Blood on the Shirt
On 30th July 1930 just over 68,000 spectators were said officially to have watched the first World Cup Final in the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo in Uruguay. Unofficially 93,000 were said to have been packed in to watch the home team, coming back from 1:2 down, finally to beat near neighbours from across the River Plate, Argentina, 4:2.
The larger unofficial attendance is the more likely as three days earlier almost 80,000 were said officially to have watched the second of the semi-finals, a win for Uruguay over Yugoslavia, and a day earlier still on 26th July almost 73,000 had been in the same stadium to see Argentina overcome a team from the United States in the other. It seems inconceivable that fewer would have watch the final than either of the semis.
It also seems inconceivable that amongst the crowd at the final and the second semi-final there would not have been John Harley, supporting his adopted country. Perhaps he was there too for the first semi-, reverting to being a proud Caledonian, at least for the duration of the game, as he watched the closest a Scottish team has ever half-got to winning the World Cup.
Uruguay had been awarded the World Cup as a reward from FIFA for the South Americans twice making the journey to Europe and winning Olympic gold-medals in 1924 in Paris and four years later in Amsterdam. Few European countries were prepared to reciprocate. Of the more important ones only France and Belgium were there. But the United States, perhaps for political reasons, after the friction with FIFA over the two previous years, the "U.S. Soccer Wars", sent a squad of sixteen players. It might have been seventeen. Archie Stark had been asked to go but declined for “work reasons”. Bethlehem Steel had collapsed and Stark may well already have been committed to a Europe tour with new club, Fall River Marksmen; one later abandoned, but already in Budapest.
And the reason for "half-getting" to a World Cup Final? It was simply that of the sixteen squad members five were Scottish born and a sixth, the goalkeeper, although born in the United States, had the name Jimmy Douglas, which is quite Scottish enough. In addition the team trainer was Jack Coll, in fact a Northern Irishman, but one who had moved to Scotland when he was eight and grew up in Glasgow, worked very successfully with football clubs, including Parkhead, and with athletes and boxers there before moving to the USA in 1922 to settle eventually on Long Island. And finally the coach was also a Scot; none other than
Bob Millar. He had been born in Paisley and been on his home club St. Mirren’s books for a several seasons, before leaving for United States in 1910, aged 21 and a distinguished if combustible career on the field across the Atlantic as part of the re- emergence of soccer there, “shamateur” and then professional soccer, then moving upstairs.
In the team that went onto the field to face Argentina all five of the Scots played –
Andrew Auld from Stevenston in Ayrshire, aged 30, who had arrived in the States in 1922; the youngster,
Jim Brown, 22, from the famous Kilmarnock football- and rugby-playing family, the only one to return to Britain to play, for Tottenham and Brentford;
Jimmy Gallagher, 29, from Kirkintilloch;
Bart McGhee and 23 year-old Alexander Wood from Lochgelly in Fife. Of McGhee there is more in a moment. Wood had also come to the States as a young teenager. The others had arrived as part of the wave of young players that once the First World War had ended had been attracted to America’s burgeoning soccer leagues. So with big Jimmy Douglas also there between the posts, as he had been since 1924, it was five and half players out of eleven with a half more on the bench. James Gentle had a mother, Consuelo, born in Spain, the only member of the squad, indeed the party, who had the language. But he also had a father, also James, born in the Auld Country.
So it was that the United States team had travelled by boat, on the S.S. Munargo from New Jersey, arriving in Montevideo on 1st July, in the middle of the Uruguayan winter. The tournament began on 13th July, its 13 participants, Scotland not amongst them, divided into four groups. Scotland, although not a FIFA member at the time, had nevertheless received an invitation to be there but had either declined or ignored it. Initially pitted against Belgium and Paraguay, the United States would beat both 3:0 and in the first game, against Belgium in the Estadio Parque Centrale in Montevideo in rain and snow, perfect for Scots, the opening goal was scored in the 23rd minute from the left-wing by McGhee. In fact it was a whisker away from being the first ever World Cup goal. That honour, across the city at
Penarol's then home stadium, the Estadio Pocitos, had fallen just four minutes earlier to the Frenchman, Lucien Laurent.
In netting McGhee simultaneously became the first American and the first Scotsman to score in a World Cup. Incredibly too it was only the twelfth goal ever to be scored by a Scot in international football against non-British opposition and the first had been just fourteen months earlier, by Robert Rankin against Norway in Bergen. That Bart McGhee was both American and Scots is complicated and at the same time not atypical. The
Stark brothers and Barney Battles would follow similar paths, arriving in America as young teenagers. Where McGhee would be different was that he was a player who had come with a considerable, established Scots footballing pedigree, much as Jim Brown, although arriving in his late not early teens, also would. He had two brothers who played professionally, both in goal, and one, Jock, who would be capped for Scotland. Jock incidentally would also be the father of Peter and Gordon Brown, both later Scottish rugby internationals of note.
Bart McGhee had been born in Edinburgh, the son of James McGhee, former Scottish internationalist of note, who in 1886 quite possibly had been one of the first two Catholics to feature in a Scottish national team as well as having been the rarest of beings; both a former Hibernian player and Hearts manager. In 1912 13-year old McGhee junior, with his mother and siblings, notably footballing brother Jimmy, had followed his father to the New World. It had been three years after the controversy leading to McGhee senior's Hearts dismissal. He had dared to cross swords with the club's star player and lost. And so it was that, now in his late twenties and after a decade of success in the U.S.'s until then burgeoning "soccer industry", McGhee jnr found himself not on the limited Edinburgh's footballing stage that had largely been his father's but on the World's.
Because of the small number of teams taking part in the competition there was no need of quarter finals. It went straight to the semis with the Americans not having conceded a goal. Argentina, on the other hand, had not kept a clean sheet and was clearly concerned about the US team. Of it an Argentinian commentator wrote:
“They all are talented athletes who play a smooth game and use their bodies well although occasionally they commit fouls; they have a remarkable domination on high balls which can be paralleled only by the great British and especially Scottish professional teams, whose way of playing perhaps they follow, but without monotonous precision and with much more vitality and enthusiasm. The full backs get rid of the ball with power and assurance; the midfield line defends, mixing very well with the fullbacks and giving remarkable help to the forwards, who have a wonderful kick that they utilize for passes and for sending high balls in to the goal area to exploit their superior heading capacities.””
The extract is one of the few clues we have as to how post-Great War Scottish professionals played the game. Pre-war there is
John Cameron’s account of how he, at least, saw the game. From the 1940s there is the
Adam Little account of the Rangers’s system and between we have insights into the
Chapman methodology at Arsenal learned from Cameron but in between no real description apart from the Scots XI of a decade earlier of how the ball was moved around the pitch. From Montevideo we know there was passing but also a reliance on the high ball yet there was no hint that the changes first suggested by
Charlie Buchan at Arsenal in 1926 in response to the previous year's alteration to off-side and implemented by his manager,
Herbert Chapman, his 3.2.2.3, had reached America or at least Bob Millar. He had learned his football in the old century and in Scotland played in the first decade of the new, Old-Style. His players' arrivals in the USA also all predated 1925. The USA played a version of 2.3.5 with a mid-field line but also, as becomes clear, an attacking centre-half.
And we also have an indication of how Argentina at least already viewed British football. It was seen as precise but monotonous, perhaps today better described as mechanical but lacking flair, with the American team, and by extension Scottish football, excused somewhat because of it smoothness, enthusiasm and vitality. They are comments that today might be heard from the same source, Buenos Aires, and be equally valid.
For the match the North Americans selected a strong team. In addition to the Scots there were George Moorehouse, centre-half Ralph Tracey, Billy Gonsalves, Bert Patenaude and Tom Florie. Millar appeared to be playing a 2-3-5 but not a conventional one. His approach was clearly not that of the
Wembley Wizards. He was intending to use the aerial power at his disposal. Bert Patenaude, replacing the smaller, lighter, 5ft 10, 10 stone Stark, was a six foot tall centre-forward. Jim Brown was the same height with Billy Gonsalves, at inside-left, said to be 6ft 2ins. Yet they would also played Old-style, which was not unexpected given Scots manager Bob Millar's vintage and that he had brought up in the Scottish tradition of the game. It implies too that by that time after a decade of Scottish talent arriving it was the generally accepted approach in the US leagues, understood by all. They were employing
The Cross. They intended to pass the ball. Ralph Tracey, a converted forward, neither at half- or centre-back was to be used as a Scottish-style, attacking centre-half; more
Alex Raisbeck than Tom Bradshaw. In fact they were looking, augmented by prowess in the air, to play in a style closely related to that of the Uruguayans, which is hardly surprising since both the manager and even several of the players had been learning their football in almost precisely the same place and time as El Yoni, John Harley.
But the US team had overlooked one factor. The South Americans came out hard, brutally even. Pivotal Tracey had his leg broken very early on, some say in the 10th minute, others in the twelfth. Jimmy Douglas, the goalkeeper, was also taken out and was carrying an injury for much of the game, where there were no substitutes. Andy Auld at left half played most of the game with a rag stuffed in his mouth to stop the bleeding from a badly cut mouth. Billy Gonsalves after the game would say:
“They crippled Douglas, deliberately, they broke Tracey’s leg, they hit Auld.”
Jack Coll, the trainer, was also not excepted, said to have passed out on the pitch. One story is that, whilst treating Andy Auld for his mouth injury, he dropped a bottle of chloroform, bent down to clear up the mess, inhaled the fumes and collapsed. It may be true but there is another, more unpleasant version. An Argentinian player deliberately knocked smelling salts into Auld’s eyes as he lay injured on the ground, presumably to hamper him still more, and that was what the trainer inhaled. Perhaps it is all myth and legend but it might reinforce Gonsalves’s inference that the Argentinean had marked certain players for, for shall we say, “special” attention.
Nevertheless, the semi-Scots went in at halftime only 1-nil down, a goal by the Argentine centre-half, whilst opposite number Tracey was off having treatment. In the second half it was a different story. Tracey could not play on and for 45 minutes the American team really had only eight fit players. Five more goals were put past them, the second by Scopelli up against Auld, three in the last ten minutes as they tired, but they did get a consolation. Jim Brown got one back in the 89th minute, thus becoming the only Scotsman ever – or should it be ‘yet’? - to score in a World Cup semi-final.
There has since 1930 been a lot of argument about this semi-Scottish, US team. On the one hand it has been said that it really was no more than a group of British mercenaries, six in all because one of the non-Scots in the team, George Moorhouse, had been born in Liverpool. The counter argument has been that none of the British-born players had any league experience to talk about. Moorhouse had had a couple of games for Tranmere Rovers but otherwise they had not progressed beyond reserve teams and three of the five Scots players had even arrived in their teens. If they were simply mercenaries then Millar' selection might have been at the very least more experienced.
On the other hand it is said that the competition itself was poor. No-one can say that the US squad in 1930 was the strongest in the World, especially without Archie Stark. And with just thirteen teams the competition could be seen as not the most complete either. However, the final was played out between Uruguay and Argentina and they were exactly the same teams, which, two years earlier, had contested the Olympic football final in Amsterdam. There seventeen countries had taken part, including three from South America, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, the United States, Egypt and thirteen from Europe. None of the home nations was there, not even England, after arguments with FIFA in the aftermath of the Great War and about what constituted “amateur”, the implication being, not without justification that some of the teams taking part , not least from Europe, were “shamateur”. Yet of the European nations only Italy had got through to the semis, the other semi-finalist, apart from Uruguay and Argentina, being Egypt. Argentina beat Egypt 6:0, having earlier in the competition recorded an 11:2 victory over the USA. Uruguay beat Italy 3:2, with three goals in the first half. Clearly the cream had risen to the top and in 1930, just two years later, there is no reason not to believe that the cream of 1928 was not still the cream, if only without the Home Nations of the single variety. The argument that the 1930 World Cup was overall not the strongest is acceptable but, with the two best teams in the World there outwith the long-established British professional game and reaching the final, that it was very weak is also difficult to sustain.
Equally it is difficult not to argue that the US team in 1930 was simply better than the one of two years earlier. It seems to have been technically, and Millar himself had been a very good, technical player, organisationally and cohesively. The Argentinians certainly thought so and gave it more than a little, if brutal, attention.
And of the players all had had their football educations in Scotland but had been too young to have had established football careers there when they had moved to the USA. Jim Brown had been 19. Jimmy Gallagher had arrived, aged 12, with his mother just before the First World War as had Barty McGhee. Alex Wood had played once at schoolboy level for Scotland, against Wales, just after the Great War so at home was a recognised talent before moving to the USA, aged 14, and finally there was the oldest, Andy Auld. He was playing organised football aged 11 for his local club in Scotland. He would have been 14 when the war started. He was called up as soon as he was eligible, not demobilised until 1919 and so started late. He joined junior club, Parkhead F.C. in Glasgow, stayed three years and, aged just 22, decided to take a chance in America, just as Jack Coll, the trainer, did from the same club at the same time. In fact, unlike for Coll, it had not been working out for Auld in the American Mid-West and it was only as he travelled to the East Coast en-route for home again that he was finally signed and stayed.
All too were essentially young, sometime very young, economic migrants. Some would find themselves, perhaps because of their families, in a place where skills learned early in Scotland prove fortuitous. Others, assessing what was best for them, had, like many others, taken their Scottish skills with them to the place where money could best be made. They could have been weavers or railwaymen, coal merchants or miners. It just happened they were footballers, not 'ringers' brought in specially, nor rejects from the Scottish game but young men swept up by serendipity.
The Argentinian commentator seemed to understand the situation well when he wrote.
“They all are talented athletes who play a smooth game ................., which can be paralleled only by the great British and especially Scottish professional teams.””
His description of their style of play and use of the word “paralleled” shows insight and prompts two comparisons, one from the period and one modern.
The latter is with the players from all around the World, not least South America, looking to maximise their potential in Europe. In 1930 the five Scottish players in the US team, and the two hundred or so others in North American teams were doing much the same with the only real difference between now and then being communications.
Nowadays itinerant players can be monitored and selected from afar and for international games board a plane and easily be home and back first-class in the week. For all but a few there is no questioning of nationality in the same way there had been none for the Anglo-Scots playing in England a century ago and able to board a train and travel north. However, for the Scottish itinerant in the USA in the period, even if over the intervening 3,000 miles he had been able to prove himself good enough to a sceptical SFA, which in the 1930s was hard enough even for Anglos just 400 miles away, there was the matter of practicality. To represent the country of his birth he was faced not with a few hours in an aeroplane but a week’s sea-cruise one-way and a week back, whilst to represent his new homeland required only residency, i.e. being there.
The former is is simply how would the Scots-Americans that took the field in Montevideo have fared against the British of the same era? Of the teams at the 1930 World Cup Scotland met only France; once in 1930 and once in 1932 in friendlies. Scotland had, after all, only played its first games against opposition other than the home nations in 1929 – all away, two wins against Norway with the Rankin goal and Holland and a draw with Germany.
Both French games were also away and both were won by Scotland, each time by 2 goals. In Uruguay France beat Mexico 4:1, scoring the World Cup's first ever goal. Bart McGhee's was the second, then, in another brutal game against Argentina, had lost 1:0. On that basis Scotland in 1930 might have at least matched Argentina and possibly beaten them 1:0, have beaten the semi-Scot, USA team without crippling it perhaps by 3 or 4 goals, and have probably matched Uruguay but little more. On the same basis England, well matched in the British Championship by Scotland and in 1929 and 1931 beating Belgium 1:5 and 1:4 away, a team beaten 3:0 by the USA on the way to the 1930 World Cup semi-final, would probably also have matched the Uruguayans. It leaves one final question, that of Stark. If Archie Stark instead of choosing in 1930 to travel to Europe with Fall River had played in Montevideo, what difference might it have made? Certainly he would have been targeted. Perhaps it would have been his leg and not Tracey’s that might have been snapped. But at almost a goal-a-game, admittedly not really tested internationally, perhaps too he might have made the difference between the teams in the semi-final, the final and, almost unimaginably, in having, instead of Uruguay, a largely Scottish team lift the first World Cup. We can but dream!