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I was recently asked to write an article about the origins of Scottish football. In the end, it wasn't used, but rather than let it go to waste I wanted to share it here. This is an extended and updated version of a piece I wrote back in 2013.
The established narrative of the birth of association football in Scotland generally starts with the foundation of Queen's Park FC in 1867. But if you look behind the bare facts of that event in Glasgow you will discover that a little village school in Aberdeenshire can stake a claim as a birthplace of Scottish football.
At least three of the founders of Queen's Park were educated at Fordyce Academy, while many of their fellow pioneers also came from Scotland's north-east. Their origins encapsulate a story which helps to explain why football north of the border evolved along different lines to that in England, with passing and teamwork rather than dribbling and individuality as its principal characteristics.
Scotland's first association football club came into being on 9 July 1867 when a group of young men met in Glasgow 'for the purpose of forming a Football Club'.
The minutes of Queen's Park's inaugural meeting were captured in beautiful script by 19-year-old William Klingner, a merchant's clerk, who was elected secretary. The single sheet recorded a few basic rules and a list of committee members from whom four office bearers were appointed to lead the club.
Unfortunately for researchers it is not possible to consult the original document, which was lost in a fire at Hampden Park on Boxing Day 1945. However, a picture of the minute was reproduced in Richard Robinson's History of Queen's Park, published in 1920. His book is widely accepted as the definitive version of how the club was formed, and who its founders were, but in the course of my research I became aware of a few anomalies in Robinson's version of events, which merited a close re-examination.
Dublin-born Robinson, the club historian, was in fact more of a cycling aficionado when he came to Glasgow in his youth and was one of the founders of the Scottish Cyclists' Union, elected its president in 1896. His day job was managing the Post Office telegraph office in the city, with a sideline as football editor of the Glasgow News and he also launched the Scottish Athletic Journal. Newly-retired at the time of the Queen's Park jubilee, he was in a good position to write the club's history.
In the build-up to the club's fiftieth anniversary there was copious newspaper coverage of some early reminiscences, and two books of press cuttings from 1916-17 are held in the Scottish Football Museum. These provide a number of pointers which are not in Robinson's book, which had to wait until the First World War was over to see the light of day.
What is clear is that the Queen's Park story began in the mid-1860s when a group of young men exercised together each Saturday on a patch of ground in Strathbungo, on the south side of Glasgow.
One of them was James Cruickshank Grant who, when interviewed in 1916 for the Athletic News, identified the initial group as comprising himself, Robert and James Smith, Donald Edminston, Lewis Black and 'a couple of others'. They were all north of Scotland men: Grant came from the Highland village of Duthil, not far from Black's home in Grantown-on-Spey, the Smiths had been brought up in Morayshire and Edminston was from Aberdeenshire.
Grant related how initially they practised traditional Highland sports at Strathbungo but when the ground became too confined they decamped to Queen's Park Recreation Ground in Langside. There, they encountered about forty youths from the local YMCA who were kicking a ball about and the men from the north joined in their game of football. They enjoyed it so much that they went into town to buy their own ball, as even in the 1860s footballs could be bought over the counter – there was a range on sale at the Royal Polytechnic Warehouse – which indicates the game was already popular in Glasgow.
As more and more people joined in their football games, in the summer of 1867 they decided to form a proper club, hence the meeting at 3 Eglinton Terrace in Crosshill. It was attended by about 20 young men, of whom 13 were elected onto a committee, and this is where the minute of that first meeting merits close examination, with a particular focus on those individuals.
William Klingner, the secretary, came from Portsoy on the Banffshire coast, the son of an émigré from Dresden who was village doctor.
The treasurer is recorded as 'Smith senior' to distinguish himself from 'Smith junior' who was one of the ordinary members. These were James Smith and his younger brother Robert, the sons of the Earl of Fife's head gardener at Innes House in Morayshire. (Richard Robinson got them the wrong way round in his book.)
The Smith brothers and Klingner were all educated at the same school, Fordyce Academy. It is really at the epicentre of Queen's Park's foundation as just five miles west of Fordyce is the coastal village of Cullen, birthplace of Queen's Park's first captain, Lewis Black.
Fordyce Academy was a remarkable institution. It was endowed in 1790 by George Smith, son of the village blacksmith who had made his fortune as a merchant in Bombay. He left £10,000, known as the Smith Bounty, to fund a schoolmaster and minister and to pay for the education of boys whose surname was, preferably, Smith.
Not surprisingly, there was fierce competition for places, with entrance exams for seven bursaries each year as well as for private fee-paying pupils. This gave it a cosmopolitan mix of pupils from different classes.
With the benefit of their surname, the Smith brothers from Morayshire were among the bursary pupils, probably as boarders as the family home was about 25 miles away. Klingner, however, could easily have travelled the three miles from home to school each day.
The Academy only had about 40 pupils, but the education they received could be life-changing and former pupils included surgeons, barristers and men such as Thomas Glover, responsible for introducing Western technology to Japan, and Sir James Clark, physician to Queen Victoria. The school enjoyed immense prestige in the Victorian era, described on occasion as the 'Eton of the North' (although it must be admitted that the term has been applied to several other schools such as Sedbergh, Rossall, Glenalmond and Fettes). In 1902, HM Inspector of Schools wrote 'The position of this school is now well established as the most important feeder of the university outside the city of Aberdeen.'
The last of the four Queen's Park office bearers was 30-year-old Mungo Ritchie, chosen as president, who came from Madderty in Perthshire. Lewis Black would succeed Ritchie as club president the following year.
The other members of the club, at least those who can be identified, came from various parts of Scotland ranging from Ayrshire to Inverness-shire and it appears that only one of them, the future club captain Robert Gardner, was a native Glaswegian.
With so many different backgrounds, and with none of the club members coming from schools with written rules, one of the first acts of the new committee was to decide which form of football to play. They wrote to Lillywhite's sports shop in London to ask for examples, and soon adopted their own 'Rules of the Field'. These were based on those of the Football Association and copies were printed in 1868 for the members, although none are known to have survived. Thankfully Robinson reproduced them in full in his book.
Rather than adopting the FA's rules entirely, the Queen's Park pioneers took their own view, and a sub-committee redrafted some of the text. Crucially they came up with a different wording to Law 6, covering offside.
The original text reads: When a player has kicked the ball, any one of the same side who is nearer to the opponents' goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until the ball has been played, unless there are at least three of his opponents between him and their own goal; but no player is out of play when the ball is kicked from behind the goal-line.
The text in italic was altered to read: 'unless there are at least two of his opponents between him and their own goal, who must not be more than fifteen yards from the goal-line'.
By relaxing the number of opponents from three to two, and introducing a stipulation that those opponents had to be performing a defensive role in the last fifteen yards of the pitch, there was clearly a desire to have greater freedom to pass the ball forwards. This indicates that the Queen's Park players had an understanding about how to play football that was based on a passing game. They did not have the mental baggage that constrained public school-educated footballers in England.
They were not alone in choosing this approach. Also playing football in Glasgow then were young men from Callander, brought up in the tradition of the town's Hansel Monday game. One of them, John B Connell, claimed to have brought the first football to the city back in 1862 and his team, the Thistle, was Queen's Park’s first opponents in August 1868. Connell's story of the early games on Glasgow Green was related in The Mighty Kick, published in 1933.
From these pioneers' approach to the rules there is a strong inference that they already knew how they liked to play the game, and the outcome of that understanding is that Scottish football in the 1870s and 1880s was defined by the ability to pass the ball, while English football foundered on its 'manly' origins that valued strength over teamwork.
The challenge for the football historian is to demonstrate the facts behind this theory, as there are few written records. The complete truth of Scottish football's origins will probably never be known as there is little hard evidence that boys played a kicking and passing type of football at Fordyce Academy, or at other Scottish rural schools, in the 1850s and 1860s.
What is evident, however, is that while the pioneering club in Scottish football was founded in Glasgow, the roots of the club and its founding fathers can be traced to a small school at the other end of the country.
Today, Fordyce is a conservation village caught in a time warp. It boasts a medieval castle at its centre, a church which has stood since Pictish times, and a historic schoolhouse. Fordyce Academy may have closed in 1964, and the building is now a private house, but its legacy remains.
The established narrative of the birth of association football in Scotland generally starts with the foundation of Queen's Park FC in 1867. But if you look behind the bare facts of that event in Glasgow you will discover that a little village school in Aberdeenshire can stake a claim as a birthplace of Scottish football.
At least three of the founders of Queen's Park were educated at Fordyce Academy, while many of their fellow pioneers also came from Scotland's north-east. Their origins encapsulate a story which helps to explain why football north of the border evolved along different lines to that in England, with passing and teamwork rather than dribbling and individuality as its principal characteristics.
Scotland's first association football club came into being on 9 July 1867 when a group of young men met in Glasgow 'for the purpose of forming a Football Club'.
The minutes of Queen's Park's inaugural meeting were captured in beautiful script by 19-year-old William Klingner, a merchant's clerk, who was elected secretary. The single sheet recorded a few basic rules and a list of committee members from whom four office bearers were appointed to lead the club.
Unfortunately for researchers it is not possible to consult the original document, which was lost in a fire at Hampden Park on Boxing Day 1945. However, a picture of the minute was reproduced in Richard Robinson's History of Queen's Park, published in 1920. His book is widely accepted as the definitive version of how the club was formed, and who its founders were, but in the course of my research I became aware of a few anomalies in Robinson's version of events, which merited a close re-examination.
Dublin-born Robinson, the club historian, was in fact more of a cycling aficionado when he came to Glasgow in his youth and was one of the founders of the Scottish Cyclists' Union, elected its president in 1896. His day job was managing the Post Office telegraph office in the city, with a sideline as football editor of the Glasgow News and he also launched the Scottish Athletic Journal. Newly-retired at the time of the Queen's Park jubilee, he was in a good position to write the club's history.
In the build-up to the club's fiftieth anniversary there was copious newspaper coverage of some early reminiscences, and two books of press cuttings from 1916-17 are held in the Scottish Football Museum. These provide a number of pointers which are not in Robinson's book, which had to wait until the First World War was over to see the light of day.
What is clear is that the Queen's Park story began in the mid-1860s when a group of young men exercised together each Saturday on a patch of ground in Strathbungo, on the south side of Glasgow.
One of them was James Cruickshank Grant who, when interviewed in 1916 for the Athletic News, identified the initial group as comprising himself, Robert and James Smith, Donald Edminston, Lewis Black and 'a couple of others'. They were all north of Scotland men: Grant came from the Highland village of Duthil, not far from Black's home in Grantown-on-Spey, the Smiths had been brought up in Morayshire and Edminston was from Aberdeenshire.
Grant related how initially they practised traditional Highland sports at Strathbungo but when the ground became too confined they decamped to Queen's Park Recreation Ground in Langside. There, they encountered about forty youths from the local YMCA who were kicking a ball about and the men from the north joined in their game of football. They enjoyed it so much that they went into town to buy their own ball, as even in the 1860s footballs could be bought over the counter – there was a range on sale at the Royal Polytechnic Warehouse – which indicates the game was already popular in Glasgow.
As more and more people joined in their football games, in the summer of 1867 they decided to form a proper club, hence the meeting at 3 Eglinton Terrace in Crosshill. It was attended by about 20 young men, of whom 13 were elected onto a committee, and this is where the minute of that first meeting merits close examination, with a particular focus on those individuals.
William Klingner, the secretary, came from Portsoy on the Banffshire coast, the son of an émigré from Dresden who was village doctor.
The treasurer is recorded as 'Smith senior' to distinguish himself from 'Smith junior' who was one of the ordinary members. These were James Smith and his younger brother Robert, the sons of the Earl of Fife's head gardener at Innes House in Morayshire. (Richard Robinson got them the wrong way round in his book.)
The Smith brothers and Klingner were all educated at the same school, Fordyce Academy. It is really at the epicentre of Queen's Park's foundation as just five miles west of Fordyce is the coastal village of Cullen, birthplace of Queen's Park's first captain, Lewis Black.
Fordyce Academy was a remarkable institution. It was endowed in 1790 by George Smith, son of the village blacksmith who had made his fortune as a merchant in Bombay. He left £10,000, known as the Smith Bounty, to fund a schoolmaster and minister and to pay for the education of boys whose surname was, preferably, Smith.
Not surprisingly, there was fierce competition for places, with entrance exams for seven bursaries each year as well as for private fee-paying pupils. This gave it a cosmopolitan mix of pupils from different classes.
With the benefit of their surname, the Smith brothers from Morayshire were among the bursary pupils, probably as boarders as the family home was about 25 miles away. Klingner, however, could easily have travelled the three miles from home to school each day.
The Academy only had about 40 pupils, but the education they received could be life-changing and former pupils included surgeons, barristers and men such as Thomas Glover, responsible for introducing Western technology to Japan, and Sir James Clark, physician to Queen Victoria. The school enjoyed immense prestige in the Victorian era, described on occasion as the 'Eton of the North' (although it must be admitted that the term has been applied to several other schools such as Sedbergh, Rossall, Glenalmond and Fettes). In 1902, HM Inspector of Schools wrote 'The position of this school is now well established as the most important feeder of the university outside the city of Aberdeen.'
The last of the four Queen's Park office bearers was 30-year-old Mungo Ritchie, chosen as president, who came from Madderty in Perthshire. Lewis Black would succeed Ritchie as club president the following year.
The other members of the club, at least those who can be identified, came from various parts of Scotland ranging from Ayrshire to Inverness-shire and it appears that only one of them, the future club captain Robert Gardner, was a native Glaswegian.
With so many different backgrounds, and with none of the club members coming from schools with written rules, one of the first acts of the new committee was to decide which form of football to play. They wrote to Lillywhite's sports shop in London to ask for examples, and soon adopted their own 'Rules of the Field'. These were based on those of the Football Association and copies were printed in 1868 for the members, although none are known to have survived. Thankfully Robinson reproduced them in full in his book.
Rather than adopting the FA's rules entirely, the Queen's Park pioneers took their own view, and a sub-committee redrafted some of the text. Crucially they came up with a different wording to Law 6, covering offside.
The original text reads: When a player has kicked the ball, any one of the same side who is nearer to the opponents' goal-line is out of play, and may not touch the ball himself, nor in any way whatever prevent any other player from doing so, until the ball has been played, unless there are at least three of his opponents between him and their own goal; but no player is out of play when the ball is kicked from behind the goal-line.
The text in italic was altered to read: 'unless there are at least two of his opponents between him and their own goal, who must not be more than fifteen yards from the goal-line'.
By relaxing the number of opponents from three to two, and introducing a stipulation that those opponents had to be performing a defensive role in the last fifteen yards of the pitch, there was clearly a desire to have greater freedom to pass the ball forwards. This indicates that the Queen's Park players had an understanding about how to play football that was based on a passing game. They did not have the mental baggage that constrained public school-educated footballers in England.
They were not alone in choosing this approach. Also playing football in Glasgow then were young men from Callander, brought up in the tradition of the town's Hansel Monday game. One of them, John B Connell, claimed to have brought the first football to the city back in 1862 and his team, the Thistle, was Queen's Park’s first opponents in August 1868. Connell's story of the early games on Glasgow Green was related in The Mighty Kick, published in 1933.
From these pioneers' approach to the rules there is a strong inference that they already knew how they liked to play the game, and the outcome of that understanding is that Scottish football in the 1870s and 1880s was defined by the ability to pass the ball, while English football foundered on its 'manly' origins that valued strength over teamwork.
The challenge for the football historian is to demonstrate the facts behind this theory, as there are few written records. The complete truth of Scottish football's origins will probably never be known as there is little hard evidence that boys played a kicking and passing type of football at Fordyce Academy, or at other Scottish rural schools, in the 1850s and 1860s.
What is evident, however, is that while the pioneering club in Scottish football was founded in Glasgow, the roots of the club and its founding fathers can be traced to a small school at the other end of the country.
Today, Fordyce is a conservation village caught in a time warp. It boasts a medieval castle at its centre, a church which has stood since Pictish times, and a historic schoolhouse. Fordyce Academy may have closed in 1964, and the building is now a private house, but its legacy remains.
- Published on
By guest blogger Douglas Gorman
Hampden Park in 1937 after expansion and improvement work
In 1935 the Scottish Football Association (SFA) decided that it needed a stadium with a realistic capacity of 150,000 in which to stage major matches.
Matters had come to a head that year after crowd scenes in Glasgow city centre before the international match with England. Supporters, anxious to get to Hampden Park before the gates closed, crossed working railway lines at Central Station as a short-cut to the trains heading for Mount Florida. Incoming trams were boarded before they had reached their terminus to ensure a place was secured for the return journey to the ground. At the ground there had been over-crowding.
Glasgow was already the football capital of the world, with Ibrox and Hampden each capable of hosting crowds of 120,000, with Celtic not far behind. It was still not enough.
Matters had come to a head that year after crowd scenes in Glasgow city centre before the international match with England. Supporters, anxious to get to Hampden Park before the gates closed, crossed working railway lines at Central Station as a short-cut to the trains heading for Mount Florida. Incoming trams were boarded before they had reached their terminus to ensure a place was secured for the return journey to the ground. At the ground there had been over-crowding.
Glasgow was already the football capital of the world, with Ibrox and Hampden each capable of hosting crowds of 120,000, with Celtic not far behind. It was still not enough.
This photograph shows the tightly-packed north terracing before Hampden was extended, with a match in progress and many spectators on the embankment unable to find a place.
It was clear to the SFA that something had to be done to safely accommodate and increase the number of spectators that could watch big games otherwise the Glasgow Corporation would take action itself on the grounds of public safety and order.
The most likely threat from the Corporation would have been a significant reduction in the 120,000 capacity of Hampden Park and further changes to how the spectators entered the ground to avoid over-crowding. It is also possible that the Corporation may have looked at restricting public transport arrangements to avoid a repetition of the scenes in the city centre. These measures would have had a major financial impact on the SFA.
The SFA itself thought that the major games should be all-ticket with no tickets on sale on match day at the ground. This would aid control of the vast crowds and reduce the numbers travelling to the ground many of which would be locked out.
The SFA decided that the solution was to give one club sole right to stage the Scotland v England international and the Scottish Cup Final for a period of 21 years in return for committing to significant ground expansion plans.
It appears that Celtic FC, with a current holding capacity of 92,000, did not put forward a proposal for Celtic Park. In December 1905 the club had already withdrawn its own plans to host these major matches and supported the new (third) Hampden Park as the big match venue. It is possible that a survey of their ground revealed that they could not meet the SFA’s capacity requirement within their land or that plans would be economically unviable.
This left the way clear for Rangers FC and Queen's Park FC to submit proposals.
In 1930 Ibrox Park was certified to have a capacity of 136,941 but 120,000 was the match limit. Rangers had plans to increase the capacity to 150,000 together with spectator cover over the entire north enclosure. There were later reports of other plans to increase it further to 184,000.
Hampden Park had a certified capacity of 141,765 although again the match limit was 120,000. Queen's Park FC put forward two schemes that would increase the capacity to 167,720 or 163,472. Both schemes would give a realistic match limit of 150,000.
When the Council of the SFA met on 1 April 1936 to make its decision, there was a keen debate as there was little between the two proposals. Rangers' manager, Bill Struth, attended the meeting and asked many questions. He was keen to know what the position of the SFA would be if the Queen's Park FC plan was accepted but the club was later required to make a request for financial assistance - a pertinent question as you will find out. He also pointed out the Chief Constable's comments on the access improvements to Ibrox Park that would arise from the completion of the new Renfrew Road had been omitted from the report under consideration at the meeting.
In the end, the deciding factor was not the stadium plans, but supporter access. A letter from the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company (LMS) informed the SFA that it could provide 20/25 special trains to Ibrox station on a match day but 45 using Mount Florida and King's Park stations near Hampden Park, with the latter leading to routes to the east. The company said that it could offer and manage a better service to Hampden Park. The decision was made.
Queen's Park FC agreed to provide the SFA with a stadium capable of holding 150,000 spectators for a period of 21 years. In return the club would receive one third of the receipts from the biennial international match against England, with a guaranteed minimum of £5,000 after deducting Entertainment Tax. The club would also receive 20% of the gate receipts from the Scottish Cup Final after deducting Entertainment Tax, match expenses, club guarantees and the percentage due to the SFA under the competition's rules. The SFA made it a condition that the admission price for the terracing for the match against England should be 2s (£0.10). One final condition was that if Queen's Park reached the Cup Final then the match would be played at Hampden Park, but Queen's Park would forgo its ground rent.
The Queen's Park club selected its slightly smaller scheme and engaged the famous Scottish football ground engineer, Archibald Leitch, to undertake the work. Glasgow, like each Scottish burgh, had a Dean of Guild Court made up of local magistrates, which at the time was the public authority to which anyone intending to build had to apply for permission, which they duly gave on 29 May 1936.
Construction started that summer and the extended ground was ready for occupancy on 15 February 1937 with the improvement costing £63,325. The original estimated cost was £40-50,000 but further unanticipated expenditure had been incurred to deal with safety requirements together with some other cost increases. It was a heavy financial burden for the amateur club and on 27 September 1937, after having received a deputation from Queen's Park FC, the SFA Council agreed to make a loan of £5,000, despite earlier requests for £10-12,500, to the club to be repaid over the period of the agreement to stage major matches. The annual interest rate was 2½%, paid half-yearly.
How many people could be safely accommodated watching a match was not the same as the theoretical holding capacity calculated by the engineers. The engineers assumed that every seat was occupied and then made a calculation of the space available (around a width of 18 inches) for spectators standing in serried ranks on each step of terracing. This produced a total of 163,782.
The engineers also calculated that an additional 19,906 spectators could stand in the gangways and that is the reason why a round 180,000 was often quoted at the time as the ground’s new capacity.
The match capacity was set and reviewed by the Glasgow Corporation based on advice from the Chief Constable, responsible for crowd control, and its Master of Works who made his own calculations. His result was 149,969 that was based on 14,269 seats and standing accommodation for 135,700. In his calculations 1.77 square feet per spectator was allowed for on the east terracing and 1.79 square feet on the west terracing with no standing in the gangways. The layout of the ground and its entrances and exits meant that 150,000 spectators could be admitted in under 75 minutes and it could be safely cleared in just 19 minutes.
When the expanded ground staged its first major matches in April 1937 new attendance records were set immediately. 149,547 attended the Scotland v England international on 17 April 1937, a new world record, which remains an all-time Hampden Park record and a European crowd record.
A week later, on 24 April 1937, 147,365 watched the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Aberdeen. This set an all-time Scottish Cup Final record and is still a record for a European club match. It was also a world record for a club match until December 1963 when 177,656 saw Fluminense play Flamengo in the Maracanã.
Soon afterwards a meeting of the Glasgow Corporation was held on 27 May 1937 to discuss concerns over safety at the ground and heard claims that the passageways were blocked and there had been overcrowding and swaying. The Corporation received reports from the Master of Works and the Chief Constable and were keeping in mind possible further improvements. Councillor David Brown, who had watched the International match from the east terracing, argued that the match capacity should be reduced to 135,000 and other aspects of crowd control and ground layout needed to be addressed. However, no change was made.
In 1938 Hampden Park was not hosting the England match and the Cup Final opponents (East Fife and Kilmarnock) meant that ground capacity was not going to be taxed. The issue arose once again the following year. On 4 April 1939 the Glasgow Magistrates met and discussed the capacity for the forthcoming international match against England and the Cup Final. It was again suggested that it should be reduced to 135,000 to ensure safety and comfort but in the end it was set at 149,000. That was the capacity calculated by the Master of Works and subject to the installation of some more crush barriers before the international.
149,269 attended the Scotland v England match on 15 April 1939.
Hampden would never witness such large crowds again. For much of the Second World War the ground operated under a reduced capacity. 139,468 watched the Scotland v England Victory International on 13 April 1946 that was played a month after the Bolton disaster when 33 spectators lost their lives, and hundreds were injured. The public enquiry into the disaster made a number of safety recommendations and consequently, the Hampden Park capacity was reduced to 134,580 where it remained for many years.
The most likely threat from the Corporation would have been a significant reduction in the 120,000 capacity of Hampden Park and further changes to how the spectators entered the ground to avoid over-crowding. It is also possible that the Corporation may have looked at restricting public transport arrangements to avoid a repetition of the scenes in the city centre. These measures would have had a major financial impact on the SFA.
The SFA itself thought that the major games should be all-ticket with no tickets on sale on match day at the ground. This would aid control of the vast crowds and reduce the numbers travelling to the ground many of which would be locked out.
The SFA decided that the solution was to give one club sole right to stage the Scotland v England international and the Scottish Cup Final for a period of 21 years in return for committing to significant ground expansion plans.
It appears that Celtic FC, with a current holding capacity of 92,000, did not put forward a proposal for Celtic Park. In December 1905 the club had already withdrawn its own plans to host these major matches and supported the new (third) Hampden Park as the big match venue. It is possible that a survey of their ground revealed that they could not meet the SFA’s capacity requirement within their land or that plans would be economically unviable.
This left the way clear for Rangers FC and Queen's Park FC to submit proposals.
In 1930 Ibrox Park was certified to have a capacity of 136,941 but 120,000 was the match limit. Rangers had plans to increase the capacity to 150,000 together with spectator cover over the entire north enclosure. There were later reports of other plans to increase it further to 184,000.
Hampden Park had a certified capacity of 141,765 although again the match limit was 120,000. Queen's Park FC put forward two schemes that would increase the capacity to 167,720 or 163,472. Both schemes would give a realistic match limit of 150,000.
When the Council of the SFA met on 1 April 1936 to make its decision, there was a keen debate as there was little between the two proposals. Rangers' manager, Bill Struth, attended the meeting and asked many questions. He was keen to know what the position of the SFA would be if the Queen's Park FC plan was accepted but the club was later required to make a request for financial assistance - a pertinent question as you will find out. He also pointed out the Chief Constable's comments on the access improvements to Ibrox Park that would arise from the completion of the new Renfrew Road had been omitted from the report under consideration at the meeting.
In the end, the deciding factor was not the stadium plans, but supporter access. A letter from the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company (LMS) informed the SFA that it could provide 20/25 special trains to Ibrox station on a match day but 45 using Mount Florida and King's Park stations near Hampden Park, with the latter leading to routes to the east. The company said that it could offer and manage a better service to Hampden Park. The decision was made.
Queen's Park FC agreed to provide the SFA with a stadium capable of holding 150,000 spectators for a period of 21 years. In return the club would receive one third of the receipts from the biennial international match against England, with a guaranteed minimum of £5,000 after deducting Entertainment Tax. The club would also receive 20% of the gate receipts from the Scottish Cup Final after deducting Entertainment Tax, match expenses, club guarantees and the percentage due to the SFA under the competition's rules. The SFA made it a condition that the admission price for the terracing for the match against England should be 2s (£0.10). One final condition was that if Queen's Park reached the Cup Final then the match would be played at Hampden Park, but Queen's Park would forgo its ground rent.
The Queen's Park club selected its slightly smaller scheme and engaged the famous Scottish football ground engineer, Archibald Leitch, to undertake the work. Glasgow, like each Scottish burgh, had a Dean of Guild Court made up of local magistrates, which at the time was the public authority to which anyone intending to build had to apply for permission, which they duly gave on 29 May 1936.
Construction started that summer and the extended ground was ready for occupancy on 15 February 1937 with the improvement costing £63,325. The original estimated cost was £40-50,000 but further unanticipated expenditure had been incurred to deal with safety requirements together with some other cost increases. It was a heavy financial burden for the amateur club and on 27 September 1937, after having received a deputation from Queen's Park FC, the SFA Council agreed to make a loan of £5,000, despite earlier requests for £10-12,500, to the club to be repaid over the period of the agreement to stage major matches. The annual interest rate was 2½%, paid half-yearly.
How many people could be safely accommodated watching a match was not the same as the theoretical holding capacity calculated by the engineers. The engineers assumed that every seat was occupied and then made a calculation of the space available (around a width of 18 inches) for spectators standing in serried ranks on each step of terracing. This produced a total of 163,782.
The engineers also calculated that an additional 19,906 spectators could stand in the gangways and that is the reason why a round 180,000 was often quoted at the time as the ground’s new capacity.
The match capacity was set and reviewed by the Glasgow Corporation based on advice from the Chief Constable, responsible for crowd control, and its Master of Works who made his own calculations. His result was 149,969 that was based on 14,269 seats and standing accommodation for 135,700. In his calculations 1.77 square feet per spectator was allowed for on the east terracing and 1.79 square feet on the west terracing with no standing in the gangways. The layout of the ground and its entrances and exits meant that 150,000 spectators could be admitted in under 75 minutes and it could be safely cleared in just 19 minutes.
When the expanded ground staged its first major matches in April 1937 new attendance records were set immediately. 149,547 attended the Scotland v England international on 17 April 1937, a new world record, which remains an all-time Hampden Park record and a European crowd record.
A week later, on 24 April 1937, 147,365 watched the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Aberdeen. This set an all-time Scottish Cup Final record and is still a record for a European club match. It was also a world record for a club match until December 1963 when 177,656 saw Fluminense play Flamengo in the Maracanã.
Soon afterwards a meeting of the Glasgow Corporation was held on 27 May 1937 to discuss concerns over safety at the ground and heard claims that the passageways were blocked and there had been overcrowding and swaying. The Corporation received reports from the Master of Works and the Chief Constable and were keeping in mind possible further improvements. Councillor David Brown, who had watched the International match from the east terracing, argued that the match capacity should be reduced to 135,000 and other aspects of crowd control and ground layout needed to be addressed. However, no change was made.
In 1938 Hampden Park was not hosting the England match and the Cup Final opponents (East Fife and Kilmarnock) meant that ground capacity was not going to be taxed. The issue arose once again the following year. On 4 April 1939 the Glasgow Magistrates met and discussed the capacity for the forthcoming international match against England and the Cup Final. It was again suggested that it should be reduced to 135,000 to ensure safety and comfort but in the end it was set at 149,000. That was the capacity calculated by the Master of Works and subject to the installation of some more crush barriers before the international.
149,269 attended the Scotland v England match on 15 April 1939.
Hampden would never witness such large crowds again. For much of the Second World War the ground operated under a reduced capacity. 139,468 watched the Scotland v England Victory International on 13 April 1946 that was played a month after the Bolton disaster when 33 spectators lost their lives, and hundreds were injured. The public enquiry into the disaster made a number of safety recommendations and consequently, the Hampden Park capacity was reduced to 134,580 where it remained for many years.
- Published on
In autumn of 1946 a select team of footballers from the southern Polish region of Silesia embarked on a four match tour of Scotland which helped Polish football on the road to post-war recovery.
The players, mainly from clubs in Krakow and Chorzow, had just emerged from years of wartime hardship, with several of them having been held in concentration camps. When Poland resumed international matches against Norway the following summer, seven of the players from this tour were in the team.
The games at Dundee, Morton, Ayr and Hampden also added an attractive new dimension to the domestic scene in Scotland. The tour was scheduled to start on 9 October, but a travel delay in Berlin forced a short postponement. When the players finally trained for the first time, they were described by a curious reporter from the Dundee Courier: 'Fifteen well-built young men, clad in snappy training suits, yesterday lapped Hampden Park and went on to reveal slick ball-control. They were the Silesian footballers having their first trial spin since their arrival in this country. Their names read like anagrams.'
He added that only one had been in Scotland before: Michalski had served in the Polish Army and left Britain just nine weeks ago to be repatriated. Five had been in concentration camps, while others took part in the underground war in Poland.
Managed by M. Kiesielinski, Director of Physical Education in Poland, they were based in Glasgow, where they were entertained by a visit to the cinema, a tour of the city including Ibrox Stadium, and watched a League Cup tie between Queen's Park and Morton.
The players, mainly from clubs in Krakow and Chorzow, had just emerged from years of wartime hardship, with several of them having been held in concentration camps. When Poland resumed international matches against Norway the following summer, seven of the players from this tour were in the team.
The games at Dundee, Morton, Ayr and Hampden also added an attractive new dimension to the domestic scene in Scotland. The tour was scheduled to start on 9 October, but a travel delay in Berlin forced a short postponement. When the players finally trained for the first time, they were described by a curious reporter from the Dundee Courier: 'Fifteen well-built young men, clad in snappy training suits, yesterday lapped Hampden Park and went on to reveal slick ball-control. They were the Silesian footballers having their first trial spin since their arrival in this country. Their names read like anagrams.'
He added that only one had been in Scotland before: Michalski had served in the Polish Army and left Britain just nine weeks ago to be repatriated. Five had been in concentration camps, while others took part in the underground war in Poland.
Managed by M. Kiesielinski, Director of Physical Education in Poland, they were based in Glasgow, where they were entertained by a visit to the cinema, a tour of the city including Ibrox Stadium, and watched a League Cup tie between Queen's Park and Morton.
The Silesian tourists are shown the sights of Glasgow by Third Lanark chairman William sans Unkles
For their first match, versus Dundee, they travelled by bus and it turned into quite a festive occasion, starting with lunch at the Royal British Hotel hosted by the Dundee directors, then before the game the players were presented to Lord Provost Sir Garnet Wilson, followed by the national anthems.
The match attracted over 10,000 spectators to Dens Park on a Monday afternoon, including 13 truckloads of Polish Army soldiers, and they saw the home team record a comfortable 2-0 win. Then in the evening there was a reception where the players were presented with plush Scotch terriers, decorated with a tartan ribbon.
Incidentally, the same day Sparta Prague met Rangers at Ibrox and they faced Hibs later that week.
The Silesian tour continued two days later in Greenock, and this time the visitors showed their worth by racing to a three goal lead by half time. Although Morton pulled one back, and Garth missed a penalty, it was a good win.
Then on Saturday, there were 8,000 at Somerset Park. Ayr took the lead before Cieslik quickly equalised, and the Silesians scored what proved the winner after the break, although it took a brilliant penalty save by Brom from Smith to retain the lead.
The tour ended where it began, at Hampden Park, where 15,000 turned out to see a Third Lanark and Queen’s Park select face the Silesians. The visitors recorded their third successive win, although it was a close match.
Despite Cieslik and Brom apparently being offered professional contracts by Scottish clubs, all the tourists returned to Poland where they were greeted as heroes when they finally arrived at the railway station in Katowice, and taken for a festive breakfast.
However, it would not be long before Scottish football gained a Polish flavour. There was a large Polish Army base near Fraserburgh and inevitably some of them were decent players and decided to remain in the country when demobilised. The first to move to a Scottish League club was Feliks Staroscik, who signed for Third Lanark in May 1947, and he was soon followed by Alfie Leszcz (shortened to Lesz) at St Mirren and Konrad Kapler at Celtic.
The match attracted over 10,000 spectators to Dens Park on a Monday afternoon, including 13 truckloads of Polish Army soldiers, and they saw the home team record a comfortable 2-0 win. Then in the evening there was a reception where the players were presented with plush Scotch terriers, decorated with a tartan ribbon.
Incidentally, the same day Sparta Prague met Rangers at Ibrox and they faced Hibs later that week.
The Silesian tour continued two days later in Greenock, and this time the visitors showed their worth by racing to a three goal lead by half time. Although Morton pulled one back, and Garth missed a penalty, it was a good win.
Then on Saturday, there were 8,000 at Somerset Park. Ayr took the lead before Cieslik quickly equalised, and the Silesians scored what proved the winner after the break, although it took a brilliant penalty save by Brom from Smith to retain the lead.
The tour ended where it began, at Hampden Park, where 15,000 turned out to see a Third Lanark and Queen’s Park select face the Silesians. The visitors recorded their third successive win, although it was a close match.
Despite Cieslik and Brom apparently being offered professional contracts by Scottish clubs, all the tourists returned to Poland where they were greeted as heroes when they finally arrived at the railway station in Katowice, and taken for a festive breakfast.
However, it would not be long before Scottish football gained a Polish flavour. There was a large Polish Army base near Fraserburgh and inevitably some of them were decent players and decided to remain in the country when demobilised. The first to move to a Scottish League club was Feliks Staroscik, who signed for Third Lanark in May 1947, and he was soon followed by Alfie Leszcz (shortened to Lesz) at St Mirren and Konrad Kapler at Celtic.
Silesian squad
Walter Brom (Ruch)
Erwin Michalski (AKS)
Antoni Barwiński (Tarnovia)
Stanislaw Flanek (Wisla)
Mieczyslaw Gracz (Wisla)
Bak (right half)
Tadeusz Parpan (Cracovia)
Antoni Andrzejewski (AKS)
Jan Wapiennik (Wisla)
Stanislaw Baran (Ruch)
Gerard Cieślik (Ruch)
Mieczyslaw Nowak (Garbarnia)
Marian Jabłoński (Cracovia) captain
Maksymilian Baranski (AKS)
Stanislaw Różankowski (Cracovia)
In the first match at Dundee, the Silesian team was Brom; Barwiński, Flanek; Wapiennik, Andrzejewski, Jabłoński; Cieślik, Nowak, Gracz, Różankowski, Baranski. For the other three matches, Parpan replaced Andrzejewski, and Baran replaced Baranski. Michalski and Bak did not play.
Results
October 14, 1946
Dundee 2 (Turnbull 4, 75), Silesians 0
Dundee: Bennett, Follon, Ancell, McKenzie, Gray, Smith, Gunn, Pattillo, Turnbull, Ewen, Hill.
October 16, 1946
Greenock Morton 1 (McInnes 51), Silesians 3 (Cieślik 2, 12, Różankowski 41)
Morton: McFeat, Maley, Kelly, Mitchell, Aird, White, Cupples, Divers, Jones, Garth, McInnes.
October 19, 1946
Ayr United 1 (Morrison 30), Silesians 2 (Cieślik 32, Gracz 57)
Ayr: Paton, Monaghan, Henderson, Smith, McNeill, Nesbitt, McGuigan, Harkness, Morrison, Wallace, Beattie.
October 23, 1946
Third Lanark/Queen's Park Select 1 (Ayton 61), Silesians 2 (Nowak 9, 79)
Third Lanark/Queen’s Park: Hamilton, Carabine, Kelly, Letham, Whigham, Harnett, McCulloch, Mason, Aitken, Ayton, Mitchell.
Walter Brom (Ruch)
Erwin Michalski (AKS)
Antoni Barwiński (Tarnovia)
Stanislaw Flanek (Wisla)
Mieczyslaw Gracz (Wisla)
Bak (right half)
Tadeusz Parpan (Cracovia)
Antoni Andrzejewski (AKS)
Jan Wapiennik (Wisla)
Stanislaw Baran (Ruch)
Gerard Cieślik (Ruch)
Mieczyslaw Nowak (Garbarnia)
Marian Jabłoński (Cracovia) captain
Maksymilian Baranski (AKS)
Stanislaw Różankowski (Cracovia)
In the first match at Dundee, the Silesian team was Brom; Barwiński, Flanek; Wapiennik, Andrzejewski, Jabłoński; Cieślik, Nowak, Gracz, Różankowski, Baranski. For the other three matches, Parpan replaced Andrzejewski, and Baran replaced Baranski. Michalski and Bak did not play.
Results
October 14, 1946
Dundee 2 (Turnbull 4, 75), Silesians 0
Dundee: Bennett, Follon, Ancell, McKenzie, Gray, Smith, Gunn, Pattillo, Turnbull, Ewen, Hill.
October 16, 1946
Greenock Morton 1 (McInnes 51), Silesians 3 (Cieślik 2, 12, Różankowski 41)
Morton: McFeat, Maley, Kelly, Mitchell, Aird, White, Cupples, Divers, Jones, Garth, McInnes.
October 19, 1946
Ayr United 1 (Morrison 30), Silesians 2 (Cieślik 32, Gracz 57)
Ayr: Paton, Monaghan, Henderson, Smith, McNeill, Nesbitt, McGuigan, Harkness, Morrison, Wallace, Beattie.
October 23, 1946
Third Lanark/Queen's Park Select 1 (Ayton 61), Silesians 2 (Nowak 9, 79)
Third Lanark/Queen’s Park: Hamilton, Carabine, Kelly, Letham, Whigham, Harnett, McCulloch, Mason, Aitken, Ayton, Mitchell.
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With the Euro 2016 play-offs this weekend, one that catches my eye is the 'local derby' between Sweden and Denmark. The first leg is in Solna on Saturday and the return in Copenhagen on Tuesday.
By chance I have in my collection a couple of attractive souvenirs of two early encounters between the nations. These silver medals were presented by the Swedish FA to the players (caps never really took off outside the UK) and they have been engraved with the match details.
The two games were both at the old Rasunda Stadium in Solna (now replaced by the Friends Arena) and were played on 10 October 1920, then a year later on 9 October 1921. Denmark won the first 2-0 and drew the second 0-0, and I'm sure they would be delighted with similar outcomes on Saturday night.
The medals appear to have belonged to a Danish player as the 1920 engraving uses the term 'fodbold' rather than Swedish 'fotboll'. Also - one for the etymologists - it describes Denmark's opposition as 'Sverrig', an archaic word that was replaced in the Danish language by 'Sverige' early in the 20th century. Four Danish players featured in both matches, so it could have belonged originally to any one of Leo Dannin, Ernst Nilsson, Steen Blicher or Poul Nielson.
Of course, I could not write a blog without a Scottish reference, and one of the pioneers of Danish football was a man from Dundee.
When Queen's Park went on tour to Copenhagen in 1898, Scottish Sport magazine carried an interview with former player Alexander Hamilton, in which he stated that the honour of introducing the game in Denmark belonged to a former Dundee Strathmore player called JT Smart. (See Matt McDowell's fascinating article for full details).
With a bit of investigation, I have uncovered a few details about Smart, which indicate that although he was an important figure he was likely not the actual founder of the game in Denmark.
The first thing is that the Scottish Sport article gets his middle initial wrong. He was James Young Smart, born in Dundee on 18 March 1862, the son of a jute mill manager. Strathmore FC was founded early in 1877, named in honour of its patron the Earl of Strathmore, and played its first match in March against Dunmore. Its ground was at Rollo's Pier, off Magdalen Yard Road at the west end of the city.
James Young Smart was elected secretary and treasurer of Strathmore in the summer of 1878, aged just 16, and played regularly for the club over the next few years, rising to become club president in 1882. He held that role until he left Dundee, as reported in the Evening Telegraph on 18 February 1885: 'On Monday evening a number of gentlemen met in the Queen's Hotel and entertained Mr J.Y. Smart to supper on the occasion of his leaving Dundee for Copenhagen.'
Clearly Smart continued to play football as he was the top scorer in Denmark’s first league tournament in 1889-90, with 12 goals for KB who finished second behind Akademisk.
He returned to Dundee, probably when his father died in 1896, to join the family business at Rosebank jute mill, and is listed as a member of Dundee FC's match committee in December 1898, when the club got going again after liquidation. In December 1899 his sisters ran a stall at the football club bazaar.
Thereafter, things get hazy. Although listed as a jute factory manager in the 1901 census, by 1907 he was no longer involved in the business.
It appears his life went into a downward spiral as Smart died at Duke Street Hospital, Glasgow on 8 May 1921, age 59 and unmarried. The death certificate gave his usual residence as the Great Eastern Hotel, politely known as a ‘working man’s hostel’ but in reality a doss-house; cause of death was myocardial degeneration and chronic nervous congestion (ie heart disease and stroke). A sorry end for Scottish football pioneer.
By chance I have in my collection a couple of attractive souvenirs of two early encounters between the nations. These silver medals were presented by the Swedish FA to the players (caps never really took off outside the UK) and they have been engraved with the match details.
The two games were both at the old Rasunda Stadium in Solna (now replaced by the Friends Arena) and were played on 10 October 1920, then a year later on 9 October 1921. Denmark won the first 2-0 and drew the second 0-0, and I'm sure they would be delighted with similar outcomes on Saturday night.
The medals appear to have belonged to a Danish player as the 1920 engraving uses the term 'fodbold' rather than Swedish 'fotboll'. Also - one for the etymologists - it describes Denmark's opposition as 'Sverrig', an archaic word that was replaced in the Danish language by 'Sverige' early in the 20th century. Four Danish players featured in both matches, so it could have belonged originally to any one of Leo Dannin, Ernst Nilsson, Steen Blicher or Poul Nielson.
Of course, I could not write a blog without a Scottish reference, and one of the pioneers of Danish football was a man from Dundee.
When Queen's Park went on tour to Copenhagen in 1898, Scottish Sport magazine carried an interview with former player Alexander Hamilton, in which he stated that the honour of introducing the game in Denmark belonged to a former Dundee Strathmore player called JT Smart. (See Matt McDowell's fascinating article for full details).
With a bit of investigation, I have uncovered a few details about Smart, which indicate that although he was an important figure he was likely not the actual founder of the game in Denmark.
The first thing is that the Scottish Sport article gets his middle initial wrong. He was James Young Smart, born in Dundee on 18 March 1862, the son of a jute mill manager. Strathmore FC was founded early in 1877, named in honour of its patron the Earl of Strathmore, and played its first match in March against Dunmore. Its ground was at Rollo's Pier, off Magdalen Yard Road at the west end of the city.
James Young Smart was elected secretary and treasurer of Strathmore in the summer of 1878, aged just 16, and played regularly for the club over the next few years, rising to become club president in 1882. He held that role until he left Dundee, as reported in the Evening Telegraph on 18 February 1885: 'On Monday evening a number of gentlemen met in the Queen's Hotel and entertained Mr J.Y. Smart to supper on the occasion of his leaving Dundee for Copenhagen.'
Clearly Smart continued to play football as he was the top scorer in Denmark’s first league tournament in 1889-90, with 12 goals for KB who finished second behind Akademisk.
He returned to Dundee, probably when his father died in 1896, to join the family business at Rosebank jute mill, and is listed as a member of Dundee FC's match committee in December 1898, when the club got going again after liquidation. In December 1899 his sisters ran a stall at the football club bazaar.
Thereafter, things get hazy. Although listed as a jute factory manager in the 1901 census, by 1907 he was no longer involved in the business.
It appears his life went into a downward spiral as Smart died at Duke Street Hospital, Glasgow on 8 May 1921, age 59 and unmarried. The death certificate gave his usual residence as the Great Eastern Hotel, politely known as a ‘working man’s hostel’ but in reality a doss-house; cause of death was myocardial degeneration and chronic nervous congestion (ie heart disease and stroke). A sorry end for Scottish football pioneer.
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When researching the lives of footballers, I have come across some fascinating tales but few can match RW Neill, who captained Scotland to victory over England in 1880 (above) and won the Scottish Cup four times with Queen's Park.
Late in life he vanished from his Glasgow home and covered his tracks so successfully that his wife declared herself a widow and remarried. Yet Neill was not dead, he was in Australia and so much alive that he tried to fight for the Anzacs.
For much of his life, Robert Walker Neill was a fairly typical Queen's Park player: born in 1853, son of a head teacher in the southside of Glasgow, he pursued a career as a commercial agent for an engineering company. In the 1880s he spent a couple of years in South America, and married Janet Johnston on his return.
His football career was exemplary and he was described in the Scottish Football Annual as 'one of the finest backs Scotland ever produced'. That was in 1880, the year in which a knee injury in the Glasgow Charity Cup final - when he captained QP to victory over Rangers - ended his playing days.
Late in life he vanished from his Glasgow home and covered his tracks so successfully that his wife declared herself a widow and remarried. Yet Neill was not dead, he was in Australia and so much alive that he tried to fight for the Anzacs.
For much of his life, Robert Walker Neill was a fairly typical Queen's Park player: born in 1853, son of a head teacher in the southside of Glasgow, he pursued a career as a commercial agent for an engineering company. In the 1880s he spent a couple of years in South America, and married Janet Johnston on his return.
His football career was exemplary and he was described in the Scottish Football Annual as 'one of the finest backs Scotland ever produced'. That was in 1880, the year in which a knee injury in the Glasgow Charity Cup final - when he captained QP to victory over Rangers - ended his playing days.
By then he had played for Scotland five times, all on the winning side, and twice as captain. He was also in Queen's Park's Scottish Cup winning sides of 1874 (pictured left) 1875 (as goalkeeper!), 1876 and 1880.
He and his wife had four children, although only two survived to adulthood, and they lived in Shawlands. In the 1911 census the family are at 106 Kilmarnock Road in Shawlands, and he is described as a 58-year-old machine maker and employer.
Then something happened. There is nothing in the press about his sudden departure, but indications are that he simply walked out. A year later he arrived on the SS Monaro in Fremantle, Western Australia, where he found work as a 'station hand', in other words a general labourer. He had no financial resources and lived in the Salvation Army 'Palace'.
When the War broke out, there was of course a major recruitment drive for the Anzac forces. Neill was in his sixties, far too old: the normal upper age limit was 45, although for those with mining and engineering experience an exception was made for those up to 50. However, on 17 May 1917 he walked into the recruiting office at Blackboy Hill camp, near Perth, declared himself to be 48 years old with no next of kin, and signed on the dotted line. His attestation papers are available online.
Private Neill passed the physical examination (despite needing extensive dental work) and was taken into the Mining Corps. He underwent his initial training before being appointed as a sapper on 31 July. Then a week later he was found out, and summarily discharged as over age. It was a brave attempt to join the war, and in fact he was not the only old man to try: several other Australians in their 60s actually kept up the deception and saw active service in Europe. For him, however, the war was over.
Then something happened. There is nothing in the press about his sudden departure, but indications are that he simply walked out. A year later he arrived on the SS Monaro in Fremantle, Western Australia, where he found work as a 'station hand', in other words a general labourer. He had no financial resources and lived in the Salvation Army 'Palace'.
When the War broke out, there was of course a major recruitment drive for the Anzac forces. Neill was in his sixties, far too old: the normal upper age limit was 45, although for those with mining and engineering experience an exception was made for those up to 50. However, on 17 May 1917 he walked into the recruiting office at Blackboy Hill camp, near Perth, declared himself to be 48 years old with no next of kin, and signed on the dotted line. His attestation papers are available online.
Private Neill passed the physical examination (despite needing extensive dental work) and was taken into the Mining Corps. He underwent his initial training before being appointed as a sapper on 31 July. Then a week later he was found out, and summarily discharged as over age. It was a brave attempt to join the war, and in fact he was not the only old man to try: several other Australians in their 60s actually kept up the deception and saw active service in Europe. For him, however, the war was over.
He went back to the Salvation Army hostel, and latterly worked as its caretaker. Meanwhile, back in Scotland, his wife Janet remarried in 1922 and declared herself a widow on the marriage certificate. Robert Neill, however, did not die until 1928.
He was apparently well regarded in Perth, as his funeral at Karrakatta Cemetery drew a good crowd: 'The respect and esteem in which the deceased was held was demonstrated by the number of friends who attended at the graveside and the beautiful wreaths and floral tributes received' (Daily News). There also seems to have been no knowledge of his family back home, as a series of probate notices appeared in the local press.
Unanswered questions remain about Robert Neill.Why did he leave? Did his family ever find out what happened to him? Only now, with the digitisation of records, has it been possible to track down the man who disappeared.
The younger brother
As a postscript to RW Neill's story, it is also worth highlighting his brother Quintin, another prominent footballer.
There were actually seven brothers in the family, and Quintin was 13 years younger than Robert. However, he started on the same path and joined Queen's Park in 1886, becoming a first team regular two years later. Then in December 1888 something unprecedented happened: 'for the first time in their existence, the QP have had to submit to the English agent'. To general shock, he turned professional with Lincoln City.
In Lincoln, Quintin Neill worked as an accountant while captaining the football team and was considered as one of its finest early players. In 1894 he was awarded a benefit match against Burnley, but at the end of the year he went to South Africa to set up in business. He joined the Durban Light Infantry as a volunteer, then when the Boer War broke out he became a Trooper with Driscoll's Scouts. Sadly, he died of fever in a Durban hospital and is buried there.
He was apparently well regarded in Perth, as his funeral at Karrakatta Cemetery drew a good crowd: 'The respect and esteem in which the deceased was held was demonstrated by the number of friends who attended at the graveside and the beautiful wreaths and floral tributes received' (Daily News). There also seems to have been no knowledge of his family back home, as a series of probate notices appeared in the local press.
Unanswered questions remain about Robert Neill.Why did he leave? Did his family ever find out what happened to him? Only now, with the digitisation of records, has it been possible to track down the man who disappeared.
The younger brother
As a postscript to RW Neill's story, it is also worth highlighting his brother Quintin, another prominent footballer.
There were actually seven brothers in the family, and Quintin was 13 years younger than Robert. However, he started on the same path and joined Queen's Park in 1886, becoming a first team regular two years later. Then in December 1888 something unprecedented happened: 'for the first time in their existence, the QP have had to submit to the English agent'. To general shock, he turned professional with Lincoln City.
In Lincoln, Quintin Neill worked as an accountant while captaining the football team and was considered as one of its finest early players. In 1894 he was awarded a benefit match against Burnley, but at the end of the year he went to South Africa to set up in business. He joined the Durban Light Infantry as a volunteer, then when the Boer War broke out he became a Trooper with Driscoll's Scouts. Sadly, he died of fever in a Durban hospital and is buried there.
Curiously, he has been wrongly identified in some reference books which call him Quentin Durward Neill - Quentin Durward was the name of a Walter Scott novel. However, he was actually Quintin Dick Neill, named after his father's lawyer in Glasgow, called Quintin Dick.
Robert Walker Neill: born Glasgow, 4 August 1853; died Perth, Western Australia, 19 August 1928.
Quintin Dick Neill: born Glasgow, 16 April 1866; died Durban, South Africa, 9 August 1901.
Robert Walker Neill: born Glasgow, 4 August 1853; died Perth, Western Australia, 19 August 1928.
Quintin Dick Neill: born Glasgow, 16 April 1866; died Durban, South Africa, 9 August 1901.
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A grainy image of Angus McKinnon from 1874, when he was photographed with the Queen's Park team that won the first Scottish Cup final.
The scroll in London which marks the presentation by Fred Anderson of a library to the School of Oriental Studies
Ever dreamed of scoring the winning goal for Scotland? It’s something any player would love to put on his sporting CV.
And one man, Angus McKinnon, has the unique claim to be the first ever to achieve the feat. He managed it in March 1874, when England were beaten 2-1.
After the first two Scotland-England contests had finished in a draw and a defeat, a record crowd estimated at 7,000 was attracted to the West of Scotland Cricket Ground. We know from SFA accounts that spectators paid a shilling for a ticket, and that match cards were sold for a penny. The pitch ran on a gentle slope north-south with spectators lined up behind the ropes.
Scotland captain JJ Thomson kicked off at 3.30 prompt, setting in motion a fascinating clash of styles as the English were markedly bigger and stronger, while the Scots made up for that with their clever passing game.
England took the lead midway through the first half when Robert Kingsford chested the ball over the line. Under the rules of the day, ends were changed and it was Scotland's turn to have the advantage of playing downhill. The game was turned on its head shortly before half time: in the 40th minute Fred Anderson equalised, then three minutes later Angus McKinnon sent in a shot which slipped through the hands of English goalkeeper Welch. With no more scoring in the second half, this turned out to be the winning goal. Scotland had a victory to cherish.
For McKinnon, it was just the start of a remarkable month of 'firsts'. The following Saturday he travelled south with the first Glasgow select team to Sheffield, and the week after that he took part in the inaugural Scottish Cup final, which Queen's Park won by defeating Clydesdale.
Sadly, his goal-scoring ability did not earn him any more caps and this was his only appearance for the national team, although he did win two more Scottish Cup winner’s medals. He then suffered a serious illness which kept him out for a year, and despite making a comeback for Queen's Park and also serving as club secretary for a few months, in 1878 he decided to emigrate.
Tracking down what happened to Angus McKinnon, and indeed where he originally came from, was not easy. According to DD Bone's Scottish Football Reminiscences, published in 1890, McKinnon had died 'about four years ago' in Canada. However, extensive searches failed to come up with any possible matches and it was only when browsing through the Scottish Athletic Journal from 1884 that I found a comment that McKinnon 'lies beneath the cold sod in Canada'.
This inferred his death had taken place much earlier and eventually I found a manuscript register of his death in Kingston, Ontario in July 1880. This led me to an obituary notice the following month in the Glasgow Herald, placed by his mother; that in turn gave me a home address and I could start tracking him back. From Glasgow directories I found he had worked for West Watson & Son, merchants, but he was still invisible in the census returns.
It was only by searching for his mother that I got the full story: it turned out Angus's father, Neil McKinnon, had died when he was an infant, his mother had remarried, and Angus appeared in the census under his step-father's surname, Taylor. He was 29 when he died which indicates he was born in 1851, but as this was before registration became compulsory there is no precise record.
Scotland's other goalscorer in 1874, Fred Anderson, also had an unusual life. He was born in 1855 into a wealthy family – his father was a cotton merchant – and attended Glasgow Academy as a boy. When he was 12 his father moved to Cheshire and Fred spent a few years in Wilmslow but returned to Glasgow in the 1870s, playing football for Clydesdale.
He won his sole cap for Scotland aged just 18 years and 110 days, making him one of our youngest ever internationalists.
Like McKinnon he was selected for Glasgow to face Sheffield, and was then on the losing side in the first Scottish Cup final, but that summer he returned south to embark on a business career which took him all the way to China. He became chairman of Shanghai Municipal Council and was a director of rubber exporting companies in Malaysia. On retirement he donated a library to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and died in 1940 at Hungerford, leaving a fortune worth £261,000.
7 March 1874: Scotland 2 (Anderson, McKinnon), England 1 (Kingsford)
Scotland: Robert Gardner (Clydesdale), John Hunter (Third Lanark) and, Joseph Taylor (Queen's Park); Charles Campbell (Queen's Park) and James Thomson (Queen's Park, capt); James Weir (Queen's Park), John Ferguson (Vale of Leven), Harry McNeil (Queen's Park), William Mackinnon (Queen's Park), Angus McKinnon (Queen's Park), Fred Anderson (Clydesdale).
And one man, Angus McKinnon, has the unique claim to be the first ever to achieve the feat. He managed it in March 1874, when England were beaten 2-1.
After the first two Scotland-England contests had finished in a draw and a defeat, a record crowd estimated at 7,000 was attracted to the West of Scotland Cricket Ground. We know from SFA accounts that spectators paid a shilling for a ticket, and that match cards were sold for a penny. The pitch ran on a gentle slope north-south with spectators lined up behind the ropes.
Scotland captain JJ Thomson kicked off at 3.30 prompt, setting in motion a fascinating clash of styles as the English were markedly bigger and stronger, while the Scots made up for that with their clever passing game.
England took the lead midway through the first half when Robert Kingsford chested the ball over the line. Under the rules of the day, ends were changed and it was Scotland's turn to have the advantage of playing downhill. The game was turned on its head shortly before half time: in the 40th minute Fred Anderson equalised, then three minutes later Angus McKinnon sent in a shot which slipped through the hands of English goalkeeper Welch. With no more scoring in the second half, this turned out to be the winning goal. Scotland had a victory to cherish.
For McKinnon, it was just the start of a remarkable month of 'firsts'. The following Saturday he travelled south with the first Glasgow select team to Sheffield, and the week after that he took part in the inaugural Scottish Cup final, which Queen's Park won by defeating Clydesdale.
Sadly, his goal-scoring ability did not earn him any more caps and this was his only appearance for the national team, although he did win two more Scottish Cup winner’s medals. He then suffered a serious illness which kept him out for a year, and despite making a comeback for Queen's Park and also serving as club secretary for a few months, in 1878 he decided to emigrate.
Tracking down what happened to Angus McKinnon, and indeed where he originally came from, was not easy. According to DD Bone's Scottish Football Reminiscences, published in 1890, McKinnon had died 'about four years ago' in Canada. However, extensive searches failed to come up with any possible matches and it was only when browsing through the Scottish Athletic Journal from 1884 that I found a comment that McKinnon 'lies beneath the cold sod in Canada'.
This inferred his death had taken place much earlier and eventually I found a manuscript register of his death in Kingston, Ontario in July 1880. This led me to an obituary notice the following month in the Glasgow Herald, placed by his mother; that in turn gave me a home address and I could start tracking him back. From Glasgow directories I found he had worked for West Watson & Son, merchants, but he was still invisible in the census returns.
It was only by searching for his mother that I got the full story: it turned out Angus's father, Neil McKinnon, had died when he was an infant, his mother had remarried, and Angus appeared in the census under his step-father's surname, Taylor. He was 29 when he died which indicates he was born in 1851, but as this was before registration became compulsory there is no precise record.
Scotland's other goalscorer in 1874, Fred Anderson, also had an unusual life. He was born in 1855 into a wealthy family – his father was a cotton merchant – and attended Glasgow Academy as a boy. When he was 12 his father moved to Cheshire and Fred spent a few years in Wilmslow but returned to Glasgow in the 1870s, playing football for Clydesdale.
He won his sole cap for Scotland aged just 18 years and 110 days, making him one of our youngest ever internationalists.
Like McKinnon he was selected for Glasgow to face Sheffield, and was then on the losing side in the first Scottish Cup final, but that summer he returned south to embark on a business career which took him all the way to China. He became chairman of Shanghai Municipal Council and was a director of rubber exporting companies in Malaysia. On retirement he donated a library to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and died in 1940 at Hungerford, leaving a fortune worth £261,000.
7 March 1874: Scotland 2 (Anderson, McKinnon), England 1 (Kingsford)
Scotland: Robert Gardner (Clydesdale), John Hunter (Third Lanark) and, Joseph Taylor (Queen's Park); Charles Campbell (Queen's Park) and James Thomson (Queen's Park, capt); James Weir (Queen's Park), John Ferguson (Vale of Leven), Harry McNeil (Queen's Park), William Mackinnon (Queen's Park), Angus McKinnon (Queen's Park), Fred Anderson (Clydesdale).
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Further details about the life of Andrew Watson, the first black international footballer, have come to light with the digitisation of shipping manifests on the genealogy website ancestry.
It was already known that he qualified as a First Class Engineer in May 1893, and these fascinating new records reveal the work he was able to obtain over the next few years while he had his home in Liverpool. Not only do they show his address (he seems to have moved several times) and his pay, they are all personally signed by him.
The first was an 18 day journey on the Louisianan in October 1893, and he went on to make five voyages on the same ship over the next year as Second Engineer, paid at the rate of £11 per month. There is then a gap before his first voyage on a ship called, appropriately enough, the West Indian in January 1896; however, the register for the first voyage says his most recent ship had been the Waesland. He had 13 voyages on the West Indian, travelling four or five times a year, and during this period was promoted to Chief Engineer, with a pay rise to £15 per month.
The only other surviving shipping record is an intriguing one from 1901 which shows Andrew Watson, together with his wife Eliza and their two children Henry and Phyllis, sailing from Liverpool to Philadelphia. They were on their way to visit a friend called JD Caswell in New Orleans, presumably for a family holiday. The ship they travelled on was the Waesland, which was one of his former employers.
Although these are an incomplete record of Watson's maritime career (most of the manifests do not even reveal the ships' destinations), they do help to fill in some gaps in the life of one of football's most important early characters.
It was already known that he qualified as a First Class Engineer in May 1893, and these fascinating new records reveal the work he was able to obtain over the next few years while he had his home in Liverpool. Not only do they show his address (he seems to have moved several times) and his pay, they are all personally signed by him.
The first was an 18 day journey on the Louisianan in October 1893, and he went on to make five voyages on the same ship over the next year as Second Engineer, paid at the rate of £11 per month. There is then a gap before his first voyage on a ship called, appropriately enough, the West Indian in January 1896; however, the register for the first voyage says his most recent ship had been the Waesland. He had 13 voyages on the West Indian, travelling four or five times a year, and during this period was promoted to Chief Engineer, with a pay rise to £15 per month.
The only other surviving shipping record is an intriguing one from 1901 which shows Andrew Watson, together with his wife Eliza and their two children Henry and Phyllis, sailing from Liverpool to Philadelphia. They were on their way to visit a friend called JD Caswell in New Orleans, presumably for a family holiday. The ship they travelled on was the Waesland, which was one of his former employers.
Although these are an incomplete record of Watson's maritime career (most of the manifests do not even reveal the ships' destinations), they do help to fill in some gaps in the life of one of football's most important early characters.
Detail from one of Andrew Watson's shipping manifests
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James Weir (1851-1889), Scotland internationalist and hero
A tale of heroism by one of Scottish football’s pioneers, James Weir, has come to light thanks to an anecdote by one of his contemporaries.
Archie Hunter, a star with Aston Villa in the 1880s, wrote a series of reminiscences in which he described a drunken episode which ended with Weir being hailed as the hero of a major fire in Glasgow’s south side.
Weir was capped four times by Scotland, including the first ever international in 1872, and won the Scottish Cup three times with Queen’s Park. He was known as the ‘Prince of Dribblers’, an accolade which Hunter said was fully deserved: “I think he was the best forward in Scotland, and when he once got possession of the ball no one could take it from him. If you could have seen him play you would have remembered it. He was a merry fellow, always ready for fun and when the game was over no one liked a frolic better than he did.”
Hunter recalled a night out in Glasgow which would not be out of place among today’s footballers: “A few of us were going home together and Jimmy Weir was in a fine rollicking mood. He had been – well, celebrating a victory that day – and he was amusing us with his little pranks and his livery chatter. We were all in the best of spirits and made a merry little party.
“All at once we were startled by a loud alarm in the street and a cry of Fire! Fire! The people, excited as they always are on such occasions, began to run in the direction indicated by a red glare in the distance and we followed them. Sure enough a house was on fire and the flames were getting a firm hold on the building. Worse than that, there were people in the house and already there was such a blaze that they found it hard to make their way to the doors.
“Presently, amid all the smoke and flame we saw a face at one of the topmost windows – a face that looked ghastly in the glare and was full of horror and despair. There were no ladders at hand and the lower part of the building was ablaze. It looked as if the poor creature – whether man or woman we could not distinguish – must be burnt to death in that furnace.
“Well, Jimmy was a carpenter by trade and I suppose he knew something about climbing up and down houses. What did he do but coolly commence to climb up a high wall, from which he could throw a rope to the poor creature who was in such terrible danger. We watched him go up and before very long – though it seemed a long time then – he managed to bring the poor thing down; and how he was cheered by the people to be sure! His heroism wasn’t soon forgotten.”
It is a fascinating story, and what is more it is entirely true. I recently stumbled across a report of the incident in the Glasgow Herald of 26 February 1877.
Shortly after 12 on Saturday night, a serious fire occurred at No Man’s Land, whereby a fine tenement of shops and dwelling houses was burned, the furniture and fittings destroyed, and the lives of the occupants placed in imminent danger. The tenement was situated at the corner of Winton Terrace (Victoria Road) and Allison Street, with a frontage to each thoroughfare of about 90 feet, and was four storeys in height. The ground flat was occupied as shops – a general store, conducted on the American principle and carried on by Mr James Graham, and a fruiterer’s and two drapers’ premises. The flats above, which were divided into dwellings of four rooms and kitchen, and five rooms and kitchen, were fully occupied by five families. The fire originated in Mr Graham’s store, whence it spread with great rapidity.
The report explained how residents were alerted by the local police sergeant, Mr Taylor, who climbed the tenement stairs to the top level, shouting ‘Fire’ as he went. But he was not alone:
Mr Weir, well known in football circles, also lent admirable assistance in making the inmates aware of the alarming position in which they were placed – a task which was not accomplished without considerable difficulty. When there were still a number of persons within the building, the flames had burst into the lobby, but Taylor and Mr Weir succeeded in penetrating through them and a second time reaching the upper flats, where were found a number of people in a terror-stricken state. It was impossible to reach the street through the lobby.
Fortunately, a balcony ran along the front of the second storey, and the sergeant at once stepped on to the balcony, and passing along to the south end he saw that if the parties could be landed on the window sill of a house in the adjoining tenement they would be safe. By a loud knocking on the window he attracted the attention of a young man who was within, and by his aid got the window opened.
Nobody was killed but the tenement was destroyed which is why the building now on that site in Victoria Road is a different style to the rest of the street. The paper praised the efforts of the rescuers: “There seemed throughout a generous resignation of self”.
On the day of the rescue, Weir and Hunter had both played for the ‘Improbables’ in the Scotland international trial, which their team won 3-0; the match report in the Herald was on the opposite page to the story of the fire.
Weir’s life was certainly not lacking in drama. In 1881 he emigrated to Australia, a course that would eventually lead to his death in the outback eight years later, a story I outlined in my book First Elevens. The death notice was in the Adelaide Advertiser:
WEIR.—On the 23rd April, at Warrina Hospital, Great Northern Extension Railway, after an illness of 3 weeks and 3 days, James Biger Weir, of typhoid fever and congestion of the lungs. Deeply regretted by his wife.
When the book came out, I did not know the identity of his wife but have since discovered her name - and that leads to another tale. They married in Adelaide on 3 November 1886, and the reason I know is that they celebrated rather too much:
Archie Hunter, a star with Aston Villa in the 1880s, wrote a series of reminiscences in which he described a drunken episode which ended with Weir being hailed as the hero of a major fire in Glasgow’s south side.
Weir was capped four times by Scotland, including the first ever international in 1872, and won the Scottish Cup three times with Queen’s Park. He was known as the ‘Prince of Dribblers’, an accolade which Hunter said was fully deserved: “I think he was the best forward in Scotland, and when he once got possession of the ball no one could take it from him. If you could have seen him play you would have remembered it. He was a merry fellow, always ready for fun and when the game was over no one liked a frolic better than he did.”
Hunter recalled a night out in Glasgow which would not be out of place among today’s footballers: “A few of us were going home together and Jimmy Weir was in a fine rollicking mood. He had been – well, celebrating a victory that day – and he was amusing us with his little pranks and his livery chatter. We were all in the best of spirits and made a merry little party.
“All at once we were startled by a loud alarm in the street and a cry of Fire! Fire! The people, excited as they always are on such occasions, began to run in the direction indicated by a red glare in the distance and we followed them. Sure enough a house was on fire and the flames were getting a firm hold on the building. Worse than that, there were people in the house and already there was such a blaze that they found it hard to make their way to the doors.
“Presently, amid all the smoke and flame we saw a face at one of the topmost windows – a face that looked ghastly in the glare and was full of horror and despair. There were no ladders at hand and the lower part of the building was ablaze. It looked as if the poor creature – whether man or woman we could not distinguish – must be burnt to death in that furnace.
“Well, Jimmy was a carpenter by trade and I suppose he knew something about climbing up and down houses. What did he do but coolly commence to climb up a high wall, from which he could throw a rope to the poor creature who was in such terrible danger. We watched him go up and before very long – though it seemed a long time then – he managed to bring the poor thing down; and how he was cheered by the people to be sure! His heroism wasn’t soon forgotten.”
It is a fascinating story, and what is more it is entirely true. I recently stumbled across a report of the incident in the Glasgow Herald of 26 February 1877.
Shortly after 12 on Saturday night, a serious fire occurred at No Man’s Land, whereby a fine tenement of shops and dwelling houses was burned, the furniture and fittings destroyed, and the lives of the occupants placed in imminent danger. The tenement was situated at the corner of Winton Terrace (Victoria Road) and Allison Street, with a frontage to each thoroughfare of about 90 feet, and was four storeys in height. The ground flat was occupied as shops – a general store, conducted on the American principle and carried on by Mr James Graham, and a fruiterer’s and two drapers’ premises. The flats above, which were divided into dwellings of four rooms and kitchen, and five rooms and kitchen, were fully occupied by five families. The fire originated in Mr Graham’s store, whence it spread with great rapidity.
The report explained how residents were alerted by the local police sergeant, Mr Taylor, who climbed the tenement stairs to the top level, shouting ‘Fire’ as he went. But he was not alone:
Mr Weir, well known in football circles, also lent admirable assistance in making the inmates aware of the alarming position in which they were placed – a task which was not accomplished without considerable difficulty. When there were still a number of persons within the building, the flames had burst into the lobby, but Taylor and Mr Weir succeeded in penetrating through them and a second time reaching the upper flats, where were found a number of people in a terror-stricken state. It was impossible to reach the street through the lobby.
Fortunately, a balcony ran along the front of the second storey, and the sergeant at once stepped on to the balcony, and passing along to the south end he saw that if the parties could be landed on the window sill of a house in the adjoining tenement they would be safe. By a loud knocking on the window he attracted the attention of a young man who was within, and by his aid got the window opened.
Nobody was killed but the tenement was destroyed which is why the building now on that site in Victoria Road is a different style to the rest of the street. The paper praised the efforts of the rescuers: “There seemed throughout a generous resignation of self”.
On the day of the rescue, Weir and Hunter had both played for the ‘Improbables’ in the Scotland international trial, which their team won 3-0; the match report in the Herald was on the opposite page to the story of the fire.
Weir’s life was certainly not lacking in drama. In 1881 he emigrated to Australia, a course that would eventually lead to his death in the outback eight years later, a story I outlined in my book First Elevens. The death notice was in the Adelaide Advertiser:
WEIR.—On the 23rd April, at Warrina Hospital, Great Northern Extension Railway, after an illness of 3 weeks and 3 days, James Biger Weir, of typhoid fever and congestion of the lungs. Deeply regretted by his wife.
When the book came out, I did not know the identity of his wife but have since discovered her name - and that leads to another tale. They married in Adelaide on 3 November 1886, and the reason I know is that they celebrated rather too much:
His wife’s story is quite incredible, too. Born Emma Jane Tampion in 1858, she crops up regularly in newspaper reports. Her parents divorced in 1869, three years later she absconded from Adelaide Industrial School, and she married no less than five times.
James Weir was her third husband, and she wasted no time in finding a fourth as she married a Thomas Neylon less than two months after Weir’s death. There are reports through the 1890s of Emma Neylon being fined for drunkenness but she must have sobered up eventually as in 1907 she married her fifth husband and lived until 1937.
James Biggar Weir
Born 21 October 1851 in Gorbals, Glasgow.
Died 23 April 1889 at Warrina, South Australia.
James Weir was her third husband, and she wasted no time in finding a fourth as she married a Thomas Neylon less than two months after Weir’s death. There are reports through the 1890s of Emma Neylon being fined for drunkenness but she must have sobered up eventually as in 1907 she married her fifth husband and lived until 1937.
James Biggar Weir
Born 21 October 1851 in Gorbals, Glasgow.
Died 23 April 1889 at Warrina, South Australia.
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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.
- Published on
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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Author
All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell.