enthusiastic gathering of spectators was the harbinger of crowds
composed of thousands of excited spectators who now assemble to witness
big Association matches every Saturday, not only to see the Conquerors,
but other clubs, very slightly removed from them in ability, playing
"Cup ties." The Crowers' forwards showed great pace, and one of them,
Will Cumming, repeatedly got past me, despite the smart manoeuvring of
my master. Will, however, was somewhat wild in his dribbling, and could
not keep the ball close enough to his toes. Jim Wild was my master's
backer up on the occasion, and as Jim was decidedly the finest dribbler
that ever toed a ball, and kept his place for ten years against all
comers, afterwards the pair managed to intercept Cumming before he got
close enough on goal to make a shot. The Crowers' goalkeeper was a good
one, and could clear his place of defence with great ability, but the
backs were not of much account. Pate M'Wherry and Luke M'Tavish did the
work at half-back, but their kicking was somewhat feeble when compared
with those of the Conquerors, Tom James and Willie Keith. The Conquerors
were far too anxious to score, and for some time kept up a close
cannonade at their opponents' goal without effect. Bob Prentice used his
hands cleverly, and, though the goal was again and again endangered, not
one of the forwards on my master's side could get the ball under the
tape. A fine run was made by Wild, Lucky, Grind, Short, and my master,
and the ball brought up to within a few feet of the Crowers' goal, but
at the last second, Johnny Forrester, one of their centre forwards,
kicked it behind. This gave the Conquerors the corner flag-kick. My
master, who was quite an adept at corner flag-kicks, was sent to the
spot, and placed the ball in a good position, but Bob Prentice got it up
in his hands at a critical moment, and threw it clear. Good runs were
eventually made on both sides, and once the Crowers nearly lowered our
colours, but nothing was got by either, and the game was drawn. In those
days the rules observed were somewhat different from those in vogue now.
The game was far prettier. There was none of that heading which forms
such important factors in the style of modern playing. When the ball was
thrown in from the touch-line the rule insisted that it had first to
land on the ground before being touched, and consequently head play was
unnecessary, and dribbling was, as a matter of course, considered the
most important point, combined with taking smart possession of the ball
as soon as it touched the ground after being thrown in. My master was
smart at getting on the leather, and, next to Jim Wild, he was the most
accomplished dribbler in the Conquerors. If there is anyone capable of
telling what he could do, 'tis I. How he used to keep my toes in a
circle as he left the grass behind his heels, piloting the ball past the
opposing backs, I know to my loss, and a very great depreciation in tear
and wear. He was a veritable "dodger," this owner of mine. Never afraid
of a charge, he would, in order either to secure the ball or keep it,
attack the biggest man in an opposing team, aye, and knock him over,
too. Sometimes he lost his temper when things went against him, and,
while his remarks to an adversary were somewhat cutting and at times
verging on impertinence, they were always within the scope of
"Parliamentary." In after life, however, my master found several foemen
worthy of his steel amongst backs and half-backs in the Flying Blues,
the Crowers, the Cedargrove, Red Cross, and North Western, and he
sometimes came off second best.
It is all very well to say that there were "great men in those days." So
there were, but the same remark can be made equally applicable now, for
they are even more common, and you find them scattered over the length
and breadth of the land. It would decidedly weary you, my friend and
reader, were I to detail all the games in which I have taken an active
part, and you will at once admit that I may succeed in pleasing you
better if I give a short sketch of the leading clubs and players who
have wrought so hard and done so much to make the Association game so
popular. Jim Wild has been mentioned in connection with his club (the
Conquerors), but it is necessary to give him a line or two more. There
was no other Association club in Scotland when the Conquerors were put
into ship-shape order, and consequently no opponents to play. They could
not challenge themselves to mortal combat, and there were none but Rugby
clubs, whose members treated the new order of things in football as
childish amusement, and unworthy of free-born Britons. "Give us," they
said, "the exciting runs, the glorious tackling, the manly maul, and the
beautiful dropped goal, and we will meet you a bit of the way, but not
otherwise. We don't believe in loafing about the field at times, when
only one or two of the side are engaged; we want to be active." "Well,"
said the Conquerors (one of whom had been offered a place in the Twenty
in the Rugby match between Glasgow and Edinburgh), "you don't know
Association rules, or you would never make such absurd assertions about
the new game. If there is really any inactivity in football while being
played, that inaction is clearly shown in a Rugby maul, where the one
half of the side are merely spectators. Besides, your game is only half
football; in fact, a combination of football and handball knocked into
one. Your run with the ball under the arm is only a display of speed; it
has nothing whatever to do with football. We want the grand dribbling
run with the ball at the toe, the smart passing and middling of the
Association, and we will enjoy it." Such good-natured banter went on at
first between two opposing interests, but by and by the difference
culminated into something more.
As a sort of _quid pro quo_ for the courtesy extended to an Association
player by the Rugby contingent in the Inter-city match, Tom Chaloner,
the very _beau ideal_ of a Rugby player, was asked, and promised to play
in the first International Association match at Partick in 1872. Tom
even came out to the Recreation Ground at Crosshill, and practised with
the Conquerors as goalkeeper, and promised well in that position, but
through some cause or other he did not play when the eventful day came.
If ever a man could handle a ball and kick a goal as a quarter-back in a
Rugby game, it was Chaloner. He was the pride of all the Rugby clubs in
the country side, and was as well, indeed, if not better known in his
brilliant career as a cricketer. Who in Scotland could bat like Tom? He
was not a hitter to a particular side of the wickets; all was alike to
him. He could cut, drive, hit to long and square-leg, and oh! how far!
He would have made a grand Association football player, but he preferred
to stick to the Rugby style, and was equally successful, at least to his
club's satisfaction. The first match between England and Scotland at
Partick, nineteen years ago (which, by the way, is worthy of note, was
played by members of the Queen's Park exclusively), did a great deal to
spread Association rules in Glasgow and district, and, in fact,
eventually all over Scotland. Hitherto there used to be a couple of
months of interval between the end of the Rugby football season and the
starting of athletics and cricket, lasting from March till May, and as
the football players of the old dispensation were still in trim, but
with exhausted fixtures, not a few of them, belonging to two of the
leading clubs, did not consider it _infra dig._ to have a "go" at the new
rules, "just to see how they could stand it."
The outcome of this hastily-formed notion was that a sort of Nomadic
team, calling themselves the Western Pilgrims, was formed, and three or
four matches, and good ones, too, were played between them and the
Conquerors and also the Cedargrove. The Pilgrims showed themselves no
mean opponents in the new game, and, after holding their own with the
Cedargrove in a drawn game, had a good tussle with the Conquerors on the
recreation ground at the Park, and were only beaten by a goal to none,
the goal, I remember, being made in the last five minutes by Bob Gardens
(who could dribble and play forward as well as keep goal). A few of the
Pilgrims took kindly to the Association rules, and while that season
lasted two of the leading forwards joined the Cedargrove, and turned out
capital players. Another joined the Druids, and became a famous
goalkeeper, even going as far as playing for his country in the
International match, and the fourth turned out a leading man in the
Holyrood Crescent. Talking about the above goalkeeper, Aleck M'Gregor
was one of the finest fellows that ever stood with his back to a goal.
There was the cheerful disposition, the gentlemanly demeanour to
opponents or associates whenever he appeared on the field. His knowledge
of the Rugby game made him a most useful man at goal, where the keeper
of that charge is the only man under Association rules who is allowed to
touch the ball with his hands. With the ordinary goalkeeper the punt-out
kick, when dexterously executed, was considered the most effective mode
of saving the ball from going under the tape, when the use of the hands
to knock it out was not deemed necessary, but Aleck preferred the
drop-kick, which is one of the redeeming features in the Rugby style of
play, and this he could do almost to perfection. I have seen him (for I
have, by-the-bye, taken part against him in several matches) lift a ball
after it had come pretty smartly from my right toe, and dropping it on
the ground before him, kick it as it rose, bounding away over the heads
of the Conquerors' forwards as they besieged the goal like a hive of
bees on a June morning. He had decidedly the advantage over the modern
"punter," inasmuch that the leather was always sure to go higher out of
reach when the place of defence was besieged, and farther out of the way
of lurking backs and half-backs, who, as a matter of course, crowd down
behind the forwards when an attack is made on an opponent's stronghold.
There were other instances which came to my knowledge (that is, if my
reader can imagine anything so queer as a pair of boots possessing such
an immensely human gift) of converts from Rugby to Association style of
play, or rather perverts, as they were designated, but enough has been
said to show how Association football gained a hold on the young and
rising generation, and how it spread all over the western and
north-western portion of the country, and, like the proverbial Eastern
magician's wand, caused goal-posts and corner-flags to spring up in
every village and hamlet with remarkable rapidity. Close to the shores
of several Highland lochs, where a big kick by a stalwart half-back
endangers the ball being swept away by the tide, one can see the game
played of an evening by the village youth with great earnestness of
purpose. By and by the new rules made remarkable progress, and as the
public liked the game, and deserted the Rugby matches to see what they
considered the most easily understood rules, the breach between the
rival contingents widened, and eventually the Jews had no dealings with
the Gentiles, and so they both continue playing the games they consider
the best.
What changes have taken place in clubs and players during the last few
years! Faces, blithe, happy faces, now gone forever, can be remembered
by the old spectators, although the present scarcely ever heard their
names; but I will not go very far back. Poor Dixy (for he is dead
now)--well can I remember his first introduction to the Conquerors. My
master had been indulging, in company with Bob Gardens, Jim Wild, Willie
Keith, and others, in a punt about on the evening preceding a match with
the Red Cross, and, after shaking hands and passing the usual
compliments, the practice game was started, and in it the newcomer
showed well, and kicked cleverly with both feet. He was, however, just a
shade too slow, and I frequently tackled him, and secured the leather,
giving it a deal of "toe" after passing close in on goal. The club were
badly off for a goal-keeper after Willie Keith left for America, and, as
John was not backward in making a display of his ability, he offered to
act as goal-keeper. It would take too long to recount the games in which
he and I were engaged in the subsequent career of the Conquerors, but an
incident or two will not be considered out of place. If Dixy had one
weakness more than another it consisted in a lively sense of his own
importance as a crack goalkeeper, and the supposed invincible qualities
of his club, which he often declared could not be beaten. He improved
wonderfully in his new position, and, while playing some of the junior
clubs, which were by this time beginning to spring up, it was positively
amusing to see how John would advance quietly from his goal when it was
besieged, and punt the ball contemptuously away with quite a crowd of
young ones close up, awe-stricken at the agility shown by such a bulky
form.
A few of the Red Cross and Cedargrove forwards sometimes gave him a
fright, and in one match with the Leven Crowers he was fairly outwitted
by Boyd and Ned M'Donald in a cup tie. I fought hard in that memorable
battle myself, and never got such a saturation with water and mud in my
career; but we were beaten. I will not easily forget Dixy as he came to
the field on that occasion, carrying his umbrella to the goal-posts, and
laying it against the left one. He, poor fellow, expected his club would
have an easy victory, and this belief was shared in by not a few of the
eleven besides, including my master, who had, by the way, emerged into a
centre forward since the last match with the Kilmarackers, and as a
consequence he gave me a deal of extra work as a backer-up to Mat.
Angus. In fact, not long after I was carefully laced and ready for the
fray that wet afternoon, the Conqueror's eleven had a confab about the
tactics they should pursue, and Joe Sayler, our captain (who is now no
more, and lost to his club for ever), remarked it would take them all
their time to beat the Crowers. He had, I could see by his anxious
looks, grave doubts on the issue. At the outset of the game the rain
poured down in torrents, and as most of the play was on the Crowers'
portion of the field, the umbrella was put up, amid the laughter of the
partisans of John's contingent and the pent-up indignation of the
followers of the Crowers, who mustered strong on the occasion, and
demonstrated a strength of lungs truly astonishing. John, by and by,
when the battle became hot, had to discard his old friend and comforter,
and work in front of his fortress in a way that he had never done
before, and when the terrible tussle ended, the Conquerors were beaten
by two goals to one. When chaffed on the "umbrella incident" ever
afterwards Dixy was silent, and declared that in using it he did not
hold his opponents too cheaply, but simply with a desire to save himself
from a ducking. John was also a capital oarsman, and when he was
suddenly cut away in the pride of his manhood, he was barely 30 years of
age. He was greatly lamented, and his handsome figure is missed from the
football field.
John's death reminds me of a young and promising forward named Smith,
who used to play on the left wing of the Cedargrove in company with a
smart companion named Seward. Young Smith was a very enthusiastic
football player, and missed few, if any, practice games. Poor lad, I met
him twice in one season in matches with the Cedargrove, and it took all
my master knew to prevent him from getting clean past the Conquerors'
backs and scoring. He was a nice dribbler, and like Fred Adamson (an old
member of the same club), went straight ahead with a splendid hold of
the leather. Talking about Fred, I remember that player, in company with
Johnny M'Phedran and James Wilton, going for big Thomas, who was then
the Conquerors' captain, and played at half-back. Thomas was an awful
fellow to meet in a charge, and a hundred to one was sure to send his
opponent to grass. Johnny, however, who was a little bandy-legged, held
tenaciously to the ball, and while Thomas was eagerly watching his
opportunity, Fred sent him flat on his back, and the ball was close on
goal in an instant. There was a hard scrummage, and in the nick of time,
Joe Sayler (who was then the crack sprinter of the Conquerors), dashed
up and got the ball clear before it reached the keeper. Poor Smith, he
caught a severe cold one evening, and eventually succumbed to a painful
malady. The Cedargrove were at one time hard to beat. In fact, in the
early history of the Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup, they
pressed my master's club hard for the trophy, and were only
vanquished--after three games--by one goal to none.
The Red Cross were also dangerous opponents, and possessed not a few
capital players. There were John Huxter, Sandy Kenneth, Jack Williams,
Joe Drummond, and Bill Millins. They were not easily beaten. Sandy
Kenneth, though rather a quiet-looking customer to meet in the street,
developed into one of the finest half-backs that Scotland ever produced.
He was always cool and collected, and, although by no means a very hard
kicker, could judge the ball to a hair-breadth. Sandy was especially
clever in tackling, which he could manage without deliberate charging.
If the ball got up close on the goal which he defended, he would follow
the dribblers, and with a clever manoeuvre on the left foot, obtain
possession, and after nursing the ball for a few minutes, would, amid
the applause of the spectators, send it spinning down the field. Then
there was Bill Summons. He was rather a volatile customer, and a perfect
football coquette. There was scarcely a club of any pretensions in
Glasgow but what Bill had wooed. He, however, stuck well to the Red
Cross, and did some splendid service in their best matches, but
eventually left them and joined the Conquerors, who, by the way, were
just a shade too ready to take over the best men of other clubs by
holding out tempting baits in the shape of big matches. Bill, with all
his faults, was a grand back, and I question if anybody in Glasgow could
make a finer kick when he set his mind to it. He had his failing, to be
sure, and who hasn't? He was sometimes most erratic while playing
important matches, and, especially on a windy day, would make grave
mistakes with too heavy kicking.
Jack Huxter, too, of the Red Cross, was a very fine player, and a
"caution" to get past at back (poor fellow, he, too, like Dixy, has gone
to his account). He was a dangerous man to meet in the heat of a tussle
near the goal-line, and woe betide the daring forward who would attempt
to take the ball from Jack there. His only weakness was a frequent
desire to "go" for the man instead of the ball, and charging rather
heavily. Although a back, he was by no means an inferior dribbler, and
possessing good speed, sometimes astonished the members of his own club
by the smart runs he would now and again make in company with the
forwards when the leather was in an opponents' territory. He stuck like
a veritable leech to the Red Cross, and turned out most faithfully to
all their important matches. I must not forget Willie Millins, who was
one of the neatest dribblers of his day. He has given up football now.
Getting a clear start, many an exciting and clever run he made for the
Red Cross. I heard my master say that in a match for the Association Cup
between his club and the Cedargrove, he once made a goal after dribbling
the ball almost the entire length of the field.
Then there was a lot of smaller fry, including good players belonging to
the Dumbrook, North-Eastern, Gallowgate Rovers, the Locomotive Slashers,
Thornians, Northern Jumpers, Edinburgh Irishmen, Partick Unfortunates,
and last, though by no means least, the Flying Blues. There was no club
in Scotland, except, perhaps, the Vale Crowers, that had made so much
progress in the game as those Flying Blues, and few, if any, were gifted
with the same amount of self-confidence. The Blues, nevertheless, had
good reason to feel proud of some of their members, for they were young
and active, and the very ideal of smart football players. It was a lucky
thing for them when they migrated from the north and established
themselves in the old ground vacated by the Cedargrove. Had it not been
for that lucky arrangement, they might have wasted their football lives
in obscurity, and gone down to Association posterity "unhonoured and
unsung." Their success was as remarkable as it was swift and decisive.
Possessing any amount of pluck, they tackled all and sundry in the
district, and the second year, after gaining something like a
first-class reputation, won nearly every game they played. Their
captain, Tom Vincent, was a grand back, and, indeed, one of the crack
men in that position, of whom Scotland has now so many to select from;
and then there was Bentback, Bill Donoup, Jack Drummer, and Mat Neil,
all fine players at their respective positions. Never shall I forget the
match between the Blues and the Conquerors for the Association Cup a
dozen years ago, about the last big match in which I took an active
part. My master's team had had bad luck though, for after pressing the
Flying Blues till within a few minutes of the game, the Blues beat the
Conquerors by one goal to none, Bill Donoup sending the ball under goal
at the last minute, although the story goes that he had a bet of a
"sov." that the Conquerors would win, and it was even admitted that he
was heard to say, when kicking the goal, "Here goes my blooming
sovereign!"
Although now stowed away in the corner of a large chest, side by side
with jerseys, caps, knickerbockers, and other football requisites, as a
remnant of the glorious game, my master sometimes visits me to think
over the past, and I often hear him say that, although he does not play
now, he still goes to see some of the leading contests, and at them
picks up many queer stories of the modern players. Last year's crack
men, as he sees them crowding in his "mind's eye," are not, he says,
unworthy representatives of those of the past.
_VI.--HOW CLUBS WERE STARTED LONG AGO._