William Calder
In 1908 Krakow and with it Cracovia, the doyen of today's Polish football clubs, saw the arrival of William Calder, said to be William Benjamin Calder. He came, it is said, as an English English-teacher. But he seems also to have been a military man, said by some to have been a Lt. Colonel and by others a Squadron Leader, and also something official in the British civil service. He might well have been a military attache, was the Bank of England's representative in the city and also already a member of British intelligence; the spy he would opening be know as later. He certainly was a footballer, a right-back, again by repute an ex. Fulham player.
Now no William Benjamin Calder could be found either as a Briton or a Fulham player. But there were William Calders. There was even a William B. Calder, who in 1901 as a fifteen year old been living in London, where he shared a house with his father, Augustus, his elder sister, Lila, his younger brother, John and an Irish servant. It meant that in 1908 he would have been twenty-two and at an age where football might have been an interest. But the Krakow Calder was clearly more than just an enthusiast. He was noted for his long, throw-in, a lack of real pace but "like all native Englishman" he passed on footballing knowledge, organised the team, that is coached, and organised the club itself. He clearly had a passion for the game.
And then there were other coincidences. The house the Calders shared was at 652, Fulham Road, which would explain the Fulham connections as Polish confusion between club and place. In addition, William B. was William Barclay and his brother was John Muir. Moreover, there was an explanation for the passion. Although Augustus, Lila, William and John might have been residing between Craven Cottage and Stamford Bridge each and every one of them had been born elsewhere. Father Augustus was a doctor, born in Leith. Lila and William had been born in Perth and John in Glasgow. And it was really in Perth that the story began.
In 1881 Augustus Calder, already qualified as a doctor, was working in Perth and boarding in the city. In 1884 still in St. John's town he married local girl, Eliza Miller. Lila was born there that same year, William on 14th January 1886 before the family moved to Glasgow, where John was born and Eliza, aged just twenty-eight died shortly after childbirth. It was then or over the next decade that the Calder family moved south but, if Perth and Fulham's William B. Calder was Krakow's William B. then he was, as so often round the World, Scots not English with a passion for football similarly explained.
After his stay in Krakow and twenty-seven appearances for Cracovia William Calder is said to have moved on to Warsaw, where he is also said to have been involved in the development of football there. Polonia Warsaw, the city's oldest club, was, coincidently or not, founded that same year. Legia was formed in 1916, which time Fulham's William Calder was in England. Presumably he returned at the outbreak of the Great War. He married Agnes Conti in 1915 in West London. In 1917 and in 1919, as a Lieutenant, he was serving as a Naval reservist. After the War and for the next twenty years he lived in and around London and West London and may have died there too in 1958.