Diasporans - Part 4
1940-1971
If before the Second War Scotland, if largely through its own fault, had "run into a little bad luck" with regard to the eligibility of some of its players, notably
Barney Battles and
Joe Kennaway, after it, at least for a brief while, that fortune changed and for the better. The improvement came in the shape of John Davison Hewie, not necessarily in terms of results in a period when Scotland won an historically poor eighteen of twenty-nine games, the lowest win-ratio ever to that point, but in an ability to tap for only the fourth time into a surging Scots Diaspora. Between 1921 and 1930 the Scottish population actually fell. Simply put the number born in Scotland was less than the outflow of Scots to other parts of the UK and, including my own grandparents, abroad and it was their children, at least those outwith the British Isles, that in part could be and in the shape of Hewie were drawn upon.
From 1949 to 1966 at left-back John Hewie would play four hundred and ninety-five British league games, although none were in Scotland. They were all in the English leagues for London's Charlton Athletic. And between 1956 and 1960 he also gained nineteen caps, all through choice. The reason for the choice was that Hewie's birthplace was Pretoria. He might have played for South Africa. It had been a separate member of FIFA from 1910 until 1924 and again from 1952 until 1964 but had no functioning team. However, since his father, indeed both his parents, were Scots-born, his father in The Borders, he both could, according to the 1887 IFAB ruling, and did decide that his preference was the Auld Country.
John Hewie would play his first game for Scotland against England, a 1-1 draw at Hampden. It wasn't a bad result, given that the previous year the same fixture had seen a 7-2 thrashing at Wembley. His last would be against Poland in May of 1960. It wasn't exactly the best of last hurrahs. Scotland lost and home, 2-3. The opening goal in eleven minutes was from the Polish left-winger, who Hewie would have been marking and ten minutes later the right-back also missed a penalty. And in between he at his preferred left-back from 1957 and through 1958 including the World Cup had formed a solid full-back pairing with
Eric Caldow, whose death has been reported just days before I write these words. Indeed for the Polish game he had been replacing an injured
Caldow and it had been Caldow who, in the previous game had taken the field with another and the last of the great but excluded Scots Diasporans.
The player in question was Joe Baker, who with his elder brother, Gerry, again a footballer of great talent who would also become an international, had grown up in Motherwell. Indeed Gerry had gone on to start his career with The Well itself, this before Joe went to Hibernian and both moved south, Gerry to Manchester City, Joe to Arsenal but via Italian club, Torino. And both at the end of their careers would return to Scotland, both to Wishaw, a short 240 bus-ride from Fir Park. Joe would die there in 2003 and Gerry a decade later.
Yet neither Joe or Gerry Baker would play international football for Scotland. Joe's country not of choice but necessity would have to be England, Gerry's the United States certainly not because of upbringing, or even of background but of birth. In 1929 two people had separately emigrated to the United States, to New York. He, George Baker, came from Liverpool, born of an English father and a Scots mother. She, Elizabeth McShane, too had a Scots mother, from Angus, but an Irish father and she also provided the Motherwell connection. It was there she had been born and brought up. He and she met in New York and it was there they were married. Indeed Gerry was born there. However, with the Second World War breaking out the family returned to Britain, to Liverpool, Elizabeth already pregnant, and it was there on the Mersey that Joe came into the World and from there and the bombing of the city the family moved north and across the border. It meant that internationally Gerry could play only for the United States and that he did seven times in trying to get the team to the 1970 World Cup. It failed in its attempt. It also meant that Joe Baker could play only for England and that he did too six times for the the Under-23 team, whilst still living and playing in Scotland, and between 1959 and 1966 on eight occasions for the senior one, the first five of which were whilst he was still at Hibs. It is a story with for Joe himself ultimately rejection laced with distress and distrust and for Scotland waste and finally disappointment, the full version of which you will find in two parts here.