A Good New Year

As the countdown begins to the New Year, here's a Bens team picture from the Evening Times of 3 January 1953. It was published the day after Benburb defeated Boness United at Tinto Park in the 4th Round of the Scottish Junior Cup in front of approximately 20000 fans.

The picture shows:

Back Row- Hay, Lumsden, Forsyth, McKechnie, Crossan & Ford

Front Row- Rae, Maxwell, Brown, Smith and Fitzsimmons

All but Maxwell and Brown played in the Boness game.

A happy new year indeed.

Benburb Heroes No.2- Alex Forsyth

Or should that be No.1? For when the history of Benburb goalkeepers is written, the Number 1 will undoubtedly be Alex Forsyth.
When the Bens vice president Harry Lightfoot was asked in a small article, recalling his own 30 years service with the Bens, of 'the best players he had seen wearing the Benburb colours', he replied 'Ted Swift, Alex Forsyth (the present goalkeeper), John McFetridge and Alex Mathieson.'
This was in the Evening Times of 14 February 1953. Whether Alex had the chance to read it that Saturday evening is not known as he had a busy afternoon facing Ashfield, including one Tommy Douglas, at Saracen in the 5th Round of the Scottish Cup in front of a 20000 crowd.
This was unlikely to have fazed Alex who had seen most things in his Bens career which spanned three decades.
Born at the end of World War 1, Alex signed for the Bens in 1938. He had arrived at Tinto Park after spells with Glencairn and Camelon Juniors where performances had brought him to the attention of Rangers. Two trial games for the Ibrox club preceded his arrival at Bens but when a move to the Seniors didn't materialise he had no hesitation in committing himself to the Benburb cause.
And what a commitment it was for over 17 seasons.
He was called up in the war alongside a 'team' of Bens players, but on his return Bens began to see his enthusiasm and influence as he made the goalkeeper's jersey his own. Enthusiasm for the Bens spread through the Forsyth clan as Alex's son Alistair recalled, in e-mails to the Bens website, of his times as a youngster behind the Bens goal chatting to his dad and then being recruited to the pie stall as a safer distraction for the good of the Bens!
Chatting behind the goal was something that Alex was not averse to when it aided the Bens as Bens goalkeeper Stewart Mitchell who joined Newcastle United knew only too well. He had a nervy debut in the Tinto goal but Alex made his way round the terracing and wisely talked the youngster through the remaining minutes. Mitchell only had words of praise for his mentor on his promotion to St James' Park as did other young Tinto keepers over the years.
The early fifties was the era of massive crowds at Tinto Park and Alex Forsyth was a firm favourite with the faithful so it was a popular move when he was made Assistant Trainer of Benburb in 1955. The news in the Evening Times speculated Alex would have no problems in treating injuries as he had overcome broken wrists, cracked ribs and other ailments in his seventeen years as a Benburb record breaker.
It was with great sadness the club learned of the passing of a true Benburb great when Alex's son Alistair informed the club that his father had passed away on 16th January 2009 at the age of 90 years.

JUST SUPER, BENBURB

This was the headline in the Evening Times 20 years ago on May 28 1990. The article goes on to explain the amazing feat of the Benburb side of 1989-90.
'First Division champs Benburb also turned on the style last night.
Their hopes of going through 26 league matches unbeaten looked gone when they went in 2-0 down against Kilsyth at half-time in their game at Tinto Park.
But the Bens stormed back with goals from Malky McDonald(2), Eddie McKim, Phil Carvill and Craig Berry to win 5-2.
The Bens' great run was made up of 20 wins and six draws. They scored 64 goals and lost only 18.
Their next game is a home quarter final in the Erskine Charity Cup against Shettleston on Monday.'

Lights In The North

Frank Dunlop and George Johnstone who featured in the Bens 1936 Scottish Cup win over Yoker before signing for Aberdeen. Both would return to Hampden in 1937 to face Celtic in the 1937 Scottish Cup Final in front of 137000 fans.

Defender Dunlop would go on to captain Aberdeen and went into the history books when he led them to victory in the Southern League Cup in 1946 and the Scottish Cup a year later. He played 185 times for Aberdeen and left Pittodrie in 1948, emigrating to South Africa.

Goalkeeper Johnstone, who had featured in one of Junior football's most famous photographs clutching a giant Good Luck Bens horseshoe prior to the Scottish final, went on to make 220 appearances for Aberdeen. A favourite keeper of the Aberdeen support he appeared in the two Scottish Cup finals and the League Cup win. He moved on to Dunfermline in 1949 and then Raith Rovers.

The pictures and information were taken from www.afcheritage.org with thanks.

Happiness Is Afar from Hamlet

Bens fans will readily admit that Tinto Park has seen much better days and an improved stadium would top most supporters Christmas wishlist. Well maybe joint top with successive promotions up the divisions!

But the unique timewarp of the Bens' ground is of interest to many a football fan who is not looking for the 5 star comforts match experience.

It's of particular interest to supporters of the London side Dulwich Hamlet, especially those who can remember their original Champion Hill stadium. The design of the covered enclosure along the touchline at one side is shared by both venues and the Tinto structure brings back a lot of memories for the Champion Hill regulars.

For more information on this unique club Dulwich Hamlet-'the most famous amateur side in the country'- and their link to Tinto Park you can't go wrong by having a look at http://thehamlethistorian.blogspot.com/ and http://hoppysnaps.blogspot.com/ . The latter has a feature on Tinto Park and other Scottish Junior grounds. The above photo is from the Hamlet Historian site showing a match at Champion Hill against a Chinese Navy side with the enclosure in the background.

Reid All About It

Govan is famous for the Clyde, shipbuilding and football. I almost said the Bens there but seemingly there are another couple of football clubs who could lay claim to the same geographical home. The following is an article by the late Jimmy Reid who manages to combine all three of the claims to fame in a piece published on the morning of the opening game of the 1998 World Cup in France (10 June 1998) and the Scotland v Brazil match. In it he remembers a visit to Tinto Park. Maybe a big wummin wi' a handbag could be the answer to the refereeing crisis in Scotland. Again this was taken from the archive of The Herald at http://www.heraldscotland.com/ .

'One of my earliest recollections is of being taken to a football match by my mother. There was no admission fee. No fences to keep you out. No dressing rooms or clubhouse. Just a marked-off pitch ringed by spectators, including many women like my mum, supporting their local team. One of the players for our team was a family friend called Martin. I think he fancied one of my sisters or she fancied him. Something like that. Martin was a good looking guy, built like a tank, and when he tackled his opponents, they seemed to fall over. Why this should be was a matter of dispute between the women and the referee. At the start they were on first-name terms with the ref. As the game progressed this was dropped. ''Hey, Thomson,'' they would roar, ''that wis never a foul,'' as another opponent fell to a perfectly good tackle from Martin. Thomson would reply in kind. He gave as his considered opinion that the women might be better deployed washing the clatty stairs and closes up which he presumed they lived. Dialogue was an ongoing phenomenon. When our boys clattered into an opponent it was clearly ''a ferr shoulder charge''. If the other side did the same it was a diabolical act of aggression. Despite everything, real skills were on display. Players who could take on men, jouk past them like sprites, and create scoring chances for their mates. I remember one called Sparra Hope (sparrow if you're from Edinburgh). Sparra went on to play for Clyde. Later Dad took me to see the Juniors. Many of the players looked ancient, and still do, though I'm getting a bit ancient myself, but then I don't call myself a junior. I remember going to a game at Tinto Park, Benburb's home ground, with my pal. Standing beside us was a lady built like Hyacinth Bucket from the television sitcom. She proudly told us her son had just signed for the visitors. Despite her imposing physique she seemed a gentle, motherly sort. Halfway through the second half her son was tackled from behind. In fact he was kicked up the behind. I swear his feet left the ground before gravity got a grip of things and brought him down to earth with a resounding thud. The matronly lady was off like a cheetah in pursuit of prey. She surmounted the perimeter fence like a gazelle, ran to the culprit who could have been the model for the original drawing of Desperate Dan, swung her large handbag that must have been full of bricks, and smashed him in the moosh. He dropped as if poleaxed. The ref tried to intervene and she hit him a glancing blow that sent him birlin like a peary, before he crumpled in slow motion. Her son by this time had made a remarkable recovery and beseeched her to leave the field of play before she pruned the ranks any further. Apart from that he added: ''Hiv ye no' gied me a big enough riddy?'' The lady left the the stadium with dignity. Nobody stopped her. She still had the handbag. When the game resumed nobody tackled her son. We lived near Ibrox Park. My mother let me go to the reserve games, but not to the big games. In Rangers' 2nd XI at that time was Willie Woodburn. The best centre-half I've ever seen. He was unique at the time. A ball-playing central defender. He had a problem. He thought it was against God's expressed wishes that Rangers should ever be beaten. When they were in any danger Willie became the Almighty's avenging sword. He handed out chastisement with such zeal the refs took a dim view. He was suspended sine die, a punishment that now seems unbelievable in its severity. In the last 20 minutes of any game the gates were opened to let people out and we could get in for nothing. Afterwards, when the crowd had dispersed, my pal and I would collect empty beer bottles and humph them down to a garage in Copeland Road that paid a penny for each bottle. During those 20 minutes I saw glimpses of great players. Tommy Walker. Billy Steel. Torry Gillick. When I started work at 14 I could pay my way in. I remember players such as Bobby Mitchell and Jimmy Mason of Third Lanark. Charlie Tully of Celtic. Jummy Watson of Motherwell, whom nobody but me seems to remember. I remember starting my engineering apprenticeship for it coincided with my first glimpse of the great Hibs forward line of Smith, Johnston, Reilly, Turnbull, and Ormond. At each stage of my life there is a footballing corollary.
The day I went to do my National Service was the day Hungary trounced England at Wembley. I watched it in a pub in Bedford. When I moved to London the Spurs team of Blanchflower, McKay, Greaves, etc, was coming to fruition. I saw the young George Best. The Brazilian and Dutch masters. The artistry of Pele, Maradona, Puskas, Cruyf, Di Stefano, and a host of others. I was back in Scotland to see Jock Stein's great Celtic team; for two years the best club team in Europe and, arguably, the world. My Dad took me to Hampden to see the Victory International against the Auld Enemy shortly after the last war. I was just a kid. Scotland won 1-0. The sheer unalloyed joy as the final whistle blew was untainted by the sectarian divisions that so marred club games in Scotland. Henceforth my team was Scotland United. I went to Wembley. In so far as my budget allowed, I've supported Scotland on forays abroad. Yet this year I won't be in France with the Tartan Army. The game is now so commercially hyped that the real fans are being squeezed out. Incredible sums will be made. Fans are officially getting 8% of the tickets. Corporate entertainment 20%. God knows were the other 72% have gone. Clearly many have gone to ticket-tout organisations. Fans are thus forced to pay way over the top. The number of tickets involved in this scam is so large that it could only happen with the connivance of the organisers. Professional football had to become more business-like. Stadiums had to be developed, and not just for safety. The facilities had to be brought into line with people's modern expectations. The refinement of skills in a relatively short career and the dedication this requires, had to be rewarded with salaries that could set a young man up for life. But what has happened is a disgrace. The people's game is being taken from the people. Football is historically a social and cultural phenomenon. You can't apply the mores, appropriate to the production of margarine for profit, to the running of a football club. Punters who don't like a brand of marge will switch to another. Try telling Hibs fans that they could do the same. If that link is ever severed, football is in serious trouble. The Scottish Premier League next season will play 30-odd games on a Sunday night at 6.05pm, at the behest of Sky Television. Saturday afternoon football is an integral part of our culture. Sunday nights are for winding down for the sobering reality of Monday. If football in the US takes off in a big way, TV might want a 2am kick-off. If attendances drop, so what? They could dispense with spectators and replace them with cardboard cut-outs and canned sound-tracks. The deregulated football market is now a jungle. Some players' salaries are incredible. Punters are being unscrupulously squeezed for more money to fund these salaries. Each year more good players will be thrown on the scrap heap to help pay the salaries of a few. With such expenditure continuous success becomes a necessity. Indigenous talent is left undeveloped as our big clubs get out the cheque book and sign another transnational mercenary. Next year the need for success will be even greater. Someday the punters, increasingly marginalised, will pack it in. I'm already getting pissed off with the massive media overkill surrounding this World Cup. Much of it is cringe-inducing. Football might still be the beautiful game, but the trappings are increasingly tatty and ugly.'

First Stop Tinto Park

John 'Eric' Smith made his way to Celtic Park earlier in the Fifties. He signed for Celtic in 1953 and played for the Parkhead club until 1960 when Don Revie tempted him south to join a struggling Leeds United side.

Born in 1934, when the Bens were at their peak, he was a highly rated junior with a will to win. His ability to get stuck into the fray made him a popular name on the teamsheet whether at Tinto, Parkhead or Elland Road. A player who relished the physical challenge, his career at Leeds was ended in 1962 when he suffered a double leg break in a home game to Chelsea. He moved on to Morton in 1964 spending a couple of seasons there, and later managed the Cappielow side and Hamilton Accies in the 1970s.

Eric also coached football abroad and died in Dubai in 1991.

Thanks to http://www.thecelticwiki.com/ for information and picture.

Hark The Herald ...

The following article by Jack McLean was published in the Glasgow Herald of 24 December 1990 and records a trip he made to Tinto Park with Pollok entitled-Wrong climate all round for the Juniors. Even two fans had to turn out for the once big Bens side- in which the Bens defence appear to be a bit too generous with their gifts that year. The article was taken from the Herald archive on http://www.heraldscotland.com/ which allows you to view articles back to 1989 online.




'THE junior game was once a major force in football. It was a long time ago.
There was a time when you looked up the histories of the great players and discovered that they had started with famous junior teams. That was long ago.
Today the big clubs -- and even the wee ones -- collect their talents from boys' clubs. In many ways this system has not done the Scottish scene that much good.
The junior game used to be a sort of apprenticeship. Now it is largely a graveyard for failed players, and for some young chaps too. The junior boys have not profited from this tendency. Neither has football. That's today's sermon over.
Notwithstanding the above, there is a commitment to playing football at junior level which many a more in the senior game would challenge.
On Saturday there was a dreary, hard-grafting match at Ibrox betwixt Rangers and Aberdeen. It was a day of such bad weather you could hardly expect anything else. Not for the first time have I wondered why we play our national game in such conditions, and there have been those of us who always have believed that the Beautiful Game should be a summer sport. Certainly, the grim climactic conditions in which the fans expect Scottish football to operate cannot meet those requirements. The afficianados of junior football have few expectations, but one of them is grim weather.
Grim it was at Tinto Park, only minutes away from Ibrox where the premier-division leaders were battling it out. Benburb were as grim as the weather.
It could not ever have been easy for the Craigton side, for their season so far has not looked hopeful and they were playing against a Pollok side which has been so far unbeaten. Pollok, of course, are the big junior team and Benburb cannot match its support. Even then, it could not have helped that the Bens had to field five trialists against the club from Newlandsfield.
Suspensions and illness meant a team from Benburb which included a couple of lads who had gone to watch the match, and were commandeered on to the pitch.
And it showed. Four goals in the first half from a Pollok team which is experienced, as well as being well fuelled by the confidence and curious elegance of centre back Steff Barclay, put the Bens in their place. It was not helped by first-time trialist John Joyce having to go off after ten minutes with a broken nose, the result of an unfortunate collision for which the Pollok player can take no blame.
By half time, Pollok deserved their four-goal lead, Crichton scoring a hat trick, with O'Brien scoring the first, and I thought, rather a lucky goal.
Half-time in the social club saw the Bens' fans in good humour still. Had the other blue-shirted team just down the road found themselves four down at that point, there would have been mayhem. At Benburb, the lads took it philosophically.
Mind you they took it with a wee dram or two which is more than you can get at Ibrox. The stoicism of the supporters would put those of most senior clubs to shame. Not only that, they have a sensible attitude of ''well, it's only a game.'' And so it is.
There were few fans present, which is hardly surprising considering that the rain was teeming down, but all enjoyed the encounter. In the second half Pollok scored their fifth goal through substitute McGall, with Benburb taking a consolation score from Dailly, who had played well throughout the game, despite an appalling piece of petulance committed against Pollok keeper Cassidy: Mr Dailly will know what I mean by this recondite reference and damned lucky he was to be kept on the field.
But what makes these people, from players to officials to supporters, turn out to watch the little game in conditions in which Stalingrad would have surrendered? I spoke to the fans after the game in the rather dark public bar of the Benburb club. Some of them go to the juniors when the senior club of their choice is playing away; some have always supported their local teams; some have pals playing; but one thing is certain. It is a different class of idiot who supports junior football. Different from the Celts and Gers idiots. The junior followers are civilised idiots and it is a decent support who were pleasant to each other and to me. Or near enough.
Sadly, after talking to so many splendid chaps, and having had a good crack to go with it, I found myself trying to obtain a lift from the Pollok team bus going back to the South-side. I was drookit, tired, and suffering from the sort of uncommon cold you get at this time of year. Also, I had the certain knowledge that a taxi was impossible, and the bus a mile away. It is not like the junior game, but the bus churlishly refused to be a good Samiritan.
I spoke to the club later, and they were more than apologetic, but that doesn't help my sniffles this morning or my sense of aggrievement. If I had won a game so well, I'd have given a lift to Graeme Souness, or at least Saddam Hussein.
Ach, well, as they say in football -- happy Christmas.'

A Gift From Tinto Park

Like all Junior clubs, the Bens are proud of the players they developed and moved on to Senior clubs. The successful sides of the 1930s saw a notable exodus of Johnstone, Dunlop and Devers to Aberdeen. Tiger Shaw and Ronnie Mackinnon ended up at Ibrox although in Ronnie's case the Bens can't claim a lot of credit, moving him on to Dunipace who provided the stepping stone.

The Bens have also furnished Celtic with some new talent over the years.

The previous Benburb club (see Early History) provided many players for Celtic in the 1890s- the beginning of that decade they were at the peak of the Junior game while Celtic were in their infancy.

Of the Benburb club of today, one of those who made the step up to Parkhead in the 1950s was Mike Jackson.

Born in 1939, he signed for Celtic in 1957 from the Bens but could've become a Busby Babe when he spent two weeks on trial at Man United. Homesick Mike was invited back to Scotland by a telegram from Celtic asking him to play in a match with Dunfermline and he jumped at the chance signing after the game.

He made his debut after Celtic's demolition of Rangers in the League Cup of 1957 and went on to play 74 times for Celtic, scoring 30 goals before moving to St Johnstone in 1963. He was frustrated at his lack of first team action in what was a barren spell for the Parkhead club in the pre-Stein era.

He went on to play for Third Lanark, Drumcondra, Athlone Town, Clyde, Morton, Queen of the South, Clydebank, Hamilton Accies and Benburb again before retiring at the age of 41.

He returned again to Tinto Park for a short spell in a coaching role in 1974.

*the image and information was taken from www.thecelticwiki.com which provides a comprehensive coverage on all things Celtic.

Happy Xmas, Snow Is Over?

As Bens go into the Christmas week without kicking a ball in December, I thought the perfect gift would be some articles from when the sun shone metaphorically on Tinto Park.
The match programme this year has included some articles from the Govan Press of 1980 when the Bens last featured in a Scottish Junior Cup Final. The following was a pre-match visit to Hampden Park by team manager Tommy Douglas and Tommy Dearie, the matchwinner when Bens last won the Scottish Cup in 1936. The accompanying photograph shows them in the Hampden goalmouth holding aloft a Bens no. 11 shirt with the uncovered terraces behind.

'Ants reject ... Bens hero

Nostalgia goes hand in hand with Hampden Park and when Govan man Tommy Dearie stepped on to the hallowed turf recently it was an occasion for the memories to come flooding back.
For Tommy was the man who scored the goal that brought the 1936 Scottish Junior Cup to Tinto Park in the replay against Yoker Athletic.
After drawing the first game 1-1, Tommy's goal was enough to take the Cup to Govan.
However, on this return visit to Hampden, there was no crowd, no noise and there weren't even nets on the famous goals. But nevertheless it was a proud Tommy as he showed Benburb's team boss, Tommy Douglas, the very spot where he scored his winner 44 years ago.
"I remember it all very clearly" said Tommy. "There was a bit of a goalmouth scramble and I got a foot to the ball and prodded it into the net."
Tommy was wearing the number 11 jersey that day and by coincidence Bens boss Tommy Douglas wore the shirt in his playing days at Tinto Park.
The football writers of that time predicted "Dearie will be the man Yoker will have to watch." Unfortunately for the Holm Park side, they let Tommy prove his press was right.
St Anthony's unwittingly played a big part in Bens'1936 Cup win, without realising it at the time.
It was the Moore Park club which discarded Tommy and he switched his allegiance to Govan's other Junior side.
It was just a year after the Cup Final that Tommy was selected to play in a trial for the national Junior side and his instructions were: "If you want to play a trial for Scotland, bring your boots, white knickers, towel and hose."
The match was held at Council Park, Campbeltown, and Tommy had to meet the bus in the centre of Glasgow at 7.30 in the morning. Kick-off was at 3.30 and poor Tommy didn't get home until 7pm the following evening!
Forty years later, Bens will still be pinning their hopes on the no.11 jersey.
This time it's Eddie McKim, the most prolific scorer in the Junior game, who Bens will be looking for to put the ball in the net.
And no one will jump for joy like Tommy Dearie, who will be the Bens' guest at Hampden, if the number 11 jersey again helps to bring the Scottish Junior Cup back to Govan.'