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:
Chai and Dram
- a Second Legacy
Head north from Calcutta and cross the Padma and Teesta Rivers and head into the foothills of the Himalayas, then just before Bhutan turn east and just shy of Assam you should come to Alipuduar. There utter the word
McWilliam and you should be sent to a part of a town where, I am told, there are something like six schools all bearing that name, the largest of which is McWilliam High. It has over eight hundred pupils, takes boys only and was founded in 1937. It also shares its name not only with one of the greatest left-halves that Scotland has ever seen, but one who went on to be one of the most innovative football managers in World football history; an Invernesian and one not without honours. He won the league twice as a player and two FA Cup Finals, one on the field, one off.
However, the sharing is not a coincidence. McWilliam, Peter McWilliam was the name of the footballer cum manager as it was of the Alipuduar man, organiser certainly and pioneering footballer in his own right. The Alipuduar McWilliam had studied Spanish in San Sebastian in Spain then joined the Foreign Office and in typical FO fashion been sent about as far away from the Hispanic world as possible to India. He had arrived in 1930 at the age of twenty-four. He travelled into the Alipurduar region but was finally posted close to Calcutta. That is until in 1932 a post in the up-country town, he learned, would be becoming available and leapt at it. Having returned to Britain to marry an opera singer from Bristol he returned in 1935 and soon began the foundation of the school. It began as a wooden hut and had a corrugated roof.
But he also had time to turn his attention to another passion. He formed and played for Alipurduar F.C., as a flying, Diasporan, in fact double-Diasporan winger in boots in a team that was otherwise bare-foot. He also served as the Club Secretary, organising games against neighbouring towns - Mahakalguri, Jalpaiguri and Gaibandha - and tea estates in a region where football in no small part due to his efforts still remains strong. His efforts even spurred the Maharajah of nearby Cooch Behar to put together a team of his own, at times bringing top players from Calcutta, and it was wins against the Cooch Behar team that for McWilliam were the most sweet. There is a story of him in one of games running late, changing on the tram on the way to ground, walking onto the pitch just in time and scoring a goal within a minute.
Peter McWilliam Alipurduar retired from the Indian Civil Service in 1947. He returned to fruit farming in Suffolk, until 1953 and then was appointed Secretary of the Assam branch of the Indian Tea Association. He, his wife and their daughter moved back in India, to Assam, remaining until 1962 at which point he retired for a second time and to Bristol. It was there that he died in 1999 at the age of ninety-two.
And by the way Peter McWilliam Inverness and Peter McWilliam Alipurduar were father and son.