There is a street in Renton, still today as it was then little more than a village in the valley of the Dunbartonshire Leven lying largely along the main through-road from Loch Lomond to The Clyde. To the north is Alexandria, to the south Dumbarton itself. The street in question is small, little more than a hundred yards in length. Appropriately it is called Thimble. At one end is a junction, which in America might be called Thimble and Burns. And at the other, where a memorial could and should be erected to record the birth of modern, World football, is Thimble and Main.
The year of the birth in question was 1888. The father was probably player Archie McCall, perhaps Alick Barbour. The mother was certainly the village's football club, of which McCall was latterly captain. And the gestation period was three, perhaps four years, maybe even five years with the story beginning probably in 1884 but let us start in 1883. In October that year Renton Football Club was knocked out of Scottish Cup in the third round, 4-1 away to near neighbours,
Vale of Leven. Yet it was not as bad as it seemed. Firstly it marked the return, perhaps even the resurrection of a club that a decade earlier had reached the final of that same competition. In early 1882, having in September 1881 had, perhaps because it could not raise a team, to allow a walk-over by Jamestown in the Cup, it had resigned from the Scottish Football Association only to re-join for the 1882-3 season. Secondly, Vale of Leven, "The Vale", would defeat Rangers in the semi-final and then go on to neither win or lose the 1884 final against Queen's Park. Instead it chose simply not to appear. There was illness in the team. A postponement had been requested, not granted and the club responded accordingly but in the great scheme of things it mattered little as the next season, 1884-5, Vale of Leven would progress to the final once more.
To get there it would be drawn away again to Jamestown, rounds were played regionally then, but win easily in the replay at home in the First Round. In the Second it was drawn at home to Campsie Central and scored fourteen with none in reply. Then in the Third Round Yonkers were faced at home and again dismissed with some ease and, whilst it is true Round Four proved more difficult, requiring a visit to Barrhead and Arthurlie, an encounter won only by the odd goal in three, Round Five would be as easy as it could be. The Vale had a walkover and as a result was through to a home semi-final against talented Cambuslang. The game was played on 31st January 1885. It was tight. No goals were scored and it looked as if the advantage had been passed to the Lanarkshire opposition. In the event it had not. Vale of Leven would a week later win the replay 1-3 away.
And as it happened it would be precisely those same scores that would be repeated just three weeks later, on February 21st and 28th, this time in the final and its replay, both at the second Hampden Park. However, on this second occasion The Vale would be on the wrong side of the scoresheets. It had failed for a second year in succession to take the top trophy and this time the victor was much, much closer to hand. Having earlier succeeded, just, in once more vanquishing Jamestown, from across the river and just to the north in the very First Round, now it lost to its neighbour to the immediate south, i.e. Renton, whose progress to the final had been easier, at least initially. For it a First Round home-win had first been followed by an easy away-tie, then an almost as easy home win before another, a tight-ish one over Paisley's St. Mirren in Round Four, a bye in Round Five and an away-victory at Hibernian by the best of five in the semi-final, so tighter still.
However, the Renton performance of 1885 with a team, which that day had consisted of Lindsay in goal, full-backs Hannah and Archie McCall, Kelso and McKechnie at half-back and a forward-line of Barbour, Kelly, McIntyre, James McCall, Archie's half-brother, Grant and Thomson would not be repeated the following season, at least not quite. In 1886, having eliminated Vale of Leven in Round Five but needing a replay to do it, it again had defeated Hibernian in the semi-final only, to lose, despite an unchanged eleven, at the last hurdle to a rejuvenated Queen's Park. And there was more to come. In 1887 there appeared to be something of a genuine dip in form. As Vale of Leven beat Campsie 7-4 Renton would be knocked out in Round Three by Third Lanark, Hibernian finally taking a semi against The Vale and then against Dumbarton the final too.
The dip, however, was to prove temporary. In retrospect it might even be seen more as a re-grouping. In 1888 Dumbarton Union, Dumbarton Athletic, Camelon andLindertis of Kirriemuir were brushed aside before in Round Five St. Mirren was again faced. It proved to be the only real match of the campaign. The Paisley club at home scored two. Renton managed one more; that before Dundee Wanderers, Queen's Park and Cambuslang were all disposed of with some ease, the score in the Final 6-1, and team would go on to even greater triumphs. Within weeks it had for the, albeit unofficial, Championship of the World, taken on and defeated the English FA Cup winners, West Bromwich, and then done the same to the runner-up and next season's Double winner, Preston North End. And it did it with a style of football then unique to it but one, which became
The Cross, Scotland's greatest footballing gift to the World and the foundation of the modern game.
Yet the team that famous season would be in defence at least unchanged. Lindsay was still goalkeeper. The full backs were Hannah
and, now captain,
Archie McCall, the half-backs Kelso and McKechnie. However, the forwards had been completely revamped. Newcomers Neil McCallum and Harry Campbell were on the right, James McCall and now John McNee on the left with James Kelly
and John Campbell ostensibly in the centre. It was on the face of it a group of players that had quite naturally changed over time but had at its core, indeed had had since 1884, five constants, plus McCall junior and a youngster, who had since that year, when he had been just eighteen, been gradually introduced. It had been first as a forward, then he had been employed as one of the previously conventionally Scottish half-back pairing and now had become the team's fulcrum between and in front of the half-backs and the forwards, neither one nor the other but a revolutionary blend of both.
Kelly was the youngster in question, James Kelly, who in the new position of what would become the distinctively Scottish centre-half go on to Celtic and whose descendants off the field remained at the heart of that club until 1971 and the death of Robert, his son. The constant five were Lindsay in goal and the four defenders in front of him. All would come from Renton itself. Indeed all would be born there, as was James McCall, with three of the five-plus-one, the McCall brothers and Andrew Hannah, the man who would take the Renton style to Liverpool, living as might be expected on Main St. And all would play for Scotland. But here is the remarkable thing. The other three, all again who would play for their country, would live, be brought up on tiny Thimble St. ; John Lindsay at Number 1, Bob Kelso at Number 37 and James Kelly in-between at 15, having moved just round the corner from his birthplace at 14, Burns.
But Lindsay, Kelso and Kelly would neither be the beginning, the whole or the end of the Thimble St. story. In the Renton team of 1873-74 in the season following the club's very formation one of its centre-forward pairing had the name of Glen and was probably Alex Glen, a twenty-year-old apprentice engine fitter living at No. 31. And two seasons later a Ritchie, probably Peter Ritchie, would emerge from No. 28. Furthermore, even in the 1888 team there was a fourth "Thimble Streeter". John "Jack" McNee on the left-wing would from No. 39 also go on for more than a decade to ply his footballing trade in England at Bolton and Newcastle in the Football League and Watford, Southampton and Fulham in the Southern League before returning home. Moreover, even as he moved south he would be replaced by Joe Brady from No. 11, before he briefly seems to have tried his luck at Sheffield United, attempting to follow in the footsteps from the the same address of elder brother, Alex. He had played for the village's other club, Renton Thistle, before at sixteen travelling South to begin a sixteen year professional career. Then that same season, there was James Kelso, who had also tried to follow the same path as elder brother, Bob, i.e. also Liverpool, but with much less success. He would return after a just season, before the century was out be dead in the saddest of circumstances and with him and as Renton, the still village club, increasingly struggled in the face of city heavy-weights, the Thimble fountain finally seems to have run dry.