My daft laddie Junior football questions

[Glenconner]

21 minutes ago, Duraglit shareholder said:

memories of Bailleston, that must have been a decent side in early 80's,what happened for them to disappear?

Don't even go there.

[Duraglit shareholder]

Seriously what happened I remember them beating Talbot in Scottish semi early 80s at that time they were big players in the game, that was one of the earliest times I watched Talbot and always wondered what became of them.

[garrellburn]

6 hours ago, Glenconner said:

Don't even go there.

There were some extremely shady characters involved, It all had to do with the social club and title deeds to the ground and club got mixed up I believe. The upshot was that The football club lost all claim to the ground and next thing you know houses were sprouting up like toadstools all over the pitch.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Dunipace refused to play them in a cup game as a firearm had been produced and threats made on a previous occasion that they had been there. A very sorry tale and although there was talk of a ground on the other side of the old Edinburgh road it never materialised

[garrellburn]

Quite surprising how most of the claims to high scoring are from Ayrshire. Usually in times gone by a high scoring forward would go senior and not accumulate a very high total in junior football despite scoring a barrowload in one season.

To get a total like Querrie meant staying as a juniior for most of your football career which he did, never playing senior despite interest from Third Lanark after his Scottish cup exploits in 1955. Scored in every round, eighteen in total in that competition four in the final. A record which remains unmatched to this day.

One I don't see mentioned was Billy Walker at Dalry, I believe he had a pretty good record and remained at Dalry for some time, any info?

What about East and North Regions? No claims from there? I seem to remember reading about a junior player from the north who had a total of about 400 over a fairly long period, any info?

[dreggin]

I remember a player called Davie Greer from Rothesay who played for the Meadow the year they got relegated maybe 1989 and scored a ridiculous number of goals but cant remember how many.

[8MileBU]

Thanks to all for taking time and effort in producing best thread from pie and bovril since joining,all posters should give themselves a pat for the interesting information provided,ive never heard of some of these teams and memories of Bailleston, that must have been a decent side in early 80's, what happened for them to disappear?Once again thanks for thread, it shows how good this forum can be at times when football is talked about rather than all the personal squabbles.

 

Baillieston were a strong side in the early to mid 80's. In the '84 Junior Cup Final which they lost 2-0 to Bo'ness (have I mentioned that before? [emoji4]) they had a young striker called Andy Walker who went on to score many goals for Celtic and then become one of the most abysmal pundits we've ever had the misfortune to have on tv.

 

[garrellburn]

Baillieston was the junior club of one of the great characters in Scottish football in the 80's and 90's, Crawford Baptie.

He was one of my customers when he was serving his time as a mechanic with Arnold Clark at Tollcross. I had a tool sales franchise with Snap-On Tools in the East end of Glasgow at the time. I may write a book about it sometime!

[8MileBU]

[bluedragon]

1 hour ago, garrellburn said:

To get a total like Querrie meant staying as a junior for most of your football career which he did, never playing senior despite interest from Third Lanark after his Scottish cup exploits in 1955. Scored in every round, eighteen in total in that competition four in the final. A record which remains unmatched to this day.

Well I think Davie Cook would be a strong contender for the most career goals in Junior football. Taking your point, he had a 14-year Junior career. He started with Kilmarnock Juniors (1946/47), Ardeer Recreation Juveniles (1947/48) and Dalry Thistle (1948/49) before his first spell at Largs Thistle (1949/50). He then had a season at Annbank United (1950/51) and one at Saltcoats Victoria (1951/52) before he returned to Largs where he stayed for the remainder of his career.

In those eight seasons (1952/53 to 1959/60) he was Largs Thistle’s leading goalscorer. He set the club record in 1954/55 (71 goals) and triggered an offer from Football League club Barrow (£8 per week and a job in his trade) but he turned it down. He then set a new record with 87 goals in 1957/58. I have a note that he scored around 360 competitive goals (around 400 goals if friendlies are included). I think I took that from the Largs Thistle history and so I think it only refers to his 1952/53 to 1959/60 spell at Largs and it would be more if you add in goals from his earlier career.

Of the others I mentioned:

Bobby Carroll - he only played two Junior seasons at the start of his career when he joined Irvine Meadow from Campsie Black Watch and a third one at Meadow at the end of his career.

Alex Hair   he was reported to be Strathclyde’s youngest-ever signing at 14 years of age and did not go Senior until age 25. I have no record of his earlier goal scoring. I think he also played for Clydebank.

Tommy Duffy and Willie Gray – I have no other information on their careers.

[bluedragon]

1 hour ago, garrellburn said:

Baillieston was the junior club of one of the great characters in Scottish football in the 80's and 90's, Crawford Baptie.

He was one of my customers when he was serving his time as a mechanic with Arnold Clark at Tollcross. I had a tool sales franchise with Snap-On Tools in the East end of Glasgow at the time. I may write a book about it sometime!

I recall seeing Ryan Baptie, who has had  recent spells on loan to Linlithgow Rose and Broxburn Athletic from Peterhead, saying that he is always being asked if he is related to Crawford and the answer is "No". 

[8MileBU]

Tbf i absolutely admire you staying on the forum and trying your best to pretend Tony didn't happen. I will however make it my mission in life to remind you....

Never heard of you until about two posts ago but carry on. What a hero [emoji1]

By hero I mean VL.

[Sandgrownun]

2 hours ago, bluedragon said:

Well I think Davie Cook would be a strong contender for the most career goals in Junior football. Taking your point, he had a 14-year Junior career. He started with Kilmarnock Juniors (1946/47), Ardeer Recreation Juveniles (1947/48) and Dalry Thistle (1948/49) before his first spell at Largs Thistle (1949/50). He then had a season at Annbank United (1950/51) and one at Saltcoats Victoria (1951/52) before he returned to Largs where he stayed for the remainder of his career.

In those eight seasons (1952/53 to 1959/60) he was Largs Thistle’s leading goalscorer. He set the club record in 1954/55 (71 goals) and triggered an offer from Football League club Barrow (£8 per week and a job in his trade) but he turned it down. He then set a new record with 87 goals in 1957/58. I have a note that he scored around 360 competitive goals (around 400 goals if friendlies are included). I think I took that from the Largs Thistle history and so I think it only refers to his 1952/53 to 1959/60 spell at Largs and it would be more if you add in goals from his earlier career.

 

Quote

I would like to nominate the late Archie Bryce who played for Shotts Bon Accord from 1959 to 1972.

I once read an article in the Evening Times (a good while before the end of his career) which stated he had scored over 500 goals in the Junior game - the tenet of the piece was along the lines of 'How could a player with this goal-scoring talent not be given an opportunity in the Senior game?'. He actually missed a fair number of Shotts matches playing as a trialist for (then) Second Division teams but no one would take a chance as all he could do was score goals. And he was small for a centre forward. He didn't like high balls. So, if he didn't score in these trials, he wouldn't stick out at all. Luckily for the Bon Accord.

A while back I thought I might like to trace just how many Archie did manage to score for SBA and started my research by visiting various libraries throughout the West. I reached 440 goals (I think, the actual info is on a computer I don't have access to at the moment) before I was discouraged by spending whole days sitting in front of monitors, then emerging empty-handed after staring at hard to read copies of 50 year-old papers. There are dozens of matches in Archie's time at Shotts where I haven't managed to find any scorers at all and, given the fact Archie also played for Newarthill Hearts and Fauldhouse United, I suspect his grand total may be well in excess of the 500 quoted in the Evening Times.

A favourite story about Archie comes from Shotts fan, Cumbernauld Branch, who relates: 'The Times and the Citizen used to publish half-time reports of Junior matches in the Saturday editions. When the Bon Accord featured, the reporter just used to press a button which automatically printed the first sentence, 'Shotts opened the scoring through Bryce before (Des) Quigley netted the second.'

 

 

[bluedragon]

8 hours ago, Sandgrownun said:

 

 

A great nomination and I admire your dedication in searching through those old records. I found an update (1 August 2011) of your work on:

http://www.sba.teamexpert.co.uk/

This gives him 451 verifiable goals and potentially many more both at Bon Accord and at his two other clubs.  

For the benefit of others I have copied it below:

Archie Bryce played for Shotts Bon Accord from August 1959 to about June 1972. I'll list the number of goals he scored in each of those seasons, i.e. the number I have been able to verify from newspapers and various club records of the day. The first number in brackets is the number of games in which Shotts scored at least one goal that season and we do not yet know to whom they are attributable; the second number is the total number of goals where we do not the scorers. Yet.

1959/60 - 36 (1/2)

1960/61 - 29 (5/18)

1961/62 - 27 (15/43)

1962/63 - 50 (8/25)

1963/64 - 28 (9/23)

1964/65 - 28 (14/51)

1965/66 - 37 (3/9)

1966/67 - 49 (0/0)

1967/68 - 54 (4/14)

1968/69 - 45 (2/5)

1969/70 - 31 (11/30)

1970/71 - 13 (20/50)

1971/72 - 24 (1/2)

So, in 13 seasons Archie scored a verifiable 451 goals but I reckon there's still a lot more to be found, especially in 1961/62, 1964/65 and 1970/71, seasons during which the Wishaw Press didn't cover much of what the Bon Accord were getting up to at all. Wonder why?

[garrellburn]

Its quite extraordinary how teams like Largs and even Shotts had players who could score such a great number of goal;s and yet won comparitively little during these periods. I like the quote about Archie Bryce "all he could do was score goals". The same thing was often said about Alex Querrie during his playing career and I have many clippings from the reports in the Kilsyth Chronicle which say that he had a poor game, missing several open goals and contributed little to the game other than yet another hat trick. How hard was it to please some people in those days?

He did not have the length of time in the game as some of the others with much higher totals. He did have a short spell with Bo'ness in the early 50's but achieved nothing of note as far as I know. He then went to sea for a year or two with the merchant navy but returned to play for Forth Rangers in his home town of Grangemouth. He must have done quite well as he was selected to play for a Stirlingshire select team in the R S McColl trophy, a one off intercounty competition in 1953. He was spotted by Kilsyth officials and signed a few weeks into the 53-54 season. We had played four games by that time with four different players wearing the number 9 jersey, he scored on his debut, and the next five as well, the rest as they say is history. He had sixty goals in that season out of a team total of 190. His best seasons' total was 56-57 with 61 out of 186 team total. His number of hat tricks or better was 31 and he finished his career at the end of the 58-59 season in which he had only a lowly 28 goals. I believe he did play one game at the start of the following season for Forth Rangers (or it may have been Grangemouth United  by then) but realised that the magic was gone and thereafter bowls was his game.

He was very modest about his achievements, giving due credit to the very many fine players who surrounded him. There was an interview printed in 'Mud & Glory' the fairly shortlived junior magazine from a few years back which I think can be found on some of the junior websites

[bluedragon]

It is also surprising how these prolific, consistent and long-serving goal scorers were hardly recognised in the Junior game.

Davie Cook was only capped once (1958) for Junior Scotland and Alex Querrie & Archie Bryce were never capped so far as I know.

I know part of the reason is that Junior Scotland was selected by committee from representatives around Scotland and probably each delegate was pressing the case for “their man(men)”. So these goal scorers, rather than being one of the first names pencilled in on the team sheet, were subject to these behind-the-scenes discussions. In fact, in the early years the voting for the players for each position was often published in the newspapers. The venue of the match also had a bearing. For example, a match in the East would often see more players from that area selected to attract supporters.  Even taking all that into account, it is staggering that these three players have only one cap between them.

The committee also selected a Reserve XI and any call-off in the selected XI would be filled by the reserve for the same position. These three may have made the reserve team.

Kilsyth Rangers, Largs Thistle and Shotts Bon Accord were not being ignored by the selectors at this time and team mates were being selected.

Alex Querrie Kilsyth Rangers 1953 -1959) - team mates capped - Gordon (1951 – 2 caps), George Mulhall (1953 – 1 cap), Sievewright (1955-57 – 7 caps), Clinton (1955 – 1 cap), Mochan (1957 – 2 caps), Lowe (1958 – 3 caps), McLurg (1958 – 2 caps). There were only ever 2 Kilsyth players in the same Junior Scotland team.

Archie Bryce (Shotts Bon Accord 1959-1972) – team mates capped – Jimmy Wilson (1962 – 1 cap), Johnny McCulloch (1963 – 1 cap) and Des Quigley (1969 – 1 cap)

Davie Cook (Largs Thistle 1952/53 to 1959/60)  team mates capped - (Don McKerrral 1959-61 – 3 caps) and Andy McQuarrie (1961 – 1 cap)

Bobby Carroll was mentioned earlier and even a winger scoring 75 goals in a season could not get in the Junior Scotland team. However, he missed out to Jim Scott of Bo’ness United who went on to play for Hibernian, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace, Falkirk, Hamilton Academical and Scotland. A nice selection problem!

[garrellburn]

Interesting information about the caps achieved by these players, a couple of minor points though, several of Jummy Seivewrights caps were awarded when he played with Baillieston, there was a huge outcry from the Baillieston fans when he was transferred for what may have been a record fee between junior clubs at that time, Don't have a figure but it is believed to have been close to four figures. Donald McLure, not McLurg, we'll put it down as a typing error though. He was a very formidable defender who we had signed from juvenile side, Germiston Star. Along with Archie Roberson they had few equals as 'hard men' in junior football at a time when there were few shrinking violets. They played together at Forfar Athletic for a while and Donald also played for Albion Rovers. There is a famous story that he was playing for Stirling Albion in what was probably a trial match and Tam Fergusson, the Albion manager and supremo shouted something derogatory  about him. He jumped over the wall and made his displeasure known in a manner that ensured he was never going to be a Stirling Albion player. What truth there is in it I don't know , but having watched him play many times it is not hard to believe

[Jambo'ness]

8 hours ago, garrellburn said:

Its quite extraordinary how teams like Largs and even Shotts had players who could score such a great number of goal;s and yet won comparitively little during these periods. I like the quote about Archie Bryce "all he could do was score goals". The same thing was often said about Alex Querrie during his playing career and I have many clippings from the reports in the Kilsyth Chronicle which say that he had a poor game, missing several open goals and contributed little to the game other than yet another hat trick. How hard was it to please some people in those days?

He did not have the length of time in the game as some of the others with much higher totals. He did have a short spell with Bo'ness in the early 50's but achieved nothing of note as far as I know. He then went to sea for a year or two with the merchant navy but returned to play for Forth Rangers in his home town of Grangemouth. He must have done quite well as he was selected to play for a Stirlingshire select team in the R S McColl trophy, a one off intercounty competition in 1953. He was spotted by Kilsyth officials and signed a few weeks into the 53-54 season. We had played four games by that time with four different players wearing the number 9 jersey, he scored on his debut, and the next five as well, the rest as they say is history. He had sixty goals in that season out of a team total of 190. His best seasons' total was 56-57 with 61 out of 186 team total. His number of hat tricks or better was 31 and he finished his career at the end of the 58-59 season in which he had only a lowly 28 goals. I believe he did play one game at the start of the following season for Forth Rangers (or it may have been Grangemouth United  by then) but realised that the magic was gone and thereafter bowls was his game.

He was very modest about his achievements, giving due credit to the very many fine players who surrounded him. There was an interview printed in 'Mud & Glory' the fairly shortlived junior magazine from a few years back which I think can be found on some of the junior websites

Alex Querrie signed for Bo'ness United in November 1948, from Forth Rangers and made his debut in a Scottish Cup-tie against Lochgelly Albert.  It's reported that the crowd was around the 7000 mark and Querrie made a good impression on his debut, despite not scoring in a 5-1 win.  He also failed to score in his second game before going on an amazing run of 12 goals in the next 7 games.  By the season's end he had netted 24 in total, finishing as equal-top scorer in the side that won the Edinburgh and District League.  In July of 1949 he returned to Forth Rangers.

[bluedragon]

3 hours ago, garrellburn said:

Interesting information about the caps achieved by these players, a couple of minor points though, several of Jummy Seivewrights caps were awarded when he played with Baillieston, there was a huge outcry from the Baillieston fans when he was transferred for what may have been a record fee between junior clubs at that time, Don't have a figure but it is believed to have been close to four figures. Donald McLure, not McLurg, we'll put it down as a typing error though. He was a very formidable defender who we had signed from juvenile side, Germiston Star. Along with Archie Roberson they had few equals as 'hard men' in junior football at a time when there were few shrinking violets. They played together at Forfar Athletic for a while and Donald also played for Albion Rovers. There is a famous story that he was playing for Stirling Albion in what was probably a trial match and Tam Fergusson, the Albion manager and supremo shouted something derogatory  about him. He jumped over the wall and made his displeasure known in a manner that ensured he was never going to be a Stirling Albion player. What truth there is in it I don't know , but having watched him play many times it is not hard to believe

Thanks for spotting the error in the spelling of Donald McLure's name and I will correct it in the records where it said McLurg.

I have Jimmy Sievewright being capped twice while at Baillieston before his seven caps when he was at Kilsyth.

[bluedragon]

On 2017-6-26 at 19:22, dreggin said:

I remember a player called Davie Greer from Rothesay who played for the Meadow the year they got relegated maybe 1989 and scored a ridiculous number of goals but cant remember how many.

It sounds as if you might be remembering the 1998/99 season? Here is the information that the Meadow historian kindly provided:

"Davie Greer was with Meadow for three seasons; 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000. He scored just three in his first season, with his first goal coming in a 2-2 home league draw versus Muirkirk, on 7 February 1998. His second season was by far his most prolific with a total of 47 including six hat-tricks. This included five against Whitletts in an 11-0 drubbing on 23 January 1999. Meadow also beat Darvel 6-0 this season with Jimmy Noble scoring the first three and Davie Greer the second three. He scored 19 in his final season and this included his largest haul with a double hat-trick in an 11-2 victory over Saltcoats. He scored his last goal for Meadow on 4 March 2000 in a 6-0 victory against Largs Thistle. In all he scored 69 goals while at Meadow."

 

[dreggin]

That's the season I meant '99 I knew it was around the 50 mark he scored 47 wisnae bad . Thanks very much.