A major fraud in Scottish football was uncovered in 1906 when the SFA Treasurer was found to have embezzled the equivalent of a quarter of a million pounds. But there was nothing anyone could do about it – the money was gone and the culprit was too ill to answer charges.
   The man who left the gaping hole in the Scottish Football Association accounts was Robert Dixon, a trusted accountant who had held office for over a decade. His clever fraud caused a scandal that shocked those who thought they knew him well.
   Dixon was a director of Morton and had a position of considerable influence in the game, yet he was living a lie. Born in Lockerbie, after his mother died he moved with his father to Greenock where he trained to become an accountant. He set up in business and threw himself into local life, becoming an upstanding member of the community as Treasurer of the Greenock Total Abstinence Society and Session Clerk of Mid Parish Church.
   But it was in football that he found his niche as a valued administrator because of his financial acumen, and in 1891 he was elected to the SFA committee as a representative of Renfrewshire Association.
   His club at the time was the wonderfully-named Greenock Abstainers, a short-lived organisation which only joined the SFA in 1889 and had a remarkable record in their three Scottish Cup campaigns, losing 0-8 to Port Glasgow Athletic, 0-13 to Newmains and 0-20 to Johnstone. Based at Upper Ingleston Park, the club folded in 1893, at which point Dixon moved to Bute Rangers (Rothesay) to retain his place on the SFA committee.

A year later, in 1894, he was elected SFA Treasurer as a director of Greenock Morton and remained in post until the fraud was uncovered in 1906. Meanwhile his influence continued to grow. He was elected president of Morton, then chairman when it became a limited company in 1896. He was on the SFA's international selection committee and through his influence, Greenock hosted the Scotland v Wales international in 1902, the only international ever to come to the town.
   However, all this time he had a secret and trouble was brewing. As Treasurer of the SFA he was trusted with their financial management, and when the Association decided in 1899 to invest £1,800 (the equivalent of about £250k today) he was left to make the arrangements.
   He put the money in 'Consols' (consolidated annuities, a type of government bond with no scheduled end date, which offered perpetual interest payments). He registered the Consols in his own name, which allowed him, a few months later, secretly to sell them and keep the money. He covered the fraud by retaining the original purchase receipt and paying the notional interest, about £42, into the SFA accounts each year. To any casual observer, even to the auditors, there was nothing wrong.
   This could have continued almost indefinitely but in 1906 Dixon fell ill. The SFA's initial reaction was sympathy for his inability to work and in April they awarded him an honorarium of £100 for his excellent service, then the following month he was re-elected treasurer despite his continuing illness.

That sympathy vanished in the autumn when the expected annual interest payment did not come through. In Dixon's absence the Finance Committee asked the Bank of England about the Consol investment, only to be told it no longer existed, nor had it done for several years.
   As it dawned on them that they had been duped, Dixon was removed from office and the SFA held a special meeting to decide what had to be done. There were heated calls for recrimination but with the culprit too ill to respond and reported to be penniless, they were left with no option but to write off the loss.
   Dixon never recovered and died of tuberculosis in 1909 aged 45, leaving a wife and three young daughters. The money was all gone, with his estate valued at just £86, which begs the question what he did with it. As an abstainer and a pillar of the church he could hardly have got away with a high-flying lifestyle, so it appears that the explanation was more mundane, and he used it to prop up his business.
   The SFA, on the other hand, realised its systems had allowed too much trust to be placed in one man, and it introduced checks and balances to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again. 


​Robert Dixon
Born Dryfesdale, Lockerbie, 4 July 1863
Died South Street, Greenock, 1 April 1909
​

A headless corpse on a railway line. A fatal head injury in a football match. A soldier killed on active service.
   Three deaths, in different decades, and all relate to the same man: Claud Lambie, Scottish footballer. Twice his demise was mistakenly reported in the press, but there was no doubting the outcome when it finally came on a summer's night in 1921. He found a deserted spot on a suburban railway line and lay down in front of an approaching train to end his eventful life.
   Lambie is best remembered as the man who transformed Burnley Football Club in 1890. He joined a club which was rock bottom of the Football League, banged in enough goals to lift them to respectability, and maintained an average of a goal a game over the next season. Then he left as suddenly as he came, because of issues with drink and discipline.
   Born in Renfrewshire in 1867, Lambie and his family moved to Dennistoun in Glasgow’s east end when he was about 12. His first name was spelled Claud although it was widely reported with an 'e' at the end.
   Where he started his football career is not clear, it may have been locally with Shettleston, but he suddenly found himself at the centre of national attention aged 19, after he played for Clyde against Queen's Park in November 1886. A collision with Welsh international Humphrey Jones left him winded but he picked himself up and played until the end of the match.

However, a few days later the Glasgow papers reported the sensational news that Lambie had died of a 'brain fever', having complained of a sore head after the game and then deteriorating. The story was repeated all around the country, but almost as quickly the truth emerged that it was all a ghastly rumour. The press had to print a correction, confirming that Lambie was fine after all. He was even able to play in Clyde's next match that weekend, away to Hibs, no doubt bemused by the fuss. One paper even described him as 'the reported dead man'.
   Over the next four years he developed into a capable centre forward as he moved around various clubs. From Clyde he probably had a year at Arthurlie and then played for Shettleston and Glasgow Thistle. Later biographies stated he was selected for Renfrewshire, his birth county, and that appears to have been in 1888 while he was at Arthurlie.
   For all that Lambie was a decent player, it was something of a surprise when Burnley persuaded him to turn professional, but Burnley were desperate, having not won a single match all season. Their offer would have been hard to refuse, a signing fee of £40 on top of a wage of £2 10s a week, and in January 1890 he went south along with the Glasgow Thistle goalkeeper, Archie Kay.
   Although it took a few weeks for Lambie to find his shooting boots at Turf Moor, on 1 March he hit the jackpot as Burnley hammered Bolton Wanderers 7-0 to win their first league game of the season. Lambie was the star of the show, scoring a hat trick, also having two goals disallowed and hitting the post. Burnley went on to win four games in a row and Lambie finished as the club's top scorer with eight goals in seven appearances.

Then came the icing on the cake as Burnley won the Lancashire Cup for the first time, defeating the mighty Blackburn Rovers (who had just won the FA Cup) 2-0 in the final. The proud team posed for a photo with the trophy.
   It seemed Lambie could do no wrong as he was direct, forceful and just as good with his head as his feet, which earned him the nickname 'the Leap'. However, the summer of 1890 brought the first indication that all was not well with his personal life, as he was prosecuted before Burnley magistrates for drunkenness, although the case was ultimately dismissed.
   In the new season he continued his fine form at centre forward, knocking in the goals for Burnley with three hat tricks along the way, but in October the club suspended him for a fortnight for 'misconduct'. And although he was top scorer, they did so again in March which caused him to miss the last three league games.
   He went home to Glasgow where he took advantage of a Scottish FA amnesty for professionals (the game was still notionally amateur) and rejoined Clyde in time for their end of season fixtures. However, the press were not quick to notice that he was a shadow of his former self and Clyde's form in the 1891/92 season, with Lambie leading the attack, was utterly unpredictable. Incredibly, two league matches ended with a 10-3 scoreline: a thrashing of Vale of Leven in August and a humiliating defeat to Hearts in October. By then, Lambie was so far off the pace that Clyde showed him the door.
   He next popped up in the unlikely setting of Auchterarder in Perthshire, where he played a county cup-tie for Vale of Ruthven. Back in Glasgow he joined Glasgow Wanderers, a short-lived side in the Scottish Federation, and also played a Scottish Cup tie for Cowlairs against Celtic in January. This brought the comment: 'He has been under a cloud for some time and when at last he emerged from obscurity he did not create a very favourable impression, on the contrary he was far too fleshy and palpably unfit. He scored all the same.'
   With his fitness and form having deserted him he took drastic action: in March 1892 he joined the Army, signing a seven year term for the Highland Light Infantry.

​And remarkably, for a second time he was falsely declared to be dead. In April 1900 the Burnley Express reported that someone called Lambie was on the casualty lists in South Africa, and they had been informed that this was the famous centre forward. It took six months for the truth to be discovered, when another soldier reported he had seen Claud, alive and well. 
   When the war was over he was unscathed and came home to be discharged. Now a veteran, there was still time for a final piece of football action, playing for and coaching Auchterarder Thistle in 1902-03. Remarkably his team qualified for the Scottish Cup where they were drawn against Rangers, although he did not play in the 7-0 defeat at Ibrox.
   Settling back into mundane life as a joiner in Glasgow, he married Jessie McAlpine in 1904 but there were no children and she died ten years later. Distraught and alone, he went where the work was, and although his base was Glasgow there were frequent contracts south of the border.
   So it was in 1921 he was working in the Midlands. He turned up at a Burnley match in Leicester, which prompted the Burnley Express to remind its readers what transformative player he had been. Then during the summer, who knows what his state of mind was, but 54-year-old Claud was now out of work and decided to end it all.
   In the small hours of 22 July 1921 a railway guard reported a man walking on the main line from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. Then just after 3am a headless corpse was found near Galton Bridge in Smethwick; the head was some distance away.

He was identified by a former soldier who served alongside him in South Africa, and this time there was no doubt that Claud Lambie really was dead (although bizarrely some newspapers reported that the dead footballer was John Lambie, formerly of Queen’s Park and Scotland). His elder brother Robert came down from Glasgow to the inquest, which came to the inevitable conclusion that it was suicide.
   Even thirty years on he was still fondly remembered as one of Burnley's greatest players and the papers paid fulsome tributes to his goalscoring exploits. Sadly, this time, there was to be no retraction of the news of Claud Lambie's death.
 
 
Claud Lambie
Born 30 July 1867 in Barrhead, Renfrewshire to William Lambie and Ann Dunipace
Died 22 July 1921 near Galton Bridge, Smethwick, Staffordshire
 
Football career
Shettleston 1885-86 (unconfirmed)
Clyde 1886-87
Arthurlie 1887-88
Shettleston 1888-89
Glasgow Thistle 1889-90
Burnley Jan 1890-March 1891
Clyde May-Oct 1891
Vale of Ruthven Nov 1891
Glasgow Wanderers Dec 1891-Feb 1892
Cowlairs Jan 1892 (Scottish Cup tie)
Highland Light Infantry 1892-1902
Burnley Dec 1892 (four matches)
Clyde Dec 1894 (one match)
Auchterarder Thistle 1902-03
 
Honours
Renfrewshire v Dunbartonshire, 1888
British Army v London, 1894
Governor's Challenge Cup (Malta), 1896
 
NB there are references in the press to appearances for other representative teams including Renfrewshire, Glasgow and even reserve for Scotland but I have been unable to substantiate these.

The colourful life of Harry Boyd, a Scottish goalscorer of the 1890s, is a classic example of a player whose talent was blighted by drink and personal demons. Yet for a while his star shone brightly, notably as top scorer at both  Woolwich Arsenal and Newton Heath. He was also capped by the Scottish League during a season at Third Lanark.
​   Boyd's chaotic story has never been told in full before but now it has been researched and written by a trio of guest bloggers: Robert Bradley, Douglas Gorman and Colin MacKenzie. They reveal his family background, detail his goalscoring exploits, and contrast his playing success with his tragic outbursts of violence and indiscipline, culminating in an early grave.
   Click here to read their fascinating account of Harry Boyd's life.

The well-known story of how rugby came to Scotland is that the Crombie brothers, Alexander and Francis, brought the rulebook with them when they came to Edinburgh in 1854 having learned the game at Durham Grammar School. Rugby rules were adopted by the Edinburgh Academy and soon followed by other city schools.
   What intrigued me was, why had the Crombies been in Durham in the first place? The Crombie family had been living in Edinburgh for over ten years by this time.
   In fact, it was all due to a shameless charlatan of a schoolteacher - a fascinating example of how unconnected events can lead to an unexpected outcome.
   Alexander and Francis were born in 1836 and 1838 respectively at Thornton Castle, the family seat, then lived in Kent with their lawyer father (also called Alexander) before they all settled in Edinburgh New Town around 1843.
   In 1847, when they were aged 10 and 9, both boys went to Merchiston Castle School on the outskirts of Edinburgh. They probably played football here, as the school had a playing field directly opposite. But more importantly they were taught by a charismatic teacher called Edward Humphreys.
   In 1850, Humphreys left Merchiston to set up his own private school, Salisbury House in Newington, and the Crombie boys followed him there. They boarded, despite the family home being so close, and did well, judging by the number of prizes they won.
   Then early in 1852, out of the blue, Humphreys was appointed as headmaster of Cheltenham Grammar School (now known as Pate's). With little regard for his existing pupils, he closed his school in Edinburgh immediately, and took up his new post.
   This left parents and pupils in the lurch, and Alexander Crombie senior had to find a new school for his two boys in a hurry. For whatever reason, he chose Durham and they enrolled there in March 1852.
   Durham Grammar had recently taken up Rugby rules for school football, and therefore the brothers learned to play football that way. Alexander stayed until December 1853, while Francis remained until the autumn of 1854 when he came home to complete his education at Edinburgh Academy.

He was in the right place at the right time. 1854 was also the year when Edinburgh Academy opened its new sports field at Raeburn Place, and the little booklet of rules from Durham gave a new structure and purpose to the game which Edinburgh schoolboys had played for generations. In his two years there Francis was appointed as the school’s first ever Captain of Football which recognised not just his sporting prowess, but his understanding of the game.
   By the end of the decade, the Rugby code had gained widespread popularity. Not until 1867 was the non-handling association football taken up by Queen’s Park in Glasgow, and the association game did not reach Edinburgh until 1873.
   Meanwhile, elder brother Alexander matriculated at Edinburgh University to study Law, and while there he helped to found the Academical Football Club early in 1858, becoming its first captain.
   The Crombie brothers are rightly credited with introducing Rugby football to Scotland, but what is particularly interesting is the back story to Mr Humphreys, the disappearing teacher. He was a fake academic and a financial fraud.
   Edward Rupert Humphreys was born in Dublin in 1820, and went to Heversham School in Westmorland before matriculating at Cambridge University in 1836 to study medicine. He did not graduate and in 1838 was listed as an insolvent debtor.
   He found a teaching post near Manchester, where he married in 1841, but two years later was declared insolvent for a second time. His response was to run away and somehow he landed a job as head master of a school on Prince Edward Island, in what is now Canada.
   In four years there, during which his first wife died and he remarried, Humphreys did such a good job at reinventing himself that in 1848 he was able to return to Britain as Head Classical and English master at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh. What is more, he acquired credibility by writing textbooks, becoming a Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland, and crowned it all in 1850 by persuading both Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities to give him honorary degrees.
   What they based their decisions on is not recorded but he could now legitimately describe himself as Reverend Dr Humphreys LLD. He was, to all intents and purposes, an outstanding teacher and scholar, and on that basis, he left Merchiston in 1850 and set up his own school across the city in Salisbury Place.

The Crombies’ father must have been impressed by Humphreys’s plausibility as he sent both of his boys to board there. And a grateful Humphreys returned the compliment, naming his next son Alexander Crombie Humphreys. In the light of subsequent events, it is more than possible that Crombie had been persuaded to lend Humphreys money to get the school going.
   However, although the school promised much it seems to have struggled as there were constant adverts in the local papers for new recruits. Hence when Cheltenham Grammar School advertised for a new head, Humphreys had no qualms about applying and abandoning his own school in the middle of the session.
   Cheltenham had been flagging for years and in 1852 he set about restoring the school’s fortunes with gusto. He introduced science to the curriculum – for which he was personally thanked by Prince Albert – increased the school roll, was popular with parents and governors, and held in such high regard that even when he was successfully prosecuted for flogging a boy, he was applauded on his return to school.
   However, he borrowed heavily and ran up extensive debts, reported to have reached £26,000. In 1859, for the third time, he was declared insolvent in the London Gazette and his response, yet again, was to disappear across the Atlantic. If that was not bad enough, he scandalised the town by doing so with the wife of one of the school governors (who was also one of his debtors), each of them abandoning a large family. The newspapers were full of the affair, and although a tearful Emily Comyn came home a couple of months later, Humphreys never returned. He would have faced a substantial claim for damages had he done so.
   Yet, astonishingly, he reinvented himself in Boston where carried on teaching as if nothing had happened. In those pre-internet days, it is not as if anyone could google him. He was appointed Principal of South End Collegiate School, became a naturalised American, and even persuaded his wife Margaret and six children to join him there. Perhaps anything was better than the scorn they faced in Cheltenham.
   Humphreys escaped scandal to such an extent that when he died in 1893 the Gloucester Journal described the former headmaster as ‘a distinguished classical scholar’ without any reference to his murky past. Humphreys was undoubtedly a charlatan, but without his shameless behaviour the history of Scottish sport might have been very different.
   
As a postscript, the son named after the rugby-playing family, Alexander Crombie Humphreys (1851-1927), went on to have a legitimately brilliant academic career, rising to be president of the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, and is known as the father of engineering economics.

Sunday 31 August
 
Like most of Britain, I found out on Sunday morning that the Princess had been killed. As I came downstairs, instead of the usual noise of kids' cartoons on the telly, there was funereal music and hushed voices. The national outpouring of grief for Diana had begun.
   In a previous life, ten years earlier, I had once covered a visit by Diana and Charles to the Middle East. I was editing a magazine in Oman at the time and joined the press pack as they followed the royal couple on their round of visits and even to a polo match where Charles fell off his horse. The fun of those few days contrasted acutely with what was about to hit me.
​​
Monday 1 September
 
I was still living in Perth, house-hunting in Glasgow, so my morning commute was a long one but the news on the car radio gave no cause for concern. The Palace announced that morning that Diana’s funeral would take place on the Saturday, the day Scotland was scheduled to play Belarus in Aberdeen, but a morning funeral and an afternoon match did not seem, to us, to conflict. However, speculation soon started about the viability of the match going ahead on a day of mourning, so the SFA sounded out as many relevant bodies as possible, starting with the competition organisers.
   FIFA's view was that it is not uncommon to be faced with such circumstances, she was not a head of state in any case, so the match should go ahead with all normal marks of respect such as a minute’s silence and flags at half mast.
   Our opponents, Belarus, were already aware from media reports that the match may have to be moved and in fact they contacted us first. Language proved a difficulty, and discussion was done through German-speaking staff members on both sides.  We said we would keep them informed of developments.
   Next up was the Sports Policy Unit of the Scottish Office, to ascertain the government’s view. Remember, there was no Scottish Government at the time, although the devolution referendum was scheduled for later that month. The response came back: 'It is not for the government to intervene or seek to make any arrangements in such matters.' They made it clear that it was entirely for the SFA to make a decision.
   And finally, the Lord Chamberlain's Office at Buckingham Palace, for protocol guidance. This proved a stumbling block, as you can imagine the switchboard at the Palace was constantly engaged. Finally, a fax went through that evening, expressing condolences and requesting guidance.
   I was not involved in these discussions, as at that stage there was no particular media pressure, no cause for concern, and in fact I went to Livingston for a planning meeting ahead of them hosting an Under 21 match the following month. That evening, I drove home at the usual time, and all the signs pointed to the Belarus match going ahead as scheduled on the Saturday afternoon. It was calm. Nobody foresaw the hysteria that would mount so forcefully and quickly.
 
Tuesday 2 September
 
In the office, as we carried on planning as normal. I remember the page proofs for the match programme came in for checking – in those pre-digital days they were cromalin sheets. Then, what appeared to be the final piece in the jigsaw fell into place just before one o'clock. A senior official in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office called Farry and gave his view that, provided the match did not conflict directly with the funeral service (which it didn't), there was no protocol problem with the match taking place. He added, 'life goes on'. In our closeted world, that was the green light we were looking for.
   A fax duly went to the Belarus FA, confirming that the match would go ahead as planned, and this was then announced via the Press Association at about 2pm.
   Matter resolved? Not a bit of it. All hell broke loose. It was the cue for a nationwide outbreak of moral outrage directed at the SFA, and more precisely the person of Jim Farry, for daring to sully the day of mourning. Having tried to play by the rules, a decision taken for logical and administratively sound reasons was portrayed as a treasonable offence. The faxes and phone calls poured in. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the SFA was under siege.
   It may just have ridden that storm, being well used to ignoring public opinion, but there was another unforeseen factor: the referendum for the Scottish Parliament was just ten days away.
   The SFA lost control of events shortly after 9pm when Donald Findlay QC, the vice chairman of Rangers, appeared on the BBC network news to denounce the SFA, and Farry in particular. Findlay may have been asked to give his opinion on a football matter, but he was not just a football man, he was also a leader of the Think Twice movement which opposed the setting up of the parliament. Even though a halt had been called to referendum campaigning that week because of the tragedy, he seized the opportunity to point out, 'this is what happens when Scots try to run their own affairs'.
   He knew the impact his comments would have and he boxed the pro-parliament campaigners into a corner. Late that night Donald Dewar, the Secretary of State for Scotland, phoned Farry to express his 'great concern' about the match going ahead as planned. If that was not enough, he upped the ante by enrolling prime minister Tony Blair's support for a cancellation, and this was quickly echoed by William Hague, the Tory leader. All this was, of course, in complete contradiction to the advice given the day before.
 
Wednesday 3 September
 
Some time during the night, someone daubed the front door at Park Gardens with paint: 'Please call the game off'. Mysteriously, it was done just in time for a photo of the message to be published in the Daily Record. The caretaker Mike Kinrade, who lived in a flat above the office, set to work with wire brush and turps.
   Farry, meanwhile, did his case no favours by joking about the matter. He responded flippantly to Donald Dewar’s call, saying 'Colin Hendry’s out of the game and big Donald might be a valuable addition to the back four.' More sensibly, he pointed out 'We have taken heed of the various viewpoints, but let’s be reasonable about this – life does and must go on. We know stores will open at 2pm on Saturday. We agree with that. It is a mark of sensitivity. We will open at 3pm.'
   His voice of reason, and his argument that there were 'insurmountable difficulties' made little headway in the face of intense political and public pressure. Labour MP Jimmy Hood thundered 'The decision of the Scottish FA has brought shame on Scotland.' And it was not just politicians: Denis Law said 'I would ask not be to be selected if the game was going ahead. The whole nation will be joined in mourning and showing their respect. You just feel the SFA have got to have a rethink.'
   Yet there appeared little room for manoeuvre. Belarus were prepared to move the kick-off back a few hours but that idea was blown out of the water when the Rangers players in the squad - Ally McCoist, Gordon Durie and Andy Goram - told Craig Brown they would not play on the Saturday at any time.
   The Scottish Office had suggested Friday, but the Belarus FA could not play on Friday evening as several of their players were involved in matches in Russia on the preceding Wednesday. And, as they had another World Cup qualifier to play against Austria on the following Wednesday, they said initially that Sunday was not a possibility either.
   There were other significant practical considerations: the host club, Grampian police, the referees, the catering and stewarding, and not least the 20,000 supporters who had bought tickets and made travel arrangements.
   Meanwhile, our main rivals in the World Cup qualifying group, Austria and Sweden, pointed out that Scotland would gain an unfair advantage by postponing the match and playing it at a later date. In any case, there were no realistic dates available.
   Throughout Wednesday, the SFA international committee made efforts to resolve the crisis, meeting at Park Gardens behind closed doors. It proved such an intractable problem that SFA president Jack McGinn revealed that they had even considered withdrawing Scotland from the World Cup altogether.
   Meanwhile, I was oblivious to these deliberations. I had escaped Glasgow to travel up to Aberdeen to be with the Scotland squad, where a press conference was scheduled that afternoon at the team hotel, the Marcliffe. It was ostensibly for Craig Brown to preview the match, but there was only one topic on the agenda. I sat next to him at the top table, still in the dark about the progress of the negotiations, and totally unprepared to face questions. Not surprisingly, I was savaged by the impatient media who wanted answers. The SFA had yet to learn how to explain its decision-making process in a crisis.
   I had also yet to learn that these new-fangled mobile phones didn’t have limitless power. With incessant calls from journalists seeking updates, my battery expired and, rather embarrassingly, I had to spend much of the evening standing at the hotel reception so I could use their phone to keep in contact with head office.
   Back in Glasgow, the breakthrough came when the Belarus FA agreed to accept Sunday, but only after the SFA undertook to cover the additional £25,000 costs of their charter aircraft and hotel accommodation for Saturday night. Finding sufficient bed space in Aberdeen during a major oil conference was just another of many local difficulties! 
   Even reaching a formal agreement with the Belarus FA on this basis was problematic as their president, Evgeni Shuntov, did not speak English. His wife did, but she would not be home until 7pm to act as translator.  Then further difficulties arose with permission being needed from the Belarus Minister for Aviation for the charter flight to be delayed, and this was only achieved after pressure from the Belarus Ambassador to the UK.
   The other pieces gradually slotted together. Donald Dewar agreed that Sunday afternoon would be acceptable. Grampian Police and Aberdeen FC consented. Austria and Sweden concurred, albeit grudgingly. FIFA proved more difficult, as all the relevant people were in Cairo at a conference and could not be contacted, but the message did eventually get through. The referee team from the Netherlands and the Czech delegate were rescheduled.
   Finally, just after 9pm, I took a call from Farry, who dictated a statement to me and five minutes later, having called the journalists and TV crews into the hotel lobby, I read out his words. At the same time, he did so on the steps of Park Gardens: 'The SFA, in an attempt to find a solution, has received a tremendous level of co-operation from Belarus. They have been considerate and helpful. We are proposing to FIFA by fax that the match be played on Sunday, probably at 2pm. If that necessary approval is forthcoming then we have a solution. In satisfying the majority it will be necessary to inconvenience the spectators. We hope for their understanding and look forward to welcoming them on Sunday.'
   Craig Brown answered the follow-up questions in his usual diplomatic manner: 'The SFA has told me the game is now planned to go ahead on Sunday and I will have a team ready. In the circumstances I am sure it was the correct decision to take.'
   Shortly afterwards I headed for home, a three hour drive down the road to Perth. It has been a long day.

​Thursday 4 September
 
Back in Glasgow the following morning, the key issue may have been resolved, but the recriminations continued. 'Go now!' was the Daily Record’s headline advice to Jim Farry, while the Scottish Sun screamed 'Off – and so should you be'.
   The nation was angry and wanted to let us know. This was long before social media, and even email was not yet widespread, so people phoned, wrote or even came to the front desk.
   The limitations of the SFA's antiquated switchboard became abundantly clear: it could only handle six calls at a time, in or out. Only a few senior staff (and certainly not the press office) had direct lines. The calls flooded in, and to keep the lines operating they were spread throughout the office to anyone available. Many of them came my way, and there was little I could do except acknowledge the callers' bitterness, much of it personal against Farry. I remember one call particularly, where the man on the phone backed up his complaint by asserting 'Well he’s no oil painting, is he?' as if to say Diana’s beauty had been defiled by him.
   There was a fax machine which spewed out letters of protest all day long, and even the old Telex sputtered into action, the only time I ever saw it operating. The post arrived with the first wave of sackloads of letters.
   Not all the messages were critical, in fact about a third of them were supportive. It would have been easy to bin them but, in line with Farry’s policy, every one of them got an answer, which of course kept the clerical staff busy for weeks. They are still filed away in boxes somewhere, I believe.
 
Friday 5 September
 
Things were calming down by Friday although Farry, reflecting to the press on what had happened, was clearly aggrieved: 'It seems obvious to me there has been an awful lot of cant and hypocrisy about this matter. Worse, there has been deliberate massaging of reports and clever juxtapositions of truths which has raised media spin to an art form.' He was unrepentant: 'I don’t feel any inclination to apologise. I may feel an inclination to review it with the benefit of hindsight but I don’t think an apology would be an appropriate response at this time.' 
   The staff rallied round and we returned to planning the match itself, with Farry making it clear to everyone round the table that this was one game where every aspect of our organisation had to be perfect. The welcome message in the programme was rewritten, and the date was changed on the embroidered match pennant.
   Some football even got played that evening and I went to see Scotland Under 21s lose 3-0 to their Belarussian counterparts at McDiarmid Park.
 
Saturday 6 September
 
After watching the funeral on TV I went into Perth city centre. It was busy: the shops opened at 2pm, and they were not short of customers. There were many people by that time fed up with the whole affair and wanting to get on with their lives.
   Up in Aberdeen, there was an unreported element of farce. Being a FIFA match, the players had to show their passports to the referee and one player had forgotten his. David Hopkin's wife posted it to the team hotel but by Saturday morning it had not arrived and our security chief, Willie McDougall, had to persuade staff at the local Royal Mail sorting office to wade through the mountain of mail to find the missing package.

​Sunday 7 September
 
Shortly before 2pm, a lone piper stood in the middle of Pittodrie and played a lament, Flowers of the Forest. That was Farry’s idea. The capacity crowd stood in silence, but as soon as the music stopped a roar went up and normal service was resumed. Scotland won 4-1 and Hopkin, armed with his passport, scored twice. Qualification was secured a month later and the following summer we faced Brazil in the opening match of the World Cup Finals.
   The whole affair seemed over in a flash. In my opinion, it was whipped up and sustained by the media, who feared a public backlash against their own hounding of Diana, which had led indirectly to her death. They needed a scapegoat for the killing of the nation's favourite princess, and latched onto the first available target to deflect that criticism.
   Jim Farry not only fitted the bill, he played into their hands as the pantomime villain. He once told me that media relations was his forte, but in that he was deluded. Regardless of the challenging circumstances, he could have handled it much better, displaying not just a lack of sensitivity but an inability to read the public mood until it was too late. He was on borrowed time and two years later he was out of a job.
   For me, it was my baptism of fire, a major learning curve. However, I soon realised that crises and public scorn were common currency at the Scottish FA. Over the next ten years I had plenty of practice dealing with that side of things.

A curious obituary appeared in the press in 1936. ‘The death at the age of 64 has occurred in Elderslie, near Paisley, of Mr Bryce Scouller, better known as Tom Hyslop, a brilliant inside forward for Stoke and Rangers.’
   It was a crucial clue to the true identity of a man who was twice capped for Scotland against England, won two Scottish Cups, and was famed for his cannonball shot.
   Born in Auchinleck as Bryce Scouller, and brought up in Renfrewshire under that name, for his football career he called himself Thomas and adopted his mother’s maiden surname of Hyslop. If that was not unusual enough for a prominent footballer, he also had a close association with the armed forces, joining up no less than four times, including a spell on active service in the midst of an erratic football career.
   He first joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1888 under his own name, but disappears from the records after a year. Then in 1890, presumably to cover his tracks, he used the name Thomas Hyslop when he joined the Second Battalion of the Scots Guards. Based at the Victoria Barracks, near Windsor Castle, he came to prominence as a powerful six foot three centre forward in the 2nd Scots Guards football team which won the Army Cup (twice), the Middlesex County Cup (twice), and took part in the FA Cup. He was selected to represent the Army against the famous Corinthians, also scoring seven goals for Middlesex in a match against Sussex.
   Not surprisingly, he was sought by professional clubs for his goalscoring prowess, but equally the Army wanted to keep him. In April 1893 he applied for home leave but instead played a trial for Millwall, and at the end of the game was arrested by the military authorities and taken to Wellington Barracks where he was charged with disobeying orders. Although given a lenient punishment, he was obliged to remain in the army for a further two years.
   This seems to have been a ploy to keep him in uniform, so when Sunderland expressed an interest in signing him it took several months of protracted negotiations before they finally bought out his contract in January 1894 for the princely sum of £18 and he could embark on his professional football career.
   Sunderland was one of the top teams in England at the time and found it hard to fit Hyslop into their side, which would win the league in 1894-95. He played 19 matches in a year, scoring a respectable ten goals, before they allowed him to move in February 1895 to Stoke, where he made a solid impact. With 24 goals over a season and a half, the highlight being a hat-trick from three cannonball shots against West Brom, he worked himself into the international reckoning.
   His timing was lucky, as in 1896 the Scottish FA reacted to a succession of failures against England by using English-based players for the first time. The selectors chose Ned Doig (Sunderland) in goal, Tommy Brandon (Blackburn Rovers), Jimmy Cowan (Aston Villa), Jack Bell (Everton) and Tom Hyslop (Stoke) for the team at Celtic Park on 4 April 1896, and it worked. Bell scored what turned out to be the winner after William Lambie had put Scotland ahead, the English only securing a late goal by Billy Bassett, playing in his last international.
   Hyslop, despite some press criticism for his awkward style, was signed by Rangers that summer and played a key role in the team which won three Cups – Scottish, Glasgow and Charity - in 1896/97.
   It was enough to ensure he retained his Scotland place against England, and while Scotland were given little chance at Crystal Palace, especially after Steve Bloomer put the home team in front, it all changed when Hyslop headed an equaliser from Nick Smith’s free kick. The late winner came from Jimmy Miller, who knocked himself out in the process. England defender Howard Spencer later recalled: ‘Tom Hyslop was a thorn in our side, not because he was a particularly skilful forward, but because he was so deadly in his shooting.’
   The same month he sprinted to victory in the 220 yards race for professional footballers at the Rangers Sports, and went on to another successful season at Ibrox, winning the Scottish Cup again in 1898.
   Thereafter his career slid downhill. He returned to Stoke but had a disastrous run of form, not scoring once in a full season, and although he came back to Rangers in 1899 he was soon out of the team, playing only a small part in the league title win.
   He moved across the city to Partick Thistle in the summer of 1900 but in March the following year he signed up (as Bryce Scouller) to fight against the Boers and saw active service in South Africa with the Scottish Yeomanry. On his return in the autumn of 1902, he was over the hill in terms of top level football and initially signed for Dundee Wanderers, but within a few weeks was on his way back to Renfrewshire and ended his playing career with Johnstone and Abercorn.
   A year after hanging up his boots, in 1906 he emigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a carpet weaver, still calling himself Tom Hyslop. However, in September 1917 he crossed the border to Toronto where he enlisted for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, signing his name as Thomas Bryce Scouller and even knocked a couple of years off his real age (46) to scrape under the maximum age for enlistment. The ruse worked and he served in Europe, but apparently as a reservist and not on the front line.
   After the war he sailed back to Canada on a troopship but in 1922 returned for good to Scotland, where he spent his remaining years, reportedly following Rangers at home and away. He died in 1936 at the Paisley’s Royal Alexandria Infirmary and is buried in the Abbey Cemetery, near Elderslie.
   It remains extraordinary that an international footballer could have played throughout his career under a false name. As far as I can tell it was never noticed at the time, and only in death did his secret come out. 
 
Bryce Scouller, born 20 August 1871 in Auchinleck; died 21 April 1936 in Paisley.

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.

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. 

   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.

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.

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.

I recently came across an interesting little article in the Lancashire Telegraph about yet another Victorian football personality whose gravestone has been restored. Thomas Brown Mitchell is not well known but has quite a pedigree as the secretary-manager of Blackburn Rovers in the 1880s and 1890s when they won the FA Cup repeatedly, and also as the first professional manager of Arsenal.
   Like so many influential people in 19th century Lancashire football, he was a Scot. Born just north of Dumfries in 1843, Mitchell initially worked in Glasgow before travelling south in the 1860s, and married a local lass in Blackburn in 1866.
   At some stage, possibly in time for their 1884 FA Cup victory, he became involved with Blackburn Rovers and was with them as secretary-manager and club director for further triumphs in 1885, 1886, 1890 and 1891. He had a year as manager of Arsenal from 1897-98 before returning to Lancashire to live out his days; he died in Blackburn in 1921.  
   His football career is well described in the Arsenal History blog, but some aspects of his life are a bit murkier - not least the fact that he was a convicted fraudster before he became involved in football. Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive his criminal past has come to light with detailed reports of his trial and conviction for embezzlement early in 1880. He was a salesman (and former business partner) with William McKie & Co, wine and spirit merchants, and was accused of taking many hundreds of pounds although the court case was based on three specimen charges for much smaller amounts. Found guilty by a jury (which recommended mercy), 36-year-old Mitchell was sentenced to six months with hard labour.
   Evidently he served his time and carried on as though nothing had happened, as in the 1881 census he is back living with his family, described as a commercial traveller. 
   However, Mitchell was no stranger to the courts and in 1884 was found guilty of assault (fined 10 shillings). In 1888 he was implicated in a pheasant poaching case (case dropped), then again two years later Nottingham Forest brought an action in the High Court against him and other Blackburn directors for poaching players. 
   Somehow, Mitchell not only rose above his criminal past but did well for himself. He drew a salary of £14 from Blackburn Rovers and was described in the 1891 census as living on his own means, while ten years later he was a retired secretary of a football club. There are gaps in his life story but what remains without doubt is that he was an influential Scot in the early days of English professional football.

* And in case you are wondering, he is no relation to the author!