This week’s article is of lighter vein! The following is another article written in 1902 by William McGregor, in which he tells various tales of his times on tour with the Villa in Scotland during the 1880s. The tales are detailed enough that anyone spending a holiday in Scotland might be able to find some of the places where the Villa stayed.

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All rights reserved: No copying nor distribution without the consent of John Lerwill.

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This is one of a series of summer articles from the archives that I have obtained with the object of writing a book on the Villa. Those articles I’m publishing here will not be included ‘verbatim’ in my book, but I thought it may be worthwhile to publish some of them on Aston Villa Life as an insight into the thinking back then – of 100 years ago and more.

These articles are published ‘as is’ with only a small attempt on my part at being helpful by the insertion of a comment or two.

Doubtless, the reader will find some of the language quite archaic, but I nevertheless hope that you persevere through the article and extract a good idea from it and grasp how evolutionary all the thinking was in those days. And also how much thought was expended on how to improve the game.

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THE HUMOURS OF OLD SCOTTISH TOURS.

By William McGregor

I suppose very few people have had a more ex­tensive experience of football touring than I have. I have been to Scotland with the Aston Villa team on almost every occasion that they have gone across the Border. I have also stayed at the same hotels as the English international team, and have often been in charge of the Anglo-Scots team in Glasgow and Edinburgh. I have also been out with the English League international eleven. Twenty years ago [in the 1880s] it was not an easy matter for anyone with a reasonable amount of self-respect to accompany a football team on a railway journey and to stay the night with them at a hotel.

I once took a team of Aston Villa players on a ten days tour but I said then that never in my life would I again accompany a football eleven on such an extensive journey. I believe my hair turned prematurely grey through the worries I encountered. It is quite a pleasure now to go out with a team: the international teams especially are as well behaved as any set. of fellows could be, but in the old days a tour was made the occasion of excessive indulgence in eating and drinking, and was never free from horseplay. We used to play the best football we could, but I am afraid that the players were not so careful in keeping fit as they are today. The morning was usually spent in sight‑seeing, and it was difficult to prevent the men cele­brating agreeable reunions. And what wild hilarity there used to be in the hotel corridors and bedrooms at night! I have seen the bedroom and corridor floors half an inch thick with feathers from broken bolsters and pillows.

No evening was regarded as having been profitably spent unless it was rounded off with a pillow fight. And when you happened to get an English and a Scotch team staying at. the same hotel, the inter­national spirit entered into the fray and the pro­ceedings were calculated to reduce she proprietor or proprietress to the verge of despair. I remember a very turbulent scene in a quiet hotel in Glasgow, at which Aston Villa used to stop, which hotel was kept by an elderly widow. I tried to control the team as well as I could, but at last, in sheer despair, I went to bed. I was aroused an hour or two later by the landlady, who hammered at my door. I tried to pacify her through the keyhole, but she would insist upon my coming out, and I had to dress and see what was the matter. The place was still in an uproar. and our landlady would not be appeased until two members of the party had been turned out of the house in the middle of the night.

I think the first time the Villa visited Scotland they played Glasgow Rangers and Ayr Thistle, The morning of the match in Glasgow was spent going over a whisky distillery, the guide being a Birmingham man, who was then an excise officer in Glasgow, but is now [1902] located at Somerset House. No wonder the Villa lost handsomely in the afternoon. We landed at Ayr on the Saturday night. and stayed at the King’s Arms Hotel. The land­lord, late at night, refused to supply any more spirits, whereupon our old friend Teddy Lee had a fit, and had to be carried to his room, and a bottle of brandy became an absolute necessity. I never saw a man who could sham having a fit better than Teddy Lee. He revived wonderfully under the in­fluence of the brandy, but when the bottle was de­manded it could not he found, and pandemonium reigned for the rest of the night. The proprietor vowed he would not take another football team in. However, I have been there once or twice since with the Villa, and the same old game was carried on. Once I thought the house might be pulled down, and so, against my usual practice, I ventured out of the bedroom and went to the bottom of the stairs, when down came a jug of water upon me. I was told afterwards that a mistake bad been made, and that the jug bad been specially requisitioned for one of the Villa Committee, who was not popu­lar with the playing members of the club on account of his lofty airs. He shortly afterwards went to the bottom of the stairs, where two or three gallons of water were poured on him.

There is no club in the kingdom which has had so many real holiday outings as Aston Villa had in the old days. Once, we left Birmingham on the Thursday night and landed at Balloch, the foot of Loch Lomond, on Friday morning (Good Friday, by the way). After breakfast we went for a lovely drive along the side of the loch. While we were strolling about, heavy rain came on and darkness set in. Two of our players, Eli Davis and Tom Riddell, were missing. Davis soon appeared; he. had fallen in with some Vale of Leven players accidentally. and on announcing himself as a Villa player he was remarkably well treated. But Riddell not appearing, we began to be concerned for his safety, and getting our mackintoshes, a fellow committeeman and I went in search of him; we feared he had fallen into the river. However, we had not gone far when we heard someone coming up the road whistling “The Warwickshire Lads and the Lasses” and the whistler proved to be our missing player.

On the Saturday morning we drove to Dumbarton to play the club of that name. The then secretary was Mr. McKennedy, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the last international at Glasgow. He showed us all over Messrs. Denny’s shipping yard and introduced us to one of the firm, who opened bottles of champagne — not a very good thing to take before a match. The terms of arrangement with The Dumbarton Club were half the gross “gate.” It was a well-contested game, and the Villa lost, but the proceeds only amounted to £5, and the Dumbarton officials were ashamed to divide it, so we [were awarded] the £5 and a tea after the match. This was our only match, but we were on pleasure bent, so we started for Callender, put up at the Dreadnought Hotel, and early on the Sunday morning went for a long walk. On reaching Callender we were rather late for dinner, for which I was not sorry, as the company [at dinner] consisted almost entirely of very stodgy clergyman and newly married couples. We had a table set aside for our own party, and some of the men asked for the wine list, but they were told by the treasurer that nothing stronger than beer would be paid for, which offended one or two of them.

After dinner some of our men called at a gentleman’s house, where they were most hospitably received by the servants, who seemed to have the run of the house. We drove through the Trossachs in a couple of machines, as they call the conveyances in Scotland. I was in the first and just by the Trossachs Hotel the second coach disappeared over a bridge into a burn, or river, which was fairly deep. The harness seemed to have gone wrong. and the vehicle went into the river. The machine was all broken to pieces, but the men escaped, very luckily, only Charlie Apperley, the great half-back of the team in those days, being injured. He re­ceived a very bad twist to his knee and I don’t think he ever played football for the Villa again. He afterwards went to the Cape and played football there, and won many prizes at swimming and other [sports]. He was the centre of all athletics in Cape Town for many years, and the last time I heard of him he was an officer in the town guard during the late [Boer] war.

Another memorable trip in Scotland was when Aston Villa played the Crusaders, a team got together by Mt. John McDowell, the Secretary of the Scottish Football Association. It was composed of all the rising talent of Scotland. The Villa had a moderate side. A man named W. Siddons, who was a reserve back, played for the Villa in this match at half[-back], but he was not fast enough, and the Scottish forwards ran round him. He was so disgusted with himself after the match that he ripped up his football clothes, boots and bag, and sent them flying all over the Queen’s Park ground [at Hampden Park]. After the match we went to Oban. At Dunblane Station we had a long wait, and as it was just on shutting up time, we made a raid on the nearest public house, and cleared out all the bottled beer and ginger ale, and also bought up all the biscuits they had in a small provisions shop. We had a saloon carriage, which was not so common in those days, and as most of the men were tired and lying down, we told the people at most of the country stations at which we stopped that they were lunatics being taken to an asylum.

I remember going up for the great Cup-tie be­tween Queen’s Park and the Villa [in 1886]. The team’s players and officials went up on the Friday and stayed at Carlisle, and I recollect that the majority of the party were having sprint races in the corridors during the greater part of the night. There was never so many Birmingham people in Glasgow before or since that day. Mr. Margoschis [later the Villa chairman, 1893-97] was then a member of the Villa Committee and was in the habit of [displaying news sent by wire] in his shop window [at Constitution Hill]. Being of a humorous turn of mind, he sent a telegram to his shop on Saturday morning stating that the Villa men were confident of victory and that they had been to the ground and picked out the spots where they were to score from. You can imagine our amazement when we beheld that telegram, word for word, in a Glasgow paper of the same evening, and as the Villa were defeated heavily [by 6 goals to 1], you can also tell that we were teased most relentlessly over the incident.

I recall another tour in which we had a fine game with the Hibernians, Willie Groves [later one of Villa’s stars in the 1893-94 championship season] making his first appearance for the Edinburgh club in the match. We defeated the Hibernian rather heavily, and the spectators did not appear to relish it. I was going towards the stand, when a great burly fellow struck me on the back of the head—I was umpire [i.e. linesman] for the Villa [that day]. I was apparently stunned, but I heard someone shout, and then Freddy Dawson, one of our players [and was always quick-tempered], went for a gentleman who was coming to my aid and gave him one in the eye. Frank Coulton also rushed in and hit someone else, and in a few moments there was a free fight. The crowd set about Dawson and Coulton, and it was not until the Hibernian players came to their rescue that the situation was saved. As it was, Coulton was knocked down and kicked very badly. There were no police on the ground, and the crowd were shouting for the referee, but he was got away safely. The Villa had to settle a compensation claim for this, as it was the wrong man Dawson had struck: it was a press reporter! As it was New Year’s Day, his employers insisted that he should claim damages, as they apparently did not believe what he said, but thought that possibly his eye had got marked in a brawl.

Ah! those were very happy times. We did things which we ought not to have done, but the football atmosphere was very pleasant in those days. Any old player or official will tell you that.

 

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John Lerwill
I'm a Villan of more than 60 years standing and an occasional writer on Villa history. For me there is only one football club worth supporting, but I am now wondering whether I will again see anything like the pageant that was paraded under Ron Saunders or even that by Big Ron and Brian Little. My glass, however, is always half-full! Click here for my Villa website.

Comments 28

  2. Mark King

    Thanks JL- The good old days were not always so good eh 🙂 I miss the toughness we used to have before today’s mollycoddling.

    Iana- That was a great guardian article on the last post. A reminder to all that tactics based on fear are limiting, the great managers allowed there players to play not stifle them but they knew how to lead too. I see a bit of that in Wagner and Fulham’s manager Slavisa Jokanovic , sadly not in SB on what we have seen so far but the stage is set now.

  3. IanG

    Dwight Yorke says that the championship is not more difficult than other leagues, but it is a question of mental attitude.
    The doc then tweeted agreement.
    Absolutely, says us all.

  5. IanG

    MK
    Even though I would echo that aspect of York, he has accidentally made a relevant point as it’s main physical difficulty is only the amount of matches.
    One’s attitude gets one through the exertion, where exertion doesn’t work so well to get one through a dodgy attitude

  6. Trinity

    Mark
    Nice of Clive to provide that Guardian link. Must agree with the Mail article. Unless, Gabby has a consistently good/outstanding season, the club should not award another contract.

  7. Mark King

    IanG- I disagree only in its competitive in the sense that any of the top six can go up and at least 2 that did were not favourites to do so pre-season. So called better teams from the prem rarely go straight back up and many have never managed it so how is it easy? DY said it was a “very easy” league try telling leeds forest derby etc. I do agree it doesn’t help blowing the task up to massive proportions but we approached it last season like a walk in the park in both attitude and application on and off the field choosing to concentrate on our conquest of the world in ten years 😉

  11. Trinity

    Wonder what Villa would do if some fans printed off thousands of T-shirts with the old round Villa logo and thousands of fans turned up to the matches wearing them.

  13. IanG

    I’ve been waiting for over a month to get a reply from the avfc support over what I will be paying for.
    So they’ll let us know when the season starts about how they are going to stream the matches???
    very good of them…

  14. IanG

    Also apparently BBCWM has had the audio matches taken off them & the contract has sadly been given to talksports who never leave it alone & talk over it all the time.
    Last year they accidentally lost my account twice so I missed a lot of matches.
    They’ve got a lot to improve

  17. IanG

    Mark we got an audio stream last season.

    I finally got a reply from avfc with the following points:
    When do I have to rejoin AVTV & pay for a new season please?
    Subscriptions for the new service should open on at the start of August but this is dependent on development and several other factors.
    Also, what will be the difference next season, as talk radio appear to have the contract instead of BBC West Midlands, & therefore AVTV? Will there be any visual live coverage from AVTV this year?
    Until there is an official club release I cannot say anything about what we plan. What I can say is that the digital rights have only just been finalised with the EFL so we are considering the points you have mentioned.
    If I renew my membership will I be included without having to muck about like last season?
    If you already have a login for AVFC you will just need to sign up to the new service so should be a little bit simpler than last season. However DO NOT renew your existing service past the end of the July as it will not exist and has nothing to do with the new service

  18. James Gill

    the idea of john terry signing gets worse by the day, 5m for a player who has been passed it for a few years now to be honest, didnt see brighton huddersfield reading signing men like this a year ago, chris hughton got shane duffy for 5m, huddersfield got entire team for less,
    and the thought bruce needs him to sort out the dressing room is even worse ,what the fuck is he doing for his milllions apart from playing golf,
    if we dont get off to flying start the villa we love is in serious trouble, its time for the good doc to stop tweeting and get villa rolling, same with all this shite they are spouting off commercial side, lerner is long gone bruce has had 35 match warm up spent almost 30m last january no excuses allowed

  19. IanG

    JG
    Flying by the seat of their pants so far.
    To look on the bright side, anyone who is not in the UK will be able to watch the matches it seems, while the rest of us watch May & the DUP fiddle while the rest of us go downhill even further.
    I was going to write a joke about the cladding of destiny but thought better of it as it may be true & no joke.

  20. John Lerwill

    IanG

    Well, May is now having to do something about the public sector pay gap. But doubtless they won’t give much away from that “money tree” that doesn’t exist – apparently.

  23. John Lerwill

    Clive,

    It’s quite brilliant isn’t it? Reminding me yet again of the time as a 6-year-old when I had to be carried over the heads of the packed Holte End to have some chance of seeing the game at the front. And sitting on my Dad’s shoulders beforehand to view the fullness of the pitch for the first time. 65 years ago. Phew.

    Memories that stick in your mind forever. I even remember my Dad’s last-ever visit to VP – when he saw George Graham play and help to beat Liverpool back in ’62 or thereabouts.

  26. Villalore

    So Sam Johnstone might not be a Villa player after all. Might actually work for us and we may land a better keeper. Only thing that sticks is that we spent all the time getting his experienced and he may move to a rival like Middlesbrough.

  27. Mark King

    villalore- I agree its looking very eggs in one basket when a seasoned pro would of been better from the off. Does beg the question why he’s going there? presuming he has a choice?is it down to money when we are prepared to splash £5m on Terry? or has he had his fill of Villa?

    Forget our defence as that is all that seems to be in the news, defensive players, how are we going to score the goals to get us promotion? this article poses that very question

    http://www.myoldmansaid.com/the-vtid-column-bruces-dilemma-goal-drought-beyond-dr-tonys-wallet/

  28. John Lerwill

    Ah, yes, John Terry…

    Thinking that we’ll soon be hearing more about that from JC, I’ve posted a new article from the archives ahead of schedule.

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