Over seventy years on, the tour of Britain by Dynamo Moscow retains a legendary status. The four matches played by the Russians in November 1945 enthralled vast crowds, concluding with a match at Ibrox against Rangers.
   Yet there was a real risk the final match might not have taken place, after the Russian team refused to play if Rangers fielded their newest signing, Jimmy Caskie. Guest blogger Douglas Gorman has taken a fresh look at the controversy, and you can read his article here.
   Jimmy Caskie, a diminutive left winger, came to the fore with St Johnstone in the 1930s and after starring for the Scottish League select he joined Everton in 1939. 

Tributes are being paid today to the former Rangers and Scotland defender Sammy Cox, who has died in Canada aged 91.  He was an immensely talented player who won numerous honours in his career, notably three Scottish Cups and four Scottish League titles with Rangers, but his international career had a mysterious beginning with a 'cap that never was'.
   For over 50 years, Cox was credited with 24 Scotland caps, in the last of which he captained his country against England in 1954. However, he actually won one more than the record books said.
   The discrepancy only came to light when I was working at the Scottish FA and was contacted by a friend of a former Hearts player, Charlie Cox. He told me that Charlie was exasperated at being described as a 'former international' when he had never, in fact, played for Scotland. He was listed in the SFA's own records, and all the reference books, as playing against France in May 1948.
   I decided to investigate and found that in those days, Scottish papers didn't send any reporters abroad and relied on local agencies. So when the team for the friendly in Paris came through on the wires with the unexpected (and uncapped) name 'Cox' it was mistakenly attributed to Charlie Cox of Hearts. And there the matter rested, unchallenged and uncorrected.
   So in the summer of 2003 I called Sammy Cox at his home near Toronto and he told me the true story. He was a travelling reserve with the Scotland team but was not selected to play, so he had lunch and was waiting in the stand at the Stade de Colombes in Paris while the other players warmed up. Then the right-half, Billy Campbell of Morton, came back in with one of his boots coming apart. With no replacement boots to hand, Campbell could not play, prompting a bit of an emergency.
   Sammy recalled: 'George Graham, secretary of the SFA, turned to me and just said 'Sam, you're playing'. I got changed, but my biggest worry was that I had just eaten a large meal and I spent the first half trying not to be sick!'
   Scotland lost the match 3-0 to three second-half goals, and you can see footage on the British Pathe film archive.
   The confusion did not end there, however. Billy Campbell was listed in the SFA's own records as having played, while Eddie Turnbull, who not only played but had Scotland's best goal attempt with a shot that hit the bar, was not credited with an appearance.
   The errors were rectified on the SFA's online database over ten years ago but many of today's tributes to Sammy Cox still claim he only had 24 caps. It's time to set the record straight.

An interesting little project for a Danish speaker would be a translation of these books by Carl Hansen into English. The Danish international joined Rangers in 1921 and spent three years in Scotland, one of the earliest foreigners to play here. He was widely known in Denmark as Carl Skomager (or Skoma'r), ie shoemaker. 
   I've picked up enough Danish watching the likes of Borgen and The Bridge to work out some anecdotes in his life, and he goes into great detail about his time in Scotland. He arrived at Leith on the boat without speaking any English other than 'Yes' or 'No', to be met by Rangers manager Bill Struth who drove him to Glasgow. He made his debut in some style against Queen's Park at Hampden, scoring a hat trick in a 3-2 win on 22 November 1921 (it was a match in the Lord Provost's Rent Relief Cup). However, he never really established himself as first choice, playing just 23 league matches over three seasons, with a broken leg effectively ending his career.
   His time at Rangers was influential enough for him to choose an aerial photo of Ibrox on his autobiography Et liv i fodbold (A life in football) which came out in 1954. The stadium is packed, but there is nobody on the pitch, and the picture seems to have  been taken during a sports meeting.
   More poignantly, in 1945 he had published a much darker volume Carl Skomager i tysk Faengsel (in a German prison) which details his wartime experiences, including four months imprisonment by the Nazis. When arrested he was taken to Kastellet, the old fortress in Copenhagen, having already been beaten up. Putting his bleeding hand into his trouser pocket he felt a small badge which he knew he had to get rid of, and surreptitiously threw it into the fireplace: 'Det var Scottish Football-Associations Maerke, og havde Tyskerne funded det paa mig, var det sikkert blevet mig en dyr Historie'. (It was a Scottish Football Association badge, and if the Germans had found it on me, there would certainly have been more blood in this story).  So, perhaps somewhere in this Danish castle, a little SFA badge or medal lies waiting to be discovered!

****
​
​Update: over a decade later, Hansen's book has been translated into English! Read my updated blog:   https://www.scottishsporthistory.com/sports-history-news-and-blog/carl-hansens-wartime-experiences-have-just-been-translated
   

My article remembering Dr Jimmy Paterson, of Rangers and Arsenal, is published in The Scotsman today [click on link], a fascinating tale of a fine football career interrupted by the First World War.
   What it doesn't reveal is the extraordinary coincidence that led me to write it, one which I am sure will resonate with all sports historians. It just happened that my parents, who live in Edinburgh, mentioned that their next door neighbour's father had played football. So I duly went next door and spoke to Jimmy Paterson's daughter Mhairi, now in her eighties, who brought out a file of cuttings and photos. 
   I was also able to find newsreel footage of Paterson playing (and scoring) for Arsenal in 1926 on the British Pathé website [click on link]. She had never seen film of her father playing football before.
   There was nothing for it but to write his story - especially when it became clear that no-one had done so before!

The full text of my Scotsman article on Jimmy Paterson, with his career statistics, can be downloaded here as a pdf or read it below.

THE GOOD DOCTOR OF RANGERS AND ARSENAL
 
By Andy Mitchell
 
'Are you not playing for the wrong side?' There are some things a Scottish footballer can never be prepared for, and one of them is playing for England.  Such was the fate of Dr Jimmy Paterson, who was born in London where his father, a Presbyterian minister, was preaching.
   In all other respects the talented winger was a Scot through and through, and one hundred years ago this month, Paterson won the first of his Scottish League titles with Rangers. He repeated the exploit after being decorated for bravery in the Great War, and would surely have won Scotland caps were it not for the accident of his birth.
   In fact, international recognition came instead in the white shirt of England: as his career seemed to be heading to a close, he had returned to the city of his birth and signed for Arsenal as an amateur. He did so well that he was selected to represent the English League against their Scottish counterparts.
   He was greeted by his former team mates with affection as well as a ribbing that he was not really English.  And, as if disoriented by wearing an England shirt, when Paterson was presented with a bunch of flowers by a young girl just before kick-off, he still had them in his hand as the referee's whistle blew. Too polite to throw them on the ground, he ran up and down the wing clutching them for several minutes until he found someone he could hand them to. It was a measure of the man, who had none of the failings proverbially attributed to the offspring of clergymen.
   Brought up in Glasgow, he was sports champion of Bellahouston Academy, and his performances in the team that won the Glasgow Secondary Schools League attracted the interest of Queen's Park. Soon rising to their reserve team, the Strollers, he then caught the eye of Rangers manager William Wilton and the youngster signed at Ibrox in September 1910. Although he made his debut that month because of an injury to the veteran Alec Smith, Rangers were content to let him develop in the reserves, as he embarked on his medical studies at Glasgow University.
   Paterson broke into the Rangers first team in November 1912, two months after his father's death, replacing Billy Hogg at outside right. He made an immediate impact and was widely heralded in the press, notably in a lyrical tribute from the legendary Walter Arnott. Rangers duly won the league by four points and Paterson made his first trip abroad on the club's tour of Denmark. The following season he switched to the left wing, where he developed a prolific partnership with Tommy Cairns that lasted until his graduation as a doctor in 1916.
   In the depth of war, there was a severe shortage of doctors, and he was immediately appointed Medical Officer to the 14th Battalion the London Regiment, the London Scottish. With the rank of Major, for the next two years he had a torrid time on the front line, where 'Doctor Pat' earned enormous respect from his fellow soldiers. One of them wrote in the Regimental Gazette: 'We loved him for the trouble he took. We loved that kindly word of encouragement that did us more good than all the 'number nines' ever issued ex-stores. If that little medico works as hard in the football field as he worked that night, heaven help the opposition!'
   There was formal recognition, too, and he was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry in 1917: 'Under an intense hostile bombardment he hastened to the spot, dressed the wounded and cleared them from the road, personally seeing to their removal to the aid post. He then returned and cleared the dead from the road, setting a fine example of coolness and disregard of danger.'
   When hostilities ceased, after three years away from football, he made a surprise return to Glasgow. A journalist later recalled: 'One day in September 1919, I learned from Jimmy's younger brother Bobby that Jimmy had been posted to a Glasgow hospital. He added that, if I turned up at Ibrox Park the following evening, I might see Jimmy playing against Raith Rovers or, on the other hand, I might not. Jimmy had just arrived in Glasgow, untrained, and carrying too much weight, and was scared stiff at the idea of being thrown into action so soon. His homecoming had not been made public but, quickly recognised by the Ibrox clientele when he ran on to the field, he was given a reception that nearly took the lid off the south stand. Despite his extra 'tonnage' he was at his brilliant best that evening, including a bonny goal that earned him another deafening ovation.'
   Paterson's wing partnership with Cairns was restored and Rangers romped to the 1919-20 league title. However, he had a medical career to think of, and as early as December 1919 there was press speculation that Paterson intended retiring at the end of the season to join his brother-in-law, John Scott, in a London medical practice. Several city clubs were reported to be chasing his signature, among them Spurs and Chelsea, but the decision was effectively made for him as Scott was Arsenal’s club doctor. Before he left Glasgow, the Rangers brake club supporters showed their appreciation by presenting him with a solid silver coffee and tea service, valued at 100 guineas (equivalent to about £3,000 today).
   In the autumn of 1920 he signed as an amateur for Arsenal but continued to be rewarded by the club, although the form of reward was, well, different: he was presented with 'gifts' such as a baby grand piano from Harrods, a diamond-studded tie-pin, and a fine Venetian vase.
   Following a series of outstanding performances on the wing, in March 1921 he was selected for the Football League against the Scottish League, coincidentally played at his new home ground of Highbury. Before the match he came into the Scottish dressing room to shake hands with all the players, and was photographed with three of the Scots, but the sentiment ended there and his cross led to the game's only goal, headed in by Charles Buchan late in the second half.
   He clocked up over 70 appearances for Arsenal in four years although, as an amateur, he had to balance his football with work as a doctor. On one occasion he missed the team's train to Liverpool but Arsenal arranged for a later train to make an unscheduled stop at Edge Hill, where a car was waiting to whisk him to Anfield, arriving just in time for kick-off.
   Paterson retired from football in 1924 but had a curious swansong two years later. Arsenal had an injury crisis in February 1926 and signed Joe Hulme from Blackburn, but he was cup-tied so manager Herbert Chapman turned to Paterson for a surprise recall in the FA Cup. He showed he had lost none of his magic by scoring against Aston Villa, and newsreel film of that goal can be seen online.
   Not long afterwards he left London for good and moved to a country practice at Bramley in Surrey, staying there until he retired to Ayrshire in the 1950s. His daughter Mhairi, who now lives in Edinburgh and recently saw that newsreel footage of her father for the first time, recalls him watching wistfully as soldiers prepared for D-Day: although he said nothing about his own wartime experiences, he knew what horrors lay ahead for them.
   Dr Paterson died of a heart attack in 1959, aged just 68. Despite being considered one of the outstanding talents of his day he was never given the recognition he deserved with a Scotland cap, through no fault of his own. But in true amateur spirit he had no regrets and, despite playing for two of Britain’s most glamorous teams, recalled in an interview shortly before his death: 'My happiest football days were at Good Old Bella'.