JINGLE BALLS

Want to find a match to attend on Xmas Day? Well, you’re in luck. If you’re in the Middle East that is. There are three league games scheduled in Israel and one in Saudi Arabia. Or if you’re fortunate enough to be spending the festive season in the Caribbean you could take in the solitary fixture being played in Jamaica. OK, strictly speaking that’s a Xmas Eve match but it kicks off at 1.35 in the morning of Xmas Day our time. That though is your lot. Most of the world sees a football shutdown.

(click to enlarge images)

It wasn’t always thus. For decades the English League played on both Xmas AND Boxing days. In Scotland the traditional holiday matches took place at New Year. But there was one exception. That was whenever Xmas Day fell on a Saturday. Then games carried on as normal. It was a Saturday, it was 3pm (or 1.30 or 2.00 for grounds with no lights). Therefore it was fitba’ time. Easy.

The last time Scottish football attempted this was in 1976 but the weather devastated the card with just three senior games surviving. The last occasion a FULL Scottish League fixture list was played on Xmas Day was in 1971.

It wasn’t easy for either fans or players. There were far fewer cars back then and public transport was non-existent. Yet somehow supporters overcame the difficulties involved. Over 100,000 turned up in 1971 to see the eighteen league games played, nine each in the two divisions that then existed.

With derbies scheduled for New Year and computerisation still years away not much care was paid to who played where. Hearts went to Parkhead while Rangers travelled to Easter Road. But whichever Raith Rovers fan compiled the lists back then must have really had it in for Queen of the South. What other possible explanation could there be for sending the Doonhamers to Arbroath on Xmas Day?

Why am I so certain the fixtures compiler was a denizen of Stark’s Park? Well, in those days there were 37 clubs in the Scottish League and every Saturday a club in the old Second Division got the day off. On Xmas Day 1971 the players and supporters of Raith Rovers were the lucky ones who got to have a Xmas dinner then put their feet up.

Junior clubs weren’t as keen as the seniors on festive fitba.’ There were just five games in the old Central League, two in Ayrshire and one West of Scotland Cup tie - though Muirkirk took the radical step of arranging their game with Maybole for Boxing Day in an era when Sunday football was virtually unheard of.

Some sights from back then are unimaginable today. Airdrie, Clyde and East Fife all played in the top flight. But the top of the table at Xmas 1971 was no different from many in more recent times. Celtic led from Aberdeen with Rangers, Hibs and Hearts chasing. As for your scribe, I can’t remember what I got that Xmas morning but there was surely no better present than watching the highest scoring match of the day as Kilmarnock beat Morton 4-2 at Rugby Park to take two precious points. Hard-fought rather than gift-wrapped but just as welcome nonetheless.

Don't let anyone try and fool you into thinking 1970s Xmas TV was some kind of long-lost Shangri-La either. Not unless the Black & White Minstrels, Billy Smart's Circus or Cilla Black as 'Aladdin' is your idea of visual Nirvana. And that was just the BBC. STV countered with Reg Varney, Mike & Bernie Winters and the homegrown Kelvin Hall Circus. All the Xmas movies had been screened before. It was left to Messrs Barker, Corbett, Morecambe and Wise to save the day entertainment-wise. 

Perhaps 'inspired' by the soporific fare offered on television, Kilmarnock FC kept the Killie Club open over the holiday weekend, culminating in a holiday Monday performance by 'Steak and Kidney' himself - Prestwick's answer to Glenn Campbell, the one-and-only Sydney Devine.

The BBC was a football-free zone and TV on all three (count them, THREE) channels closed around midnight. At least STV had the decency to screen a 'normal' Saturday night 'Scotsport' with Arthur Montford at 11.45 pm before sending everyone off to bed half an hour later with music from Arthur Blake and his Orchestra.

And on that note let me take this opportunity to wish a happy Xmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year to one and all.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

(Fourth verse of ‘For the Fallen,’ by Laurence Binyon, 1914)

Remembrance Sunday is a time when we honour all who have given their lives in war that we might live in peace but as we reach the centenary of the armistice that ended the First World War, thoughts inevitably turn to those lost in that horrendous conflict.

It’s well documented that many football players enlisted at the start of the war and many more were called up when conscription was introduced in 1916. At this particular time supporters throughout the land will be thinking of those lost who had connections with their clubs. I know I am. These are the fallen of Kilmarnock Football Club*.

ALEXANDER BARRIE 1878-1918

Born in Camlachie in Glasgow, Alex Barrie was a well-travelled centre-half. Starting out with Parkhead Juniors – where he was capped by Scotland at that level – he first entered league football with St Bernard’s before moving on to Sunderland, where he spent five seasons. One year with Rangers followed before he signed for Killie just before his thirtieth birthday.

Although at what was then considered the veteran stage of his career, Alex went on to give Killie four full seasons service, turning out 121 times in the league and a further six Scottish Cup ties. He wound down his playing days with Paisley club Abercorn.

Alex was a Corporal in the 2^nd Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry. Aged 40 and less than six weeks before the end of the war he was killed in action. He is buried at Flesquieres Hill British Cemetery, just outside the village of the same name, three miles south-west of Cambrai. The inscription on his grave reads “HE WAS A GALLANT CHIEL LOVE, ADMIRED BY ALL”

JAMES MAXWELL 1882-1917

Born in New Cumnock, he played for Juniors Kilmarnock Shawbank then Petershill before signing for Killie in 1904. An excellent right-winger, his talents were recognised by the Scottish League when he was selected to play against the Football League in 1907. Sheffield Wednesday came in for him almost immediately and he later signed for (Woolwich) Arsenal. He also turned out for Carlisle United and then senior but non-league Ayrshire clubs Hurlford, Galston and Lanemark.

He rejoined Killie for a few months in 1912-13 before moving on to Nithsdale Wanderers.

A Lance-Corporal in the 1^st Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders he was killed in action on April 21^st 1917, aged 35, in what was then known as Mesopotamia, now Iraq. There is no known grave but he is commemorated on the Basra Memorial.

He left behind a four-year-old son, also named James. Better known by his nickname ‘Bud,’ he grew up to play as a centre-forward most notably for Killie (seventh on the club’s all-time top scorers list, and like his father capped by the Scottish League) and Preston North End where he won an FA Cup winners’ medal. He served in the navy in the Second World War.

ALEXANDER McCURDIE 1895-1917

A young centre-forward who hailed from the Ayrshire mining village (never more than 100 dwellings) of Trabboch and joined Killie at the start of the 1914-15 season. He played eleven league games, scoring twice, and spent some time on loan at Stevenston United.

Alex was a Lance-Serjeant in the 14^th Battalion of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders when he was killed in action on April 24^th 1917, aged 22. He is buried in the Fifteen Ravine British Cemetery, near the village of Villers-Ploiuch, nine miles from Cambrai.

(Please note Mauchline is spelled incorrectly on the certificate)

DANIEL McKELLAR DOB unknown – 1918

Originally with Bellshill Athletic, he was a winger who arrived at Rugby Park from Ashfield at the outset of 1914-15. He missed just one league game that term, scoring once in his 37 appearances, before enlisting at the end of the season. He served as a Private in the 9^th Battalion of the HLI (the ‘Glasgow Highlanders’) and was killed in action in Belgium on April 13^th 1918, .

Sadly he has no known grave. He is one of almost 11,500 commemorated on the Ploegsteert (known to those who served as ‘Plug Street’) Memorial to the Missing near Ypres.

‘The Last Post’ is played at the memorial at 7pm on the first Friday of each month.

JOHN ROLLO DOB unknown – 1917

John, from Dreghorn, signed for Killie in the spring of 1914 but never made a competitive first team appearance. He was an Able Seaman in the Nelson Battalion of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve but saw active service on land as men not needed for naval service were rushed to the beleaguered front.

He was killed in action on the Somme Front on February 14^th 1917, aged 24 and is buried at the Varennes Military Cemetery. The inscription on his grave reads “UNTIL THE DAY DAWN SO SHALL WE EVER BE WITH THE LORD”

DAVID SLIMMON M M 1895-1917

Kilmarnock-born left-back who signed for Killie from Auchinleck Talbot two months before the outbreak of war. He played sixteen league matches in 1914-15 before enlisting in the Royal Engineers. He was a 2^nd Corporal in the 419^th (West Lancs) Field Company and won the Military Medal in 1916, awarded for “acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire.”

He was killed in action, on July 23^rd 1917, aged 21, and is buried in the Hop Store Cemetery, a little over three miles from Ypres. The inscription on his grave reads “YOUNGEST SON OF MR AND MRS JOHN SLIMMON, ASSLOSS, KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND”

As Richard Cairns and Gordon Allison point out in their book “The word ‘hero’ is too often used in describing the often mundane actions of footballers, but David Slimmon truly was one.”

CHARLES VICKERS 1891-1917

A left-winger from Hutchesontown in Glasgow, he was a Christmas Day signing from Kilsyth Emmett in 1913 and made his debut a month later. He played sixteen league matches over the course of the next year, scoring once, before joining Renton in September 1915.  He enlisted as a Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery.

He was killed in action on June 21^st 1917, aged 26, and is buried in the Lapugnoy Military Cemetery, five miles west of Béthune in the Pas-de-Calais. The inscription on his grave reads “SADLY MISSED R.I.P.”

BENJAMIN THOMSON 1913-1940

It would be remiss of me to omit Benny Thomson, the only Killie player to die in the Second World War. Although Saltcoats-born and signed from Kilwinning Rangers, he had spent much of his youth growing up in Canada.

A talented right-winger he also had a penchant for scoring, notching up 39 goals in 147 league matches. In the Scottish Cup his tally for a winger was sensational, twelve goals in thirteen outings, including eight in seven matches in 1937-38, including the opener in the Final replay v East Fife which Killie eventually lost 4-2 after extra time.

He joined the Merchant Navy at the outbreak of war and was serving on the armed merchantman S.S. Balmare, going down with the ship on November 12^th 1940. He was 27 years old.

Like those killed in the earlier conflict, Benny’s name appears on the commemorative plaque at Rugby Park.

There is an omission from that plaque. I don’t know why and I hope the club can rectify it.

JAMES ARMSTRONG 1887-1915

Inside-right who played just two league games for Kilmarnock in 1912-13 but scored in both matches. He was transferred to St Mirren in October 1913 and then to Girvan Athletic at the start of the fateful 1914-15 season.

He enlisted in the Cameron Highlanders and was serving in the 5^th Battalion when he was killed in action, aged 28, on October 10^th 1915 at the Battle of Loos. He is buried in the St Sever Cemetery, Rouen.

A few additional notes:

The 1917 club AGM was a sombre affair as the deaths of both Alex McCurdie and James Maxwell were reported to the meeting, one in France, the other in the Middle East but each within days of the other.

Both David Slimmon M M and James Maxwell are among the many listed on the Kilmarnock War Memorial. Many of those there, like Maxwell, served in the Seaforths which at first sight seems rather odd, as Ayrshire was prime recruitment territory for the Royal Scots Fusiliers who wore the more Lowland-friendly trews as opposed to the kilted Seaforths whose ranks were usually filled by volunteers from Ross and Cromarty and points north.

I came upon this while researching my first Killie book back in the 1990s and did some digging around. I found an item in the now defunct Kilmarnock Herald of  September 11^th 1914 that stated "It is a remarkable fact that the overwhelming majority of recruits in Kilmarnock have gone to the Seaforth Highlanders. The Seaforths will largely be a Kilmarnock Regiment".

I can only surmise this was an early example of the “Pals” Battalions, where men from the same area elected to join and fight together. 

I can’t close this piece without commenting that while Remembrance Sunday is a day on which we think of those who sacrificed their lives it is also an occasion when we should pay due respect as well to those who served and survived, those badly wounded, those who lost limbs, those disfigured, those shattered in body and those shattered in mind, and to those civilian men and women who also ‘did their bit’ in the parlance of the times.  In fact the National Service of Remembrance held at the Cenotaph is "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts"

It is a day when we too, the lucky ones who have never had to face what our parents, grandparents and - for the young - generations beyond that faced, who never had to endure what they endured, or suffer what they suffered, can ‘do our bit.’ Much was asked of them. Little is asked of us. Just that we take two minutes out of our day to reflect, to commemorate and to give thanks.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

* Biographical details from ‘Killie ‘Til I Die’ by Richard Cairns & Gordon Allison, commemorative certificates from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, words by David Ross.