On 25th October 1919 England played its first official international after the war. It was at Windsor Park, Belfast and be a 1:1 draw. Officially record 30,000 were there, some say it was 50,000, and they came not least to see a Celtic player on the right, sometime winger. sometime inside-right. His name was Patrick “Patsy” Gallacher and he had lived all but three of his then twenty-eight years in Scotland, had learned his football in Glasgow, would be buried there, two of his sons would become professional footballers in Scotland, his nephew too, and his grandson, Kevin Gallacher, would play fifty-three times for the Scottish national side.
But Patsy Gallacher was the
John Goodall of his day, the
Archie Goodall too, caught by an accident of birth. There seems never to have been a question that, unlike currently, he could represent Scotland, because he was born in County Donegal, only crossing the Irish Sea as a young child, an infant wanderer in not out. With Patsy, although he would twice represent the Scottish league, unlike a generation earlier with fellow New-Scot and Irishman,
Willie Maley, who did play for Scotland and strictly should not have, even though he had a Scots-Canadian mother and Scottish grandparents, and even as hinted before the War with
Charlie Buchan, who was asked but could not in spite of both his parents being Aberdonian, the SFA seemed with Gallacher unwilling post-War to push the boundaries.
Patsy Gallacher is said on the field to have been a tour-de-force. At just five and half feet tall he seemed frail. Yet he was blessed with speed and technique, attributes which earned him the title The Mighty Atom and a reputation for the outrageous that belied his physique. Most outrageous of all, or at least on his greatest stage, was perhaps his 1925 Scottish Cup-final goal, when, having beaten five Dundee players and even after being tackled, he somersaulted over the opposition goalie and the line with the ball clamped between his boots.
Scotland’s centre-forward, Jimmy McGrory, who played alongside him at Celtic, contended:
“Patsy was the fastest man over 10 yards. He moved at great speed and he could stop immediately sending opponents in all directions. He could win a game when the rest of us were just thinking about it.”
Allan Morton of Rangers and Scotland’s left-winger at the time and no giant or slouch himself would add:
“Within 20 yards of goal Patsy Gallacher was the most dangerous forward I have ever seen. You never knew what he would do. Often he would wriggle through, past man after man, with defenders reluctant to tackle in case they gave away a penalty kick.”
Between 1911 and 1926 Gallacher would play five hundred and sixty nine games for the Parkhead club, scoring one hundred and ninety
two goals from right-wing, and then from the age of 35 play six more years with Falkirk. For Ireland he would play thirteen times; twelve for the IFA from his debut in 1919, already aged 28, and once after partition for the FAI in a career otherwise disrupted by the Great War. Had he been selectable for Scotland he might have made a difference to the 5:4 loss against England in 1920 or the 2:2 and 1:1 draws of 1923 and 1924, in what was otherwise a successful period for the Scotland team but he remains, in truth, a talent that slipped through Scotland’s international grasp. He was potentially the perfect foil on the right wing for Morton on the left and predecessor par excellence to
Alex Jackson, a different player in terms of physique but one with an equal penchant for the innovative and on and to whom he must have been both an influence and example.