Scottish Football Reminiscences and SketchesBone, David Drummond
History
Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches
Bone, David Drummond
Football
Mr. Wotherspoon was early associated with the Queen's Park; indeed, one
of the original members, and did much in his day for football. When the
senior club found it a matter of difficulty to get up an eleven to play
in the country, some times at East Kilbride (for you must know that
important agricultural centre had a club nearly twenty years ago),
Alexandria, and Hamilton, Wotherspoon and Gardner were generally the
first volunteers. There were no fares paid in those primitive days out
of club funds, and each individual had to square up his own account,
like the Scottish cricketer of the present. Although retired now for a
number of years, and out of the run of the game, Wotherspoon, who is in
business in the city, is always delighted to hear of its development,
and proud of what he did in his youth for it. If ever a man had neatness
of style, combined with gentlemanly conduct to an opponent on the field,
it was Wotherspoon. Considering the fact that he was a light-weight,
under 10st., he many a time astonished both opponents and spectators by
his magnificent returns at half-back, and I may mention, in passing,
that in a match at Hampden Park I actually saw him kick a ball from the
centre of the field right through the goal--a feat that very few of our
younger half-backs could accomplish now. As I saw him in two
Internationals (1872-73), however, it was not as a half-back, but as an
accomplished forward, dribbling with great judgment, and passing in a
most unselfish way. Mr. Wotherspoon left the Queen's Park to join the
Clydesdale a short time after his old companion Gardner, and the two
were associated with that club when it numbered among its members such
fine players as Messrs. F. Anderson, G. M. Wilson, J. R. Wilson, W.
Wilson, J. P. Tennent, J. M'Pherson, W. Gibb, J. T. Richmond, and
David's brother, J. Wotherspoon. In the first of the long string of
matches which have been played between Sheffield and Glasgow, dating
back to 1874, Mr. Wotherspoon was one of the players; and it may be
mentioned that, in the same contest, the Glasgow representatives were
made up entirely of Queen's Park and Clydesdale men, and that each city
scored a couple of goals.
~James J. Thomson.~
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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