And when you are done looking at this site for the Scots input on football world-wide, here are two more.
For those who literally want to trace on the ground the local development of Scots and Scottish football in our own and other countries there is the newly available and ever-expanding site of:
The Scots Football Historians' Group
And on Scottish sports history in general but inevitably including fitba', see Andy Mitchell's inestimable:
If you are willing at least to countenance the idea that modern, world football is, as this whole site argued, not the product of the English game and its 1-2-7 and 2-3-5 but of Scottish football and The Cross and that it came out of
Renton in the
Leven Vale then you must accept that it had a contemporaneous source; the contemporary being between 1884 and 1888. You must also accept that the system itself must have come, long before the days of coaches and managers, from the players. The one usually cited is James Kelly and there is no doubt that he was important, not least because he was, as attacking centre-half, its first fulcrum. However, there is no evidence, firstly, that he was that source, whereas there is that he was groomed into it, and, secondly, there is certainty that he was not the one to take to it out of Scotland for the simple reason he spent his whole career North of the Border, after Renton at Celtic.
Nor, in fact, is there any evidence that The Cross was the product of forward play. The problem it resolved was linkage between defence and attack not the other way round. Kelly himself was a converted inside forward, who dropped back, and not a defender, who was pushed up, the implication being that defence already had its hands full and could not afford to lose a member so to correct a perceived problem of what today we call "mid-field" not working at optimum a forward had to be and could be, shall we say, reassigned. Its strength was that reassignment provided that link. Its weakness was, in the days before substitutes, if you crocked the new-type centre-half you crocked the team and, to its credit, English football never went there. Others, however, were less timid. For example, fully forty years later at the
1930 World Cup the Argentinians, facing a team managed by a Scot,
Bob Millar, with five Scots-born players in it and using the basic Cross, understood only too well what was required. It was simple, if callous. Within ten minutes of the start of the semi-final between them and the USA they broke centre-half Ralph Tracey's leg. And meanwhile football in general has come to understand it too. Less callously but equally effectively it has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled the link, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, in part on the basis that taking out one might be slyly done, but four was carnage too far.
Countenancing being the case, and with Renton having a young, inexperienced forward line with four of five new faces between 1886 and 1888, a defence that had been completely steady during the period and the convention at the time being that the captain on the field decided tactics its seems likely that The Cross's source was either the defence as a collective or the club captain. The defence in 1888 was Bob Kelso and Donald McKechnie at half-back and Andrew Hannah and Archie McCall at full-back. Two years earlier in 1886 it had been the same and in 1885 also, with McCall as skipper throughout. And it is also a curious fact that when that team was broken up it was just the right-side of that defence, which would go on both to play long-term in the professional game and in England. Bob Kelso, right-half, by that time perhaps the most widely recognised of the XI with seven caps going back to 1885 but in 1888 still aged just twenty-two headed south immediately at first to Newcastle West End but then to Merseyside and Preston. And right-back, Andrew Hannah, with only a single Scottish cap but himself only twenty-three, would be snapped up by West Bromwich, who Renton had just beaten to become "World Champions", stay in Birmingham briefly for personal reasons before returning to Renton for the rest of the season but then also go on to play on Merseyside. In contrast, Donald Mckechnie, left-half, the only one without a cap and already in his late-twenties, so perhaps a little too old to attract top, top clubs down south, would play the 1889 season at least in part at Newcastle West End but quickly return to stay in the Leven Vale, marrying not in Renton but Bonhill, raising a family there, continuing to work as a calico printer and seemingly giving up football altogether as his old club continued to play The Cross but with less success for obvious reasons. At the beginning of the 1888-89 the whole of the the half-back line had to be replaced. Instead of Kelso, McKechnie and, of course, Kelly there was Campbell, Gardener and Brown. But even they did not stay long as there was more disruptive churn. In 1890 George Campbell took himself off to Aston Villa, where interestingly he was joined by ex. Renton,
James Cowan. Hannah was on his way once more also. Henry Gardener possibly went to Bolton via Kilmarnock from 1893. Not once but twice, perhaps even three times the back four had to be rebuilt and always around Archie McCall. He was a year younger than Mckechnie and possibly at his peak. He had been capped but only once, in early 1888 against Ireland but that would be it. No doubt he received offers but appeared uninterested, with other plans. He would marry in Renton, raise a family there and continue to play for the club, at least until retirement in 1894, his presence seemingly making a large contribution first to holding the club together and secondly rebuilding teams, his ageing equally having a debilitating effect on both and his absence a terminal one. In 1889 Renton reached just the Second Round of the Scottish Cup. In 1890 it was to be part of the newly Scottish League but was expelled, ironically, for professionalism. No doubt it was paying its players but it was far from alone. It was also knocked out of the Scottish Cup in the First Round. Yet the following year it recovered and quite remarkably. It was readmitted to the league in 1891, in 1892 finishing sixth. And it reached the Cup semi-final. However, it was to be. no more than a temporary peak In 1893 it was 8th of ten in the First Division and knocked out 6-0 to Abercorn in the First Round of the Cup. In 1894 it reached the Cup second round but, sadly in the year McCall retired, was relegated to the newly forming Second Division, where it for two years held its own before in 1897 began a slide that would ultimately prove fatal. In 1898, just a decade after having been the World's best, Renton would drop out of league football altogether and for good and worse was to come. In 1922 the club would be dissolved and its ground became a housing estate.
If the story of Archie McCall's remaining years at Renton is somewhat sad and that of Renton even sadder then James Kelly's too after his time there is probably best described as curious, a blend of sweet and sour. If the development of The Cross had been in the minds and feet of Bob Kelso, Andrew Hannah, Donald McKechnie and above all Archie McCall so its dissemination, in Scotland at least, was via Kelly's feet and the example set by the successful Celtic team he captained for most of a decade. His and his family's place in Celtic's history is undeniable. Having been nineteen when he first played for Renton, he had just turned twenty-three when he officially joined Celtic and thirty-one when he retired as a player officially, in reality making his last appearance at the age of just thirty. In the same period during which somewhere between 100 and 116 league games and thirty-four to thirty-five cup matches were played Celtic would win three league championships and one Cup. Kelly personally would played in all the cup and 104 of the league games. He was an almost ever-present at Celtic Park and all the other major grounds in the country, on the field setting a style of play that not only lead to success but would become widely imitated. However, his international playing career was less successful than might have been expected. Indeed, it was little better than patchy, if for reasons largely outwith his control.
James Kelly had been twenty-two when, still at Renton, he in 1888 had won his first cap. It was in a 0-5 defeat by England, the first loss in a decade, the first at home, the worst ever. Admittedly he was playing at right- and not centre-half so was out of position at least in Cross terms, just as he was to be when, by then with Celtic, he next played once more against England a year later, on the face a somewhat fortunate away win but a win nevertheless. In fact it was not to be until 1990 that he was to be picked in his, by then, accepted club role and even then it in retrospect looks little more than notional. In spite of the inclusion of three more Celtic players and one from Renton, they were not in positions around Kelly, facilitating his potential contribution. Crucially, whilst the left side of the defence was his team-mates, the right was Queen's Park. In addition, although there was a McCall on the pitch, it was James, brother of Archie and on the wing, not Archie himself, leaving the impression thatthe selectors, whilst seeing Kelly as a player hadn't really yet grasped The Cross as a system and certainly not the centre-half's specialised role in it.
Indeed this tactical myopia was confirmed when the following year 1891, Kelly was not in the team and any pretext of embracing The Cross was visibly abandoned. There was not a single Celtic player in the eleven, nor any from Renton. The captain was very much old-school Walter Arnott
from Queen's Park, as was his full-back partner. The entire half-back line was from Hearts, the main club to have used the defensive centre-half before 1888 and presumably seemingly still using it, two of the forward line were also from Queen's Park and a third was another from Hearts. And thirdly it made no difference at all. Scotland was beaten yet again. Moreover, although in 1992 Kelly returned once more he was selected at right-half and the game was lost and badly.
It was against for Scotland against England an unprecedented third defeat in a run five games that also included a poor home draw. Action was seen to be needed. In 1893 against Ireland Kelly was moved back to centre-half. Moreover, he was also made captain and Willie Maley came in on his right in a formation that not exactly The Cross but might be described as Cross-like, even Cross-light. Scotland was four up in half-an-hour. It eventually won 6-1, Kelly himself scoring. And a week later it was almost that same formation, Kelly still the captain, that took the field against England. The only change was Arnott for Adams at right-back.
Although James Kelly would play twice more for Scotland after 1893 this game would be not only the turning-point of his international career but also of another and, perhaps, the future of Scottish football for the next generation. The game was played away in London. Scotland was one down in thirteen minutes, ahead in forty-eight but pulled back to level ten minutes later. Then in the 58th and 60th minutes England's twenty-three year old left-winger, Fred Spiksley, scored twice. He was facing the veteran Arnott, aged almost thirty-two, in two minutes had ended a career of a dozen years and Scotland eventually losing 5-2, with in the 80th minute England adding another.
The repercussions from the game were fourfold, two quick and two medium-term. Arnott never played for Scotland again, which ultimately would be progress. A fine but conventional full-back he appears, not least because of his kudos through longevity to have been one, if not a major impediment to The Cross's introduction at international level. He hadn't been brought up with it. He didn't understand it. He couldn't play it, certainly not in the way, Dan Doyle of Celtic and Robert Glen of Renton, his eventual replacements would show they could. However, it was also to be Maley's last appearance. Found to be Irish-born he was deemed ineligible. And in addition not only would experimentation with The Cross, limited as it was, be abandoned as a series of clearly lesser talents were tried to no greater success, Kelly would also as a result be sidelined. He was to feature just twice more, in the following game against Wales in 1894, one won easily, and against Ireland in 1896, a game drawn but almost lost, but never again against England.
James Kelly's international career remains something of an enigma. Some imply he was a man before his time. But I have a different theory; that he was not an organiser but needed to be organised. At Renton it had been the senior players both on- and off-field, whilst at Celtic the team was built to suit his abilities and he was comfortable in a way that at international level because it was transient he could never be. At Celtic too, in spite of him being captain, the figurehead, his organiser was probably Willie Maley. It is perhaps no coincidence that Kelly and Maley retired from playing at much the same time and, as Kelly stepped up to the Board, Maley went on to manage for forty years. This whilst at Renton Archie McCall had fulfilled much the same Maley role. It fact at national level it needed another type of character to organise on the field from centre-half and, indeed, perhaps almost to force The Cross on the selectors and not the other way round and James Cowan seems to have been him.
But Archie McCall and James Kelly are only the Scottish and not the Diasporan part of this story, which might have begun almost simultaneously in late 1888. It was when after a brief sojourn in Newcastle Bob Kelso arrived at Everton, where frankly he failed to make much of an impression. He played one game. The date was 19th January 1889 at Anfield, against Preston North End. He replaced the injured Jimmy Weir, Edinburgh-born from a then 2-3-5 playing city, so would have probably taken the field as a conventional wide-half-back rather than the narrower Renton and therefore Cross variety in what, having been scoreless at half-time, finished as 0-2 victory for Preston. However, if Everton were not much taken with Kelso, at least not immediately, bringing Weir back for the next and subsequent games, Preston clearly saw something more. The North Lancashire club signed him that May, he was in the team that won the league championship the following April, one more open to Renton-thinking, and he stayed two seasons before being signed by Everton once more from 1891 for five more. There he now replaced locally-born David Kirkwood in a team that in defence probably played the English way and seems to have done so all the time he was there. However, in 1896 he returned to Scotland to play for two seasons at Dundee , winning from right-back his last cap and as national captain in 1898 in a 0-3 win against Ireland in a team almost certainly playing The Cross. Dan Doyle was beside him, one of James Kelly's early successors at Celtic, David Russell, as his centre-half, Alex King also of Celtic at left-half and Dumbarton's Willie Thomson on the right flank.
However, if by the time of his Dundee appearances Kelso was preaching to the converted in Scotland at least, The Cross by then the accepted style of play in much of country, it was not so in England or at least most of it. Sunderland was one exception. Its team was almost entirely Scots. And the other was one half of Liverpool and Andrew Hannah was quite simply the man, who had taken and implanted it there, again from its Renton source but via a twist of fate.
Hannah had arrived on the banks of the Mersey at the start of the 1889-90 season. It was not his first foray south. A year earlier West Bromwich had persuaded him to Birmingham. It must have been very tempting for the twenty-three year old son of an Irish-born dairyman, who also worked in the dairy and had commitments. In 1886 he had fathered a son illegitimately, which nevertheless was named after him. The mother was a local girl, Jessie Thomson, and the child died at six months old. Nevertheless, in April 1888 in the midst of Cup and "World Championship" games he had married Jessie, travelling south shortly afterwards at the start of the 1888-9 season, leaving her to run the dairy.
As a result the stay in Birmingham did not last long. When Jessie became pregnant once more he returned, playing the rest of the season with the local team and it was only after the birth, when Everton came calling that he was prepared to move away for a second time and more permanently. In fact he was to play all twenty-four leagues games in 1889-90 and in winning the league for the first time twenty the following season. Moreover they would all be alongside none other than Danny Doyle, that is until both returned, Doyle to Celtic until 1899, playing behind Kelly and Maley for much of the time, and Hannah to Renton, to a reasonable season in the Scottish First Division and the birth of his second child.
That Doyle and Hannah had left Everton at the same time might seem like coincidence. It wasn't. Not just the club but football on Merseyside in general at the that was in some turmoil. There had been an ongoing row about the rent paid for Anfield, Everton's ground at the time, which would reach a head in January 1892 and after which it was finally announced in March that the club would build a new ground for the next season. That ground would become known as Goodison Park. However, it left the owners of Anfield with a problem; a stadium but no team. At first an attempt was made to retain the Everton name. That was rejected by the Football League. Then an application was made to join the First Division of the Football League, which was again met by a refusal that also eliminated any possibility of joining the new Second Division. The new club, now called Liverpool F.C., had instead to be content with the Lancashire League and required a team, at which point, perhaps aware of problem there might have been in recruiting locally, the management turned to Scots, some already playing in England and others in Scotland itself, not least from the
Leven Vale. Andrew Hannah was one of them, perhaps the leading light in that first all-Scots team known at the Team of the Macs.
In truth the Macs were a good team, good enough to take their league at the first time of asking, more sensibly apply for a place in the Football League but only in the Second Division this time and be accepted, but no-one could say they were great. However, what could be said is that, by definition, it had only one way of playing, the Scottish way. At Everton there had been Scots but always, with an English centre-half, little likelihood of The Cross. By contrast at newly-formed Liverpool with at its fulcrum Joe McQue, aged just twenty-two, directly arrived from Glasgow and described as "a defender with an attacking mindset, i.e. an attacking centre-half, and Renton's James McBride on his left, it seems unlikely they would, indeed, could have played anything else. The Cross had arrived on Merseyside. More than that it was implanted. The following season ten of the first XI and all the outfield players were again Scots. In 1894-5 it was thirteen of fifteen in the first team squad, the others being an Englishman and David Hannah, no relation but a Northern Irishman, so playing the Scots way too. In 1895-6 it was nine of fifteen, plus Hannah once more and a season later it was nine of fifteen once more and, although McQue played just nine game his replacement was Bobby Neil, who came from Hibernian and went on to Rangers after a season, as McQue made a partial return before being replaced in 1898 by the great Alex Raisbeck. In fact it would not be until the 1902-3 season that for the first time more non-Scots than Scots took the field but even then still with Raisbeck at the hub and there until the 1907-8 season. It meant in terms of style firstly that Liverpool was from its foundation for a decade a Scots team, secondly that for five years more than it certainly played Scots-style, was again dominated on the field by Scots from 1912-13 until the Great War and once more in the era of Jimmy Jackson, the Australian-Scot born in Newcastle from 1928 until 1933 . It could even be argued that it implanted the attacking game so deeply in the club that it remains the expectation to this day. Certainly in terms of success it resulted over the half century after initial entry in just two years out of the top division, both followed by immediate bounce-back, two Second Division championships plus four First Division Championships but interestingly no FA Cup wins. They would have to wait until more modern times.
Andrew Hannah would play over seventy matches for Liverpool until at the age of thirty he headed north once more. In the club's year in the Lancashire League he turned out twenty-five times out of twenty-five. In its first promotion year it was twenty-eight of thirty-two, in relegation with him aged thirty that had fallen to sixteen, clearly influencing the outcome and the following year, again one of promotion he was on his way back north to Kirkintilloch Rob Roy for two seasons. And it would be in Kirkintilloch that Andrew and his family would in 1901 be living. He is described as a Spirit Merchant, he ran a pub in the town, but that hid a major change in his life. He had six children, five girls and one boy, also Andrew, but his wife was not Jessie but Mary. He had remarried, Jessie having died still in her early thirties in 1899 a month after young Andrew's birth.
And it was in the drink's trade that Hannah remained at least until 1911. Then he is recorded, as the licensee of Glasgow's Gaiety Theatre, no longer in Kirkintilloch but in Old Kirkpatrick, almost exactly halfway between the city itself and Renton. And it would be there to the west of Glasgow he would remain until his death, aged seventy-five, in the Western General in May 1940, having, after a football career that to this day both nationally and internationally remains woefully underestimated in terms of influence on both sides of the border, finished his working life intriguingly as a Clydebank "shipyard detective".