Junior International records

[bluedragon]

I have started to prepare a revised version of the Junior Internationals list that is on Brian McColl’s Scottish Football Historical Archive. The new list will make it easier to list players by clubs, identify players that went on to Senior or International careers, etc. Starting from 1889, I have now reached the start of the Second World War and I have taken a temporary stop to review everything so far.

The list that Brian co-ordinated and produced a few years ago was largely complete insofar as the matches identified. The editing this time around has been correcting mis-spelling of players from the original newspaper source, learning about players who were late call-ups for injury, identifying full internationalists, etc. In general players tended to have short Junior International careers with games in one season before they either went Senior or they were replaced by another wave of players in the next season. As a result, most players won their caps while at one club. However, some players did defy the odds and had longer Junior International careers. The biggest issue is the difficulty in sorting out players with common Scottish surnames who were reported simply by their surname and club. For example, I have 8 McDonalds and 9 Johnstones but some of them may be the same player who have just moved club.

Here are some “bits and pieces” from the Pre-War period.

Most capped player – 6 matches played between 1929 and 1931 by Wright of Aberdeen East End
Brothers – James and William McLennan (Saltcoats Victoria) played together against Wales in 1926 and had played together when Vics won the Junior Cup in 1925. A rare if not a unique achievement?
Youngest captain – Norman Corbett (Musselburgh Athletic) captained Scotland against England in 1936 at 16 years 272 days
Full internationals – 29 Junior Internationalists went on to win full international caps for Scotland
Most clubs – Bert Bingham (Irvine Meadow XI, Pollok & Arthurlie) won his four caps at three different clubs.

Missing information

This is the information that is currently missing.

Result – Norwegian tour in June 1921 match against Christiania in Bergen
Players - We are missing 71 names. These are 8 players from the match against Ireland on 31 December 1894. The remainder are from matches played on the 1921 Norwegian tour.
Grounds – we do not have the ground where the following games were played:
1) 2 April 1910 v England in Birmingham
2) 26 March 1913 v Ireland in Belfast
3) 9 March 1929 v Irish Free State in Dublin
Goalscorers -
1) 11 May 1889 v England 10:1 to Scotland – we only have one goalscorer (Espie)
2) 15 February 1890 v Ireland 11:0 to Scotland – we only have one goalscorer (Anderson)

I am very grateful for the help so far. However, if anyone has an affinity with a particular Junior club and would like to see a list of the capped players I have so they can say check it against a club history, etc. then please just pm me and I can arrange it. All other good ideas will be gratefully received.

[sureitsza]

Grounds –
2) 26 March 1913 v Ireland in Belfast - Grosvenor Park, Belfast

[gogsy1968]

Page 162 of the Juniors Centenary book mentions that the touring club (Scottish Junior League?)received a telegram from the Christiana club requesting to play two games but this was impossible. Looking at the teams of the players that are supposed to have played in the first three games Bedlay/St Anthonys/Yoker ath/Shawfield and Wishaw and Vale of Leven, can this be regarded as an international team?

[bluedragon]

Page 162 of the Juniors Centenary book mentions that the touring club (Scottish Junior League?)received a telegram from the Christiana club requesting to play two games but this was impossible. Looking at the teams of the players that are supposed to have played in the first three games Bedlay/St Anthonys/Yoker ath/Shawfield and Wishaw and Vale of Leven, can this be regarded as an international team?

I have not got the Centenary Book to hand but I will need to go and read that reference. Thank you. However, the June 1921 Norwegian tour was by a SJFA organised party. The SJFA asked a number of players whether they would be willing to tour. 24 said “yes” and from this list a party of 15 players was selected. 5 were previously capped and one was capped the year after. Although this was a tour the opposition in the final game and the only Scottish defeat was by a team “representing almost the full strength of the Norwegian Federation”. There was a newspaper report that the Norwegian officials were interested in playing an international fixture in the future.

Norway has proved a popular destination with the Central League touring in 1933 and at club level Dalkeith Thistle both touring and hosting a reciprocal tour.

[ScottishFA]

2 April 1910 v England in Birmingham was at Villa Park. (mentioned in Athletic News, 4 April)

9 March 1929 v Irish Free State in Dublin - the previous week's Falkirk Herald provided the full squad for two tour matches in Ireland played by the Scottish Junior League against the Free State League and the Munster League.
The Dundee Courier on 11 March also said this was the Scottish Junior League, and this is repeated in the Falkirk Herald of 16 March, which adds that on Sunday they played the Munster League in Cork, a 1-1 draw. So these appear not to be full internationals. However, nothing more precise about venues.

[bluedragon]

2 April 1910 v England in Birmingham was at Villa Park. (mentioned in Athletic News, 4 April)

9 March 1929 v Irish Free State in Dublin - the previous week's Falkirk Herald provided the full squad for two tour matches in Ireland played by the Scottish Junior League against the Free State League and the Munster League.
The Dundee Courier on 11 March also said this was the Scottish Junior League, and this is repeated in the Falkirk Herald of 16 March, which adds that on Sunday they played the Munster League in Cork, a 1-1 draw. So these appear not to be full internationals. However, nothing more precise about venues.

Thanks Andy. Much appreciated. We will take out the two matches in March 1929 in the Irish Free State as they were not SJFA XI's.

[gogsy1968]

Actually looks like the tour mentioned in the Centenary history was 1920 (mentioned in Daily Record 14th June) states that JD Walker secretary of Scottish Junior league had completed arrangements for an extensive tour of Norway. Like the tour in 1921 three games were played against Brann Bergen and three against Stavanger. Its possible that the SJFA saw that the first tour went well and decided on an official one the following season.

[gogsy1968]

Centenary history has reports from the games v England 1889 and Ireland 1890 taken from Scottish Junior football annual. Although the report v England only mentions the Espie goal the report of the Irish match states that Kyle score the first goal and Leslie scored the second.

[bluedragon]

Centenary history has reports from the games v England 1889 and Ireland 1890 taken from Scottish Junior football annual. Although the report v England only mentions the Espie goal the report of the Irish match states that Kyle score the first goal and Leslie scored the second.

Thanks for the detail on the Norwegian tour and the two goal scorers from the Ireland match in 1890.

The next issue is to try and find the team that took the field against England on 30 March 1918. I was looking at the excellent Petershill centenary book that does not list any of the club's players in the Scotland team for that match although the originally selected team had three (Young, McDougall and Ferrier). It is the only difference we have between the records and the book and all in one match. It sounds as if there were some late call-offs? Bob Ferrier signed for Motherwell in April so I do think that was the reason for his call off. He was born in Sheffield. I had thought the SJFA XI was selected solely from players in member clubs and not on country of birth and so a late discovery that he was English should not have been the reason. If anyone has the chance to cast a second pair of eyes over that game it would be appreciated.

[sureitsza]

Scotland team v England on 30 March 1918 - The team listed is taken from the Glasgow Herald 1 April

[bluedragon]

Scotland team v England on 30 March 1918 - The team listed is taken from the Glasgow Herald 1 April

Thanks again. The Petershill History is so detailed and thorough I needed to check this discrepancy. So the club can now claim three players in the same Scotland team and possibly the first Englishman.

[bluedragon]

I have one further question on the pre-War period to help in the listing of the goalscorers. On 7 April 1900 v England Murray scored one of the two Scottish goals but there were two Murrays playing:

Murray (Benquhat HeatherBell) Inside left

Murray (Holytown Thistle) Outside right

Which one scored?

[BMCCOLL]

Douglas, the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald (13 April 1900) confirms it was the Ayrshire man who claimed the honours.

[bluedragon]

Douglas, the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald (13 April 1900) confirms it was the Ayrshire man who claimed the honours.

Many thanks Brian.

[bluedragon]

A quick update - we have now input all the currently available information up to and including a trial match played last week. There is still a long way to go though! I am particularly indebted to Sureitsza for all his help and to Brian McColl who co-ordinated the first listing (the main source) a few years ago – thank you.

Here is a quick summary from what we have at present but some of this will change as new information emerges.

Matches - 325 matches (this include other, non-international matches) have been played by the SJFA XI. We are now trying to find more of these other matches. We currently do not know the final score in 6 of the games. The total includes 3 matches that were postponed and one that was abandoned at half-time. Of the remaining matches Junior Scotland had a 57% win percentage.

Players – we have 2,491 players listed. This number will come down after further work. For example, we have 19 players named Paterson and forenames for only four. Some of the remaining 15 may prove to be the same player but have just moved clubs between Junior Scotland matches. Tommy Ure (Linlithgow Rose) played the most times (17 matches) but only 12 of those matches would be capped matches. Alex Hendrie (Shotts Bon Accord) also played in 12 cap games in his total of 15 matches. Bert McNab (Petershill) played in the most capped games (13) in his 14 appearances.

Goals – 757 goals scored. There are only 9 “own goals” but we will be looking for the names of 65 unknown goalscorers. Five players have each scored 7 goals. Billy Spence (Kelty Hearts & Hill of Beath Hawthorn) had the best return with 7 goals in 10 games. Bryan Dingwall (Maryhill & Pollok) and Denis Gray (Auchinleck Talbot) both scored 7 goals in 12 matches. Players named Robertson and White scored 7 goals each on a seven-match tour to Norway in 1921 but we do not have all the line-ups and goal scorers from the tour.

Clubs – Pollok lead the way in providing 50 players who between them made 120 appearances.

Grounds – the following grounds have hosted the most games in the five countries within the British Isles: England – Villa Park, Birmingham (6); Northern Ireland - Solitude, Belfast (16); Scotland - Firhill Park, Glasgow (25); Republic of Ireland - Dalymount Park, Dublin (8) and Wales - Farrar Road, Bangor (10). Amongst the Junior clubs Linlithgow Rose’s Prestonfield has hosted the most matches (9).

Full and Junior Internationals – we have 47 players who played for the SJFA XI and then went on to win 364 full caps. 102 of those full caps were won by Kenny Dalglish (Cumbernauld United). We also have a “Wembley Wizard” (Jimmy Dunn) and two “Lisbon Lions” (Stevie Chalmers and Jimmy Johnstone) in line-ups.

Brothers – we have been careful to ensure we do not mix up brothers. We have both Alex & Jim Scott as Junior caps and also the brothers of Willie Ormond, Sir Alex Ferguson, Bobby Murdoch and Neil Mochan in line-ups. There will be others.