“Social physical exercise?” Football, industrial paternalism, and professionalism in west Dunbartonshire, Scotland, c. 1870–1900

Abstract

This article examines the interrelationship of sport, community and industry in west Dunbartonshire during the period 1870–1900. During the early years of the Scottish Football Association (SFA)– the 1870s and 1880s – the county's main football clubs were amongst the SFA's most dominant, regularly challenging Glasgow's major clubs for supremacy in the Scottish Cup. These clubs were part of an industrial landscape, based as they were in shipbuilding and textile communities significantly comprised of Irish and Highland Scottish migrant populations. Local industrialists acted as patrons out of a paternalistic desire to mould the message of football. Their attempts were nevertheless undermined by the existence of professionalism in the game, which in turn encouraged an alternate method of social mobility.

Keywords::

• football
• industry
• paternalism
• Scotland
• Dunbartonshire
• professionalism

Notes

^1. Bairner, “Football”, 87–104.

^2. Recent work on this topic includes McDowell, “Football”, 405–25.

^3. Murray, Old Firm; Murray, Glasgow's Giants; Murray, Bhoys; Bradley, Identity; Walker, “Glasgow Rangers”, 137–59; Finn, “Racism I”, 70–93 and Finn, “Racism II”, 370–97.

^4. Keevins and McCarra, 100 Cups, 15–40, 228–31; Crampsey, “King Football”, 182–202; Crampsey, 100 Years, 279 and Harvie, “State”, 53. Harvie refers to the Vale of Leven as “the cradle of Scots soccer”.

^5. MacLennan, “Shinty”, 211–28.

^6. Neill, Bonhill Parish, 188–89.

^7. A newspaper account of the game is given in Weir, Boys, 3.

^8. There has been a great deal of debate in recent years on pre-1860 codes of football, and the early years of QP. On the “origins” debate, see Tranter, “First Football Club?”, 104–07; Hutchinson, “Nineteenth-century Edinburgh”, 547–65; Hay, “Two Footballs”, 952–69; Harvey, Commercial Sporting Culture; Swain, “Cultural Continuity”, 382–400. On QP see: Mitchell, First Elevens; Crampsey, Game, 5, 7, 13–17 and Robinson, Queen's Park, 8–12, 327.

^9. McAllister, Sons, 1–2.

^10. Hutchinson, Camanachd!, 107–08.

^11. Neill, Bonhill Parish, 188–89.

^12. McDowell, “Football”, 407–11 and Tranter, “Cappielow”, 125–40.

^13. Docherty, “Vale of Leven”, 9–11.

^14. Ibid., 9–12 and Rawlinson and Robinson, “Turkey Red strike”, 186–211.

^15. Docherty, “Vale of Leven”, 15–17.

^16. Ibid., 15–17; Finlay, “West Dunbartonshire”, 72–73.

^17. University of Glasgow Library (GUL), Census of Scotland – 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901.

^18. Docherty, “Vale of Leven” 238, 246, 318–34.

^19. Macintyre, Moscows, 79–111 Gallacher, “Vale”, 186–213 and Rawlinson and Robinson, “Turkey Red strike”; 186–211.

^20. Knox, Industrial Nation; Macdonald, Radical Thread and Campbell, Scottish Miners.

^21. Kenefick, Red Scotland!; Maver, “Associational Life”; Mackenzie, “Self-Help and Propaganda” and Siméon, “New Lanark”. For a review on the current state of modern Scotland's historiography, see Morton and Griffiths, “Gilded Cage”.

^22. McDowell, “Football”, 411–18; McDowell, Cultural History, 87–172.

^23. Tranter, “Chronology II”, 370; and Metcalfe, “Northumberland”, 270–81.

^24. Glasgow University Archive Service (GUAS), UGD 13/1, Records of the United Turkey Red Co. Ltd.; UGD 13/3 Records of William Stirling and Sons, UGD 13/3.

^25. Gillen, Morton.

^26. Campbell, Scottish Miners, 256–69, 343–44 and Maver, “Associational Life”, 513–16.

^27. Melling, “Class Relations”, 69–104 and Hutchison, “Working-class Politics”, 126–30.

^28. Duncan, The Mineworkers, 139.

^29. Gallacher, “Vale”, 187; Rawlinson and Robinson, “Turkey Red strike”, 178–80 and Macintyre, Moscows, 79–111.

^30. Rawlinson and Robinson, “Turkey Red strike”, 17 and Melling, “Class Relations”, 71.

^31. Macintyre, Moscows, 85–86.

^32. Gallacher, “Vale”, 195.

^33. Craig, BPER, 1832–1885, 582 and Craig, BPER, 1885–1918, 513.

^34. Macdonald, Radical Thread, 74–149.

^35. Kenefick, Red Scotland!, 13–21.

^36. Tranter, Sport, 40–41; Tranter, “Structure”, 301–04; Bilsborough, “Development”, 243–81 and Finn, “Racism I”, 80–83.

^37. McAllister, Sons, 22–23.

^38. Finlay, “West Dunbartonshire”, 79.

^39. Macdonald, Radical Thread, 36–72.

^40. McDowell, “Football”, 414–18.

^41. Hutchison, “Working Class Politics”, 98–141 and Melling, “Class Relations”, 69–104.

^42. Finlay, “West Dunbartonshire”, 77–78.

^43. Craig, BPER, 1885–1918, 513.

^44. Korr, “West Ham”, 211–32.

^45. Knox, Industrial Nation, 94–103.

^46. Hay, “Social Control”, 223–47 and Tranter, Sport, 32–51.

^47. Wylie, Labour, 37.

^48. Siméon, “New Lanark”, 183–200.

^49. Ibid.; Donnachie, Robert Owen, 113–32; Campbell, Scotland since 1707, 164–66.

^50. Wylie, Labour, 182–83, 230 and Macintyre, Moscows, 83, 188.

^51. Wylie, Labour, ix.

^52. Wylie, Recreation, 3–4, 10–11.

^53. Slaven, “Peter Denny” and McAllister, Sons, 19.

^54. Eyre-Todd, Who's Who, http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/eyrwho/eyrwho1831.htm (accessed 10 August 2013).

^55. Anon., Peter Denny, 9.

^56. Anon., “Sir Alexander Kennedy”, The Glasgow Story, http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum = TGSA05166 (accessed 10 August 2013).

^57. Macleod, Families, 117–24.

^58. Gilchrist, “Shadow”, 3–26.

^59. Wylie, Labour, 48–50, 53–5, 130.

^60. Macintyre, Moscows, 82–83.

^61. Ibid., 113, 128.

^62. Wylie, Recreation, 3–4.

^63. Wylie, Labour, 72.

^64. Wylie, Recreation, 10–11 and Mangan, Athleticism.

^65. Macleod, Families, 23.

^66. MacPhail, Dunbartonshire, 92.

^67. Moss, “Denny, Peter”.

^68. Bruce, William Denny, 246.

^69. Ibid., 249.

^70. Ibid., 249.

^71. Anon., Peter Denny, 9.

^72. Harvie, “State”, 53.

^73. Cunningham, Volunteer Force, 11, 112–13, 118–19.

^74. Jackson, “Patriotism or pleasure?”, 125–39.

^75. Wylie, Labour, 9 and Wylie, Recreation, 10.

^76. Macintyre, Moscows, 81–82.

^77. Eyre-Todd, Who's Who, http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/eyrwho/eyrwho0506.htm (accessed 11 August 2013).

^78. Crampsey, 100 Years, 23 and Anon, Book of Football, 266.

^79. Gilchrist, “Shadow of Industry”, 3–26.

^80. Holt, Sport and the British, 136–48.

^81. Knox, Industrial Nation, 106–08.

^82. Docherty, “Vale of Leven”, 175.

^83. Devine, “Paradox”, 1–16.

^84. Vamplew, Pay up, 62–63, 138–39, 193–94; Mason, Association Football, 16–17 and Lewis, “Genesis”, 21–54.

^85. Vamplew, “Gate-Money Football”, 549–67.

^86. Crampsey, 100 Years, 15–18.

^87. Weir, Boys, 76–80.

^88. Crampsey, 100 Years, 297–98.

^89. Anon, Book of Football, 266–67.

^90. Wylie, Recreation, 4.

^91. Anon, Peter Denny.

^92. Anon, Peter Denny, 9.

^93. Korr, “West Ham”, 224–26.

^94. Murray, Old Firm, 14–15.

^95. Campbell and Woods, Glory, 345–46.

^96. Murray, Old Firm, 14–15; Harvie, “State”, 54; SR, 20 June 1898.

^97. Williams, Red Men, 42–46.

^98. Dykes and Lamming, Sunderland, 179; Lamming, Liverpool, 60.

^99. Walvin, People's Game, 111; Hugh MacDonald, “In search of Johnny Madden, the man who gave Czech football a Scottish accent”, The Herald, 2 March 2010.

^100. Carter, Football Manager, 11–48.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew L. McDowell

Matthew L. McDowell is a lecturer in sport policy, management, and international development at the University of Edinburgh, Moray House School of Education. He is a trained historian, and his research examines the history of Scottish football, the politics of regional Scottish sport cultures, “transnational” Scottish sport, and Scotland and the Empire and Commonwealth Games.