Season Heart of Midlothian in 1914

Transcription

1 Season Heart of Midlothian in 1914 After much debate the Scottish League season began on 15 August. At the ten first division matches, it was estimated that 90,000 people attended. Heart of Midlothian started off as they meant to go on by defeating champions Celtic by 2-0 at Tynecastle. A 20,000 crowd watched this match, which also marked the opening of the new Tynecastle main stand. Hearts would go on to win their first eight league matches, with defeat eventually coming against Dumbarton (2-3) on 3 October. This sequence included a 2-1 win over Rangers at Ibrox in the presence of 40,000 spectators. Following the defeat at Dumbarton, Hearts went 20 games unbeaten, defeat eventually coming at home to Rangers (3-4) on 20 February. At this point Hearts had still looked like potential title winners, as they had topped the league table all season until the last three games when they drew 0-0 at Aberdeen, lost 2-0 at Morton and lost 2-0 at St Mirren. Celtic won their remaining three games to claim the title by four points. As there was to be no Scottish Cup, Hearts had to content themselves with winning the Dunedin Cup, East of Scotland Shield and Wilson Cup. In the Rosebery Charity Cup, St Bernard s defeated Hearts 3-2 in the semi final before going on to win the trophy (4-3) against Hibs in the final. On 1 September Celtic played Burnley at Turf Moor for possession of the "Budapest Cup", a trophy which was put up for competition by a Hungarian newspaper between the two clubs during their tours of May The match in Budapest was a 1-1 draw. Celtic won 2-1 but did not receive the trophy. In fact it wouldn t be until Celtic s centenary year of 1988 that the Ferencvaros chairman presented a vase to then Celtic chairman, Jack McGinn!

2 A few hours after drawing 0-0 with Queen s Park in the Glasgow Cup on 26 September, there was a fire in the grandstand at Shawfield in which the stand was burnt to the ground. It was a comparatively new stand, having only been opened in September 1911 and cost 5,000 to build, with seating for 4,000 people. The Monday league match v Celtic was transferred to Celtic Park, and all of Clyde s "home" league matches for the remainder of season 1914/15 were played between Celtic Park, Ibrox, Hampden and Firhill, with the majority at Celtic Park. On a brighter note for Clyde, they eventually won the Glasgow Cup on 13 October against Partick Thistle, after a 1-1 draw, with both matches being held at Ibrox Park. Their run included a first round defeat of Celtic by 2-0, Patrick Allan scoring both goals. On 25 November The Scotsman newspaper reported that no fewer than eleven Hearts players had joined McCrae s Battallion. The players that joined up were Duncan Currie, Alfred Briggs, Henry Wattie, James Low, Thomas Gracie, William Wilson. Five of the reserve team to join up were Annand Ness, Norman Findlay, Robert Preston, James Frew and Ernest Ellis. The following day Patrick Crossan and James Boyd also enlisted. James Speedie had already joined up the previous week. George Sinclair and Neil Moreland had also been in the army since 5 August, so the total was brought to 16 Hearts players on service. In fact this number was only bettered by Queen s Park FC, who had 26 club members enlisted and six on Government work by 8 April The Dundee Courier published a letter from former Scotland International, Dr John Smith, to Hearts Manager, John McCartney, on 2 December 1914, showing support for the Tynecastle club's efforts to support the war, which read, "I say from the bottom of my heart good old Hearts, well played. Though it is over 30 years ago, I am proud to have been at one time a member of your club. Your players have set an example to the other clubs. They must follow, and then the risk of our good old game becoming a stink in the nostrils of the nation will be swept away. If you and I could divide our ages by two, we would be willing, I believe, to answer the call of 'Form Fours'!" Yours Dr John Smith. At a meeting on 22 December, the Scottish Football Association decided that the Scottish Cup competition would not be played in 1914/15, although the Scottish Qualifying Cup competition was completed and was won by St Bernard s. A meeting of the SFA was held on 11 August after Abercorn and St Bernard s requested that the Qualifying Cup should be suspended for at least a month, a motion which was voted against. The Edinburgh side needed two replays to eventually win the trophy against Dykehead. The first two matches ended in 2-2 and 1-1 draws before the Saints won 3-0 at Ibrox Park on 16 January To prove just how serious the war situation was, the Airdrieonians FC Chairman, Thomas Forsyth, offered to resign his post in protest at Scottish football still being played during the crisis, declaring that "playing football while our men are fighting is repugnant", a decision which he later changed. In order to help raise funds for footballers and their families who fought in the Great War, the Belgian War Relief Fund Shield was put up for competition by an anonymous donor. The invited clubs were the six from Glasgow - Rangers, Celtic, Queen s Park, Partick Thistle, Clyde and Third Lanark. St Mirren and Morton made the numbers up to eight.

3 After a hard fought old firm semi-final, Rangers and Morton played for the trophy at Firhill Park on 28 April Goals by McLaughlin and Seymour ensured the trophy was heading to Greenock. On 8 April 1915, The Scotsman newspaper published a list of players who were either on active Army service or were carrying out government work. The list was compiled by William MacAndrew, Secretary of the Scottish Football League. Celtic were excluded from the list as they refused to give details of any relevant players. The list shows that 131 division one players had signed up and 56 were on government work. The figures for division two were lower as there were fewer teams (71 and 58 respectively). Celtic in Season 1914/15. After a 2-1 defeat at Ibrox Park on 1 January Celtic went on an 18 game unbeaten run to eventually pip Hearts for the title and amazingly Celtic only used 16 players in 47 competitive matches throughout the season. Despite losing to Clyde in the Glasgow Cup and to Rangers in the War Fund Shield semi-final, Celtic also claimed the Glasgow Charity Cup, which they won in a tight 3-2 victory over Rangers at Ibrox. If the Budapest Cup is included then Celtic in fact did the "treble". The fact that Celtic could call upon the same players consistently throughout season 1914/15 meant that none of the squad had taken the "King s shilling" by joining the army. It would only be once conscription arrived in 1916 that the Celtic squad would show the effects of war. Tom Gracie (Hearts) and Jimmy Richardson (Ayr United) were joint top goalscorers with 29 goals each in 37 league matches. Jimmy Richardson never played for Scotland but did manage an appearance in the Scottish League side that defeated the English League 3-2 at Ibrox on 5 April Richardson had two of the goals. Born in Bridgeton, Glasgow in 1885, Richardson began his career with Blantyre Vics and Kirkintilloch Rob Roy.

4 After joining Third Lanark in 1908, he became a regular in the side and managed 54 league goals in 79 appearances. During season 1910/11 Richardson joined Huddersfield Town for a year and a half (42 appearances/24 goals). Sunderland was his next club (35 appearances/20 goals). Halfway through season 1913/14 Richardson came back to Scotland and gave Ayr United good service from His goalscoring record at Somerset Park was impressive appearances/100 goals. Jimmy spent 1921/22 at Millwall (19 appearances/4goals) before retiring from the game. An estimated 25,000 crowd attended the Scottish junior cup final at Firhill Park on 25 May, where Parkhead ran out 2-0 winners over Port Glasgow Athletic Juniors. Parkhead: McManus, Carson, Neilson, Neil, Cowan, Arnott, Findlay, Bell, Ferguson, Taylor, Kennedy. Port Glasgow: Campbell, McMaster, Haldane, McKenzie, Lawson, Peters, Dillon, Dempster, Meechan, Leitch, Tait. Ref: T Robertson (Glasgow). Scorers were Ferguson and Taylor. The Ferguson of Parkhead was none other than Hugh Ferguson, who would soon go on to become a goalscoring legend at Motherwell. An engraving by Norman Wilkinson - The Illustrated London News, 15 May 1915.

5 The Ocean Liner RMS Lusitania - built at John Brown shipyards in Clydebank - was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915, killing 1,198 of the 1,959 passengers and crew on board. This possibly turned the tide of opinion against Germany and led towards the American entry into World War One. Previous to this they had been neutral. Two weeks later tragedy struck at Gretna on 22 May 1915, when a train carrying troops of the Royal Scots Regiment, some bound for Gallipoli, collided with a passenger train, resulting in the death of at least 226 people. It remains the worst rail crash in the UK in terms of the loss of life.