Alexander Thomas Meiklejohn was one of the most prominent of American philosophers, a graduate of what is still one of that country's few liberal universities, Brown in Providence, Rhode Island, the President of Amherst College from 1912, the creator in 1927 of the University of Wisconsin's  Experimental College and co-founder of the School of Social Studies at Berkeley University, by San Francisco. In December 1963, just a year before his own death in 1964 aged ninety-two, he received from President Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for which he had been selected by John F. Kennedy, who had been shot just two weeks earlier. But for all that the reason he is recalled here is because he was a football-mad, Diasporan Scot, who not only played but also administered at the then American highest level. In 1895 he served as Treasurer of the American Football Association, his brother Andrew, the following year. 

Alex Meiklejohn was born in 1872 in Rochdale to a family passing through from Scotland to the New World. In fact of the whole family Alex, as the youngest of six, all boys, was the only not born North of the Border. Andrew, the next up, had been born in Neilston. His parents were both from Stirlingshire. Moreover, in 1880 the family would leave England and it would settle in Pawtucket. The father was a "Colour-Maker" or "-Mixer" who would have found ready employment in the Lancashire cotton trade. In Rhode Island he would work in a print-works as a "Colour-Compounder".  And they were clearly a family with something else about them, albeit that eldest son Matthew would die young. One brother would be a teacher but join two of the others in running a music-business. Alex would become a professor.

However, in October 1893, just after Alex graduated from Brown, one of the new teams to enter the American Cup, then the US's foremost "soccer" competition, was the YMCA from Pawtucket. Unlike the known-to-be semi-professional or at least shamateur Pawtucket Free Wanderers it was avowedly amateur. And, whilst it was beaten initially in the first round and again when a replay seems to have been required, they were both away, by the odd goal in nine and then 6-2 and by one of the eventual semi-finalists, Fall River East End, so not bad performances at all, directed from centre-half, from Scottish centre-half, by a Meiklejohn. And, whilst we do not know if it were Alex or Andrew it was obviously encouraging enough for re-entry the following season. 

Thus it was in October 1895 that in the first round YMCA faced a Fall River team once more, this time Rovers, cup-winners in 1888 and 1889. Moreover, at home at the Dexter Street ground in Pawtucket itself YMCA was victorious, 2-1. The goal-scorers were Willie Cameron and Alex Morrison, there was a Meiklejohn once more at centre-half and this time he is fully declared. It was Alexander. And he was there at the centre of it all in the next round in a 6-3 revenge over East End. Morrison was on the scoresheet once more as was a Watson, probably Oliver, perhaps brother Fred but either way the first Black player at the top flight in the American game. 

And thus in the semi-final YMCA was on to face their most local rivals, Free Wanderers, which they had beaten the previous year for the town trophy, the Mayor's Cup. And now they rejigged, perhaps through injuries, with Willie Moore at centre-half and, certainly in the replay, Alex Meiklejohn in the absence of Morrison at centre-forward.  It did not work. Wikipedia might report it as a 4-2 win but it must have been the reverse, Free Wanderers going on to the final but to lose.

So for the 1895-6 season again there was encouragement, although it would be something of a chimera on all fronts. On the one hand the following year the game would begin to fall away badly under mostly external economic pressures. Neither YMCA or indeed any Rhode Island team competed then or in the one after that. In 1898 the American Cup itself would be mothballed for eight seasons. And on the other it seems to have been the last year, in which Alex Meiklejohn was involved at least at the highest level. Nevertheless it began with promise and an initial, first round draw against beatable Free Wanderers. Meiklejohn was back at centre-half. Fred Watson was at full-back. Match one finished 1-1 but the second encounter nineteen days later and with much the same line-up ended in a 5-3 defeat. It was an inflection-point. On the field progress had been halted in its tracks . Off it for Alex it was clearly the opportune moment to return fully to his books and contemplation, sadly his incredible intellect no longer to be directed at the next well-timed tackle, clever header or that killer-pass.