He made his Southport début a week short of his 35th birthday, having appeared in over 150 Scottish League matches. United paid Cowdenbeath a four-figure fee, but he had the misfortune to fracture his left leg at Old Trafford on Easter Saturday 1934 after taking over the centre-half berth from Ernie Vincent and did not appear again in United’s League side. Strong in defence and a wholehearted player, he was essentially more an attacking pivot than a specialist defender — perhaps a luxury playing alongside two attacking wing-halves like Crawford and Newcomb. During the war, he worked as a labourer for Babcock & Wilcox at Renfrew and continued right up to his retirement. He had played no football at all until he was 16, by which time he had been working down the pit for three years. He was still active playing golf into his eighties. He only missed two penalties in his career — the second was on his Southport début.

Profile reproduced with Permission from:
The Sandgrounders: The Complete League History of Southport F. C., by Michael Braham and Geoff Wilde (Palatine Books, 1995). ISBN 978-1-874181-14-9