available digital resources. Is there scope for a new Who's Who?
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As pointed out by Alan Taylor in today's Sunday Herald, the centenary of the birth of Robin Jenkins is coming up soon, on 11 September. Jenkins is one of my favourite Scottish authors, not least because he wrote an outstanding novel about football, The Thistle and the Grail, published in 1954, near the start of his long writing career. To quote the book's opening paragraph:
   'A thousand martyrs were being persecuted. Their howls of anguish mingled in one enormous snarl of lamentation that fluttered even the hardened sparrows on roofs around and made the women shoppers in the adjacent main street pause a smiling moment in their gossip. Drumsagart Thistle Junior Football Club was again being defeated at home, for the ninth time in succession; and its devotees were on the rack.'
   I wrote to Robin Jenkins in 2004, just a few months before his death, to ask about his inspiration for the novel and he kindly responded in an old man's spidery handwriting:
   'I can still remember as a boy of 12 or so being lifted over the turnstile by some obliging man. This was at Somerville Park, home of Cambuslang Rangers. I remember too the joy of winning over the anguish of defeat. There was magic then, both on and off the park.'
   Pictured above is the (now very rare) first edition, but it is still in print. If you haven't read the book yet, I strongly recommend it. And don't just take my word for it: click here to read this appraisal by David McVey of its worth.

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All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell.