It's the old joke - an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman. But in 1893, particularly with the addition of another Irishman and a Canadian it was no laughing matter. Indeed, until quietly covered up, it must at the time have threatened to bust open international football. You see, there were three brothers, Tom, Willie and Alex. They were all raised in Scotland, mainly in Cathcart to be precise, but two of them had a problem, even problems, in some eyes, identity problems, which in the case of one mattered little but in Willie's did and, although at first quietly ignored were pointed up soon enough.
The Maley problem was their parents. They were the wrong kind and kept moving around. For Alex Maley, the youngest brother, it mattered not. For him, perhaps more by luck than judgement, Da' and Ma' had been in the right place at the right time. He was the "Scotsman" or at least the one born in Scotland, in Largs in 1874. But then when it came to football he wasn't really the player. Although he would have a lifetime in game it would be as a manager at Clyde, Clydebank, Hibernian and Crystal Palace in England and then as journalist and a Hibernian director. Tom, the eldest was, however, a player but always as an amateur and only at club level. He was a school teacher whilst turning out for Partick Thistle, Dundee Harp, Hibernian, Third Lanark and, of course, Celtic, for which his recruitment in 1888 will forever be entwined with that of his middle brother. And Tom, the "Englishman", born in Portsmouth in 1864, also became a manager. Before going on to Bradford Park Avenue and Southport in 1904 he had as such led Manchester City to FA Cup victory, its first major trophy .
Which leaves the middle one, Willy. He would be a major force in Scottish football for more than half a century, a player for a decade from 1887 and a manager from hanging up his boots to when he retired at the age of seventy-two. Willy Maley was born in 1868, was twenty when he joined his second club, Celtic, having started like his brother, Tom, with Third Lanark, and from when he had no need to look back. As a player with the Parkhead club he won a Scottish Cup and three leagues and with it as manager for forty-three years thirty more trophies. But here is the crux. In 1893 Willy Maley played twice within a week for Scotland. On both occasions he was at right-half alongside fellow Celt, James Kelly, in a home victory over Ireland and a good away first half against England and a bit of a thumping in the second when the English left-winger, Fred Spiksley gave the run-around to great but ageing, Scottish left-back,
Walter Arnott.
It would be Arnott's last cap but for Willy Maley, aged not quite twenty-five, there was the promise of many more. However, whilst ability might have agreed and simple justice and upbringing said that was fine, the rules did not, twice over and with a further twist of the knife. The problem was that Willy Maley, somewhat ironically given his first cap, was the "Irishman", born in Newry in 1868.
So it's back to the parents. The Maley boys mother was Mary Ann Montgomery and she, in spite of doing all the hard work in bearing the three boys, was in football teams irrelevant on three counts. She had, first of all, been born in Canada, in Nova Scotia. Secondly, although her parents are said to have been Scots, it was long before the grandparent rule of eligibility. And then she was a woman, so wouldn't have counted for another hundred years anyway. Their father was, however, different. He was Thomas Maley and he was Irish, born in Ennis in Co. Clare. But that would not have mattered a jot, if once the North Channel was crossed he had only stayed put in Scotland as had James Kelly's parents. But Thomas Maley was a soldier in the Royal North British Fusiliers. It was a Scottish regiment which within thirteen years of Willie's birth became blatantly Scots as the Royal Scots Fusiliers. And it was about that same time that the damage was done. The Scottish FA, in all its wisdom and for other, not necessarily pleasant reasons, having had residence as its even then slightly vague sole qualification for being a Scotsman had in 1883 decided it should be birth. Thus Thomas Maley Senior, who had served in a Scottish Regiment, which was based at Ayr from 1873, who already in 1851 aged twenty-one was in barracks in Paisley and furthermore in 1881 and 1891 was living with his wife and family in Argyle Place in Cathcart and receiving visits from Brother Walfrid and others, because he had been posted briefly two decades earlier to Portsmouth and Newry was for his middle son the cause of a whole heap of fuss.
It looks like the Scottish selectors might simply have not known about Willie Maley's birth or then they might have tried it on. After all two decades later they would in similar circumstances try to tap up Charlie Buchan, of Aberdonian parents but born in London. And the Willy Maley's dilemma was not unique. It was just that the solution was different. Not playing that day for England but at centre-forward, captaining it and scoring the following season in the return fixture would be
John Goodall, winning his ninth. He and his brother, Archie, had grown up and learned their football in Kilmarnock, born of Scottish parents but with a father, who was also a soldier, by chance also in the Royal Scots. Goodall Snr. and Maley Snr. might even have served together. Goodall Snr. had been posted to London when John was born and Belfast for Archie. John would win fourteen England caps in all, scoring twelve times, Archie, a half-back, ten for Ireland and netting twice. Nevertheless the suspicion remains that, even if Willie Maley's selection had been an oversight, someone had pointed it up with England the main suspect. After all they were keeping a close eye on matters as shown by the scorer of the last international goal Maley would see, from the pitch at least. His name was John Reynolds, who in 1897 would play four games for Celtic at left-back in Willy Maley's last season and was a much travelled man, who almost uniquely had won caps for for two countries. In 1890-1 there were five for Ireland including against England and then from 1892 to 1897 eight more for England, including against Ireland.
The reason is simple. The story is complicated. Jack Reynolds was flighty by circumstance and nature. He was brought up in Ireland although at fifteen he was living in Blackburn in Lancashire. He then joined the Army and was posted to Ireland, where he was bought out of the army to play football in Belfast. He then came back to England to play for West Bromwich Albion and there it was realised that although he had moved to Ireland as a baby he had been born in England, in Blackburn. The suspicion is that Reynolds knew all along but it did not seem to matter, either to him or at that moment anyone else. He was immediately snapped up by England, his Irishness revoked. Which begs the question, why did the reverse not happen to Willie Maley. He would have been a welcome addition to the Irish team at any stage until his retirement, a wonderful complement to Ireland's own James Kelly, Inverarity- and therefore Scots-born Bob Milne, who joined the team in 1894 and played centre-half from the following year for the next decade. But then perhaps Maley was never asked, perhaps, as a Catholic, he was even a bit too Irish to be asked or even, had been asked, might it have been known his answer would be no.