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:
Chapter Two
Peter McWilliam's début at his new club followed at St. James against Middlesbrough on 18th October 1902, three weeks after his wedding. He replaced Alex Gardner, Leith-born and two years his senior. Newcastle lost, 0-1, the goal scored by Carrick, the left-winger, so McWilliam at right-half was unlikely to have been to blame, at least not directly. Yet he was dropped for the next game, an away draw to Derby. Three more defeats followed. The team was struggling but he was not part of it and the losses. Then there was a welcome win, only to be followed by three more defeats and still he had no part. He might even have returned home briefly, presumably with his new bride. In December 1902 his father remarried to Christine Grant, born nearby on the Black Isle, a spinster working in service in Inverness and a decade younger than her new husband.
In fact Peter McWilliam would not be included in the Newcastle first team again until 28th March 1903, taking the place of Colin Veitch, who was moved up to the forward-line to replace another Scottish Gardner, Oban-born Andrew. The team won 2-0 at home to Aston Villa. He was retained. Newcastle won once more again at home to Everton. He was retained once more for an away loss but only by the odd goal in five and two more wins. Then he was out again until a winning last game of the season and against Sunderland. Newcastle finished just three places off relegation. Alex Gardner remained at the club. Andrew Gardner was moved on to Bolton Wanderers.
For the start of the 1903-04 season McWilliam was in the team for the first game, a home draw with Aston Villa. Then he was out until the 10th October, a home win over Manchester City. It would, however, be a one-off. He would not be recalled for four games, a trouncing back at Villa Park and then not again until the last game in January, a home draw. It frankly was not looking promising. His personal progress seemed slow and when he was then dropped once more long-term there seemed to be the possibility he might not make the grade. Yet there was personal mitigation. At some point in 1904 Isabella McWilliam died at the age of just twenty-three, although when exactly and how is not clear. And in terms of football change was in the offing, if not quite immediately. Andy McCombie played his first game for Newcastle two weeks later on 13th February 1904. The Toon defeated Notts County, 4-1. McWilliam did not play. Indeed he didn't play until the season's penultimate game with McCombie that day not in the eleven. Nor, as Newcastle finished fourth, did their paths cross in the last game. McCombie returned but McWilliam was not retained.
And it was Andy McCombie, who was also the starter from the first game of the 1904-5 season. He was only joined by his friend for the first time two games later in a home win against Everton. However, it was in a strange formation. McWilliam with Colin Veitch played more or less as forwards. Andy Aitken played centre-half, Jack Carr on the left. It was clear that McWilliam was being used as filler and no surprise when once more he was dropped as Newcastle lost away to Small Heath, Birmingham City as now is. However, that loss can now perhaps be seen as the turning-point for the young Invernesian. McWilliam returned and finally into a defensive formation, one that was more conventional, initially at least, and proved to have a future. In goal was Glasgow's Jimmy Lawrence. The half-backs were Scots too, all three, Alex Gardner on the right, Aitken the attacking centre-half and McWilliam left-half. At full back was McCombie plus the Irishman, Bill McCracken. And they all played behind Colin Veitch at inside-left, the Scots Bobby Templeton and Jimmy Howie, Bill Appleyard at centre-forward and Jock Rutherford, the grandfather of the twice Olympic long-jump champion Greg Rutherford on the right-wing.
With that formation the Newcastle went on a run of twenty-eight games and just nine defeats at the end of which the league championship was theirs. True it was by a single point but it was the first for the club and by which time McWilliam had also gained his first Scottish cap. It had been on 1st April 1905 against England, the most prestigious of internationals, in front of 32,000, at, in the days before Wembley Stadium existed, the Crystal Palace, where now only the athletics track remains of past glories. He played at left-half. Andy Aitken moving across to right halfback, Charles Thomson of Hearts between them. Jimmy Howie was at inside-right and at right-back was Andrew McCombie. Scotland lost, 1-0, the goal scored in the 80th minute by Joe Bache, the English inside-right. It sounds as if McCombie got some of the blame. It was his fourth international, the first having been in 1903, and it was to be his last.
That year, in spite of the League win, the England loss would not be the only McWilliam disappointment. Just two weeks after it on 15th April the 1905 FA Cup would be played, again at Crystal Palace. It would be a clash of footballing philosophies. The opposition was Aston Villa, which with club-secretary, manager per se, the Scot, George Ramsay was otherwise all-English in personnel and style. Newcastle, also with a Scots secretary, Frank Watt, in contrast had six Scots in its team, both McCombie and McWilliam amongst them, plus Colin Veitch, Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch, a Geordie by birth but a Scot by name and ancestry. Villa scored in two minutes through centre-forward, Harry Hampton. He was up against Andy Aitken. Newcastle responded but was unable to claw the game back and when Hampton scored a second in the 76th minute it was all over.
The 1905-6 season kicked off on 2nd September. The opposition was Sunderland at Roker Park. Andy McCombie was in the team. Peter McWilliam was not. Newcastle lost 3-2. Nor did McWilliam play in the next game, a home draw but he did in the next, another draw at St. James. In the fourth he played again but McCombie did not. It was a bad, home loss, 0-3. True there was improvement against Everton away, where McWilliam played again and McCombie returned but both, admittedly with no Andy Aitken, then lost in the next match at home to Derby. The season had started far from well yet it was at that point something clearly clicked, if only somewhat. The team would draw once and then win six games in a row. McWilliam played in five of them and continued to be a feature in a team, for which from then results were frankly “variable” until the New Year. By then retention of the championship was probably already gone, in spite of a good January, March and April a very average February was the final straw. Newcastle would finish well enough, fourth, but a fairly distant one.
In that second half of the season McWilliam had been throughout a first choice when fit, if not entirely a shoe-in. He was also there in the team that reached a second FA Cup Final in succession. The game took place on 21st April 1906 against Everton and again at Crystal Palace. The Toon now fielded two more Scots, seven in all plus Colin Veitch. The opposition had two, centre-half and captain, Jack Taylor, and up against Andy Aitken centre-forward, Sandy Young. And it was Young, who scored the only goal in the 77th minute from which moment, even though he is said to have otherwise played well, whilst those around him did not, Aitken's card, it seems, might have been marked. After haggling over a new contract during the following summer, after one game at the start of the next season he had moved on, whether pushed or jumped is uncertain, although since he went to be player/manager at Middlesbrough, the latter seems more likely.
However, not only was Aitken no longer in the team, replaced by another local boy clearly with a Scots background, James Kirkcaldy, neither was McWilliam. In all probability he was just carrying an injury as he was soon back. Kirkcaldy, however, was just as soon out. Frank Watt had replaced him by simply moving Colin Veitch back. Newcastle hiccuped, losing in Woolwich to Arsenal, still then a South London team, but then, with defence once more restored, albeit with slightly different personal, went on another run, thirty-two games and just eight losses. The only blot was a loss in January in first round of the FA Cup before three months later the league was taken for the second time in two years.
In April 1906 Peter McWilliam a year after the first had won his second cap. Once again it was against England, this time at Hampden Park and a win. He played with Polmont and Liverpool's Alex Raisbeck at centre-half and Andy Aitken to Raisbeck's right. Colin Veitch, Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch, was the opposing centre-half. Moreover McWilliam was there again in March 1907, once more with Aitken in losing against Wales in Wrexham and then a month later against England, a draw, once more alongside both Raisbeck and Aitken in an away game nevertheless played at what had become his home-from-home, St. James Park.
The 1907-8 season opened with Newcastle able to field more or less its strongest eleven but never quite. McWilliam was there in the team that would draw in the first fixture with Notts County at home. But Andy McCombie was missing. And the left-half was there still for the second as McCombie returned, Veitch dropping out and , Newcastle losing. Then all three were there for the third, Newcastle winning, but Veitch out for the next, McCombie and McWilliam playing in an away draw. Veitch was also out for the next game too. It was another loss but it was only for a single game, at which point results improved and how. The team went on a run with just one loss until the end of March, which is when the wheels fell off. Newcastle suffered six defeats in eight games with not just McWilliam but also Veitch nowhere to be seen for the first two games, presumed injured, back for two home wins and worryingly still there as losses reoccurred. If five of those last last six losses had been won Newcastle would for a second year in succession have taken the title. Had they won just one it would have finished second. In the event the club finished fourth and, even there, well off the pace of the top three.
The same mistake would not be made in 1908-9. The season opened with five straight wins, nine in eleven. Then there was a sixteen game run without a loss between the beginning of January and the end of March. They won the League by seven clear points and in the Cup went out to Manchester United, the winners, only in the semi-final. The defensive stalwarts were still Lawrence in goal, Bill McCracken moving across as replacement for Andy McCombie, now into his thirties, and partnered with the South African-born, Tony Whitson, and consistently Colin Veitch and Peter McWilliam. And it was that same season McWilliam also picked up his fifth and sixth caps, unfortunately two defeats, to Wales, 3-2, and England, 2-0, two down in ten minutes, both scored by the left winger, who must have twice run straight past John Cameron, the newest Scottish right-back tried in Andy McCombie's place.
It was the same the following year at Newcastle in terms of named players, at least off the field, but there would be more injuries, more disruption of the team and on the field it showed. The club had a poor November and December, a good mid-season that saw the recruitment at specialist centre-half of Wilf Low from Aberdeen. However, over the late season there were too many draws resulting in yet another fourth place finish. There was, however, compensation and in the Cup. After several disappointments finally it was won, against Barnsley at Goodison Park in a replay, with the best defence, Lawrence, McCracken, Whitson, Veitch, Low and McWilliam, available and in place for the first match and Carr coming in for Whitson for the second.
Peter McWilliam, himself, was now thirty, perhaps a little past his prime but still potentially with a couple of seasons in his legs. However, it was not to be. The 1910-11 season had started well enough. He was in the team for the first four games at least, two wins, two losses. Then out for three, a win, a draw and a loss, back again and then briefly out once more due to injury. Persistent but short-term injury would be the theme. In the season as a whole he would play twenty-two times, fewer than half the fixtures but in March 1911 he was not only in the Scotland team to take on Wales but its captain. It was his eighth cap. The match would finish as a 2-2 draw but it would effectively be the end of his career. During the game he was injured, a knee injury, a bad knee injury. He did not play in the international against Ireland twelve days later or against England a fortnight after that. In fact he did not play in any of the remaining games of the season, during which the wheels once ore came off for the club, if slowly. It lost or drew that last six fixtures, taking two of eight points in the League. Wins would have put them in third place, instead they were eighth. But the impact in the Cup was to be greater still. Newcastle had once more reached the final, defeating Chelsea in the semi. Now on 22nd April they faced Bradford. At the first time of asking at Crystal Palace it would be a goalless draw. At the second at Old Trafford it would be a 1-0 defeat. The goal was scored in the 15th minute by Bradford's canny captain and inside-right, Glasgow-born, Jimmy Speirs, the very man McWilliam would have been marking had he been able to play.
Such was the extent of the McWilliam injury that he was not in the team for the first game of 1911-12 season. Nor was he there for the next, or the next. In fact he would not play a game all season. De facto Newcastle must have recognised the end had come, although the club would take him on the competitive, post-season tour to Inverness, where a game against Caledonian ended 3-3 and was notable to two things. The first was that the Caley goals included one from James Rhind, brother of Robert, who would for the following two seasons turn out for Queen's Park, and son of Alex Rhind, ex-Queen's Park himself and Scotland international, indeed a member in 1872 of the first Scotland team ever. The second was that even in his hometown McWilliam did not take the pitch and must too have known his playing days were over. In fact the club would turn again to Scotland to find a replacement in Jimmy Hay, Celtic's captain, and by the summer of 1912 McWilliam was not just at Newcastle but no longer a player. Instead he was beginning the next phase of a life in football, one at which he would be not just successful but through which he would prove influential like few others before and since.