The Leven Tours

Alexandria and Bonhill

If  you wish to see and understand where working-class football began, not just in Britain but worldwide, then this is the place. Whilst in England the game, not yet the beautiful game, was the reserve of the wealthy and well-off,  and even in Glasgow of the middle-class , it was in Dunbartonshire's Vale of Leven that the working-man was first introduced to and took it up a level socially and physically and, I would argue, tactically.     

The date was 1872, late 1872 when Queen's Park played a demonstration match that drew a crowd of those interested in sport from not just the Vale itself but a large part of the West of the county. The place was Alexandria, specifically the Parkneuk, which is now the site of the small housing-estate. It lies south of Bridge St., between present-day Leven St. and the River Leven itself but is nevertheless worth a visit on the way to the current Milburn ground, since it is probably the place that meant, and I say this with no exaggeration, the survival of football as a Scottish sport and, again no exaggeration, quite possibly its future as the World Game. Certainly it saved us, those who do not have the height, girth and thighs of giants and ogres, from having to play the game it would largely usurp,  rugby. 

And from these precarious beginnings a team emerged, in fact three, possibly four, even, albeit partly, five, Vale of Leven FC, based in the wee town Alexandria itself, Renton FC from the village of the same name not two miles to the south, Dumbarton FC, the sole local one in existence as a senior club today, perhaps Glasgow Rangers and possibly in England Birmingham's first club, Calthorpe. Three of Rangers' four founders, the McNeil brothers and Peter Campbell grew up from in and around Rhu, not far over the hill, as did the Vallances, with Tom actually born at Succoth Farm, Renton. Moreover, John Carson, joint-founder of Calthorpe with fellow-Scot, John Campbell Orr, whilst he had already by 1872 learned the game and was playing in Glasgow at none other than Queen's Park, was also born in Rhu, a contemporary of the McNeils, and grew up nearby in Helensburgh, where coincidently Alex Vallance is buried. 

But back in the Leven valley, whilst Renton would feature briefly, in 1876 reaching but losing the Scottish Cup Final to Queen's Park, it would be its near neighbours, Vale of Leven, that would first defeat the till then all-winning Scottish cup winners and then go on to take their place. From 1877 Vale of Leven would take the Scottish Cup three years in succession, each time defeating a Glasgow rival. It would do it with teams made up of Alexandria and, from across the river, Bonhill men, whose fitness was honed by work in the dye-works, factories and mills that dotted the banks of River Leven at the time. Its star-player, John Ferguson, was one of them. He would eventually leave the area to live in Kilmarnock and be buried there but many of the others remained, continued to work locally, lived out the rest of their time in their home communities and are buried in the local cemetery.

We know all three of the all-conquering teams. In 1877 it was William Wood, Andrew McIntyre, Archie Michie, Will Jamieson, Alex McLintock, John Ferguson, the captain, John McGregor, David Lindsay, Robert Paton, John McDougall and John Baird. In 1878 Wood was replaced in goal by Robert Parlane and Archie Michie by Alex McLintock as one of the two full-backs, John McPherson had come in as one of the two half-backs and in the forwards John McDougall had taken over as captain, James Baird  had joined brother, John, and John McFarlane had replaced Robert Paton. And finally in 1879 James McIntyre had joined Andrew in the half-backs and Peter McGregor played instead of John. Moreover, of those three teams McDougall, John McGregor, John Baird, Ferguson, McPherson, Andrew McIntyre, Parlane, McLintock and Paton would all play for Scotland in a period when the national team found it hard to lose, John McDougall in 1878 becoming the first player to score an international hat-trick. 

And so to the tour. As already indicated the old Parkneuk recreation ground is now the "Riverside" housing estate.  The final site of Vale of Leven's football field, as it moved from Cameron Park, thought to be by the junction of Upper Bridge and Upper Smollett Streets, to North St. Park, its Cup-winning base, at the junction with Lennox St., is more or less where the current club's spartan stadium is today, at Milburn Park on the river bank to the south of the town-centre. The birth-places of the original players are doted about the town and across the river in Bonhill and the resting places of at least seven of them are to be found in Vale of Leven cemetery. Thanks to the continuing work of fellow football-historian, Martin Donnelly those of John McDougall, John McGregor, John Baird, John McPherson, Sandy McLintock, Robert Paton and Andrew McIntyre are marked below. Of the others Ferguson we know about and Robert Parlane would move to and die in Belfast.   

The Other Tours

Renton

Dumbarton