BwB’s Canadian corres-pondent Rob Boag has been gathering info on Iain Birnie’s grandad William Birnie, who featured in BwB on January 17.
“William was honoured with a Scottish Junior international cap while playing for Arklay Works, who played in the Dundee Welfare League,” said Rob.
“The Welfare League entered its teams to play in the Scottish Junior Cup and this is how their players were noticed.
“The 1931 Scottish Junior team that William represented at left-half played against an England select team from the Birmingham Counties League.
“A fixture like this was not unusual at that time. The game was played at Villa Park and England won 5-2.
“Iain Birnie’s article on his grandfather’s Scottish cap had me looking back into SJFA history.
“The year 1931 was the last year of the SJFA/SIJFA split.
“This divisive action began in 1926 between the SJFA and the SFA, and it was over poaching of Junior players by senior Scottish and English clubs, with little or no compensation to the Juniors.
“The clubs who broke away in protest from the SJFA were from the west coast mainly from the Glasgow area in 1926.
Over 60 teams formed a separate league called the Scottish Intermediate Junior Football Association.
“The SJFA immediately ostracised them, labelling them rebels, and refused the teams entry into the Scottish Junior Cup competition.
‘Divisive action began in 1926’
“They also banned players from the Intermediate League to be selected for Scotland Junior Internationals.
“It was a bitter and acrimonious divorce.
“The compensation issue with rules and regulations on poaching players was resolved in 1931 and, in the 1932-33 season, all Junior clubs were one happy family under the roof of the SJFA.
“Charlie Walker made reference to this split when he wrote about the lack of west coast competition in Dundee Violet’s journey to their Scottish Junior Cup victory in 1929.”
*Ian Traill, who I originally revealed is working as a missionary in China but still gets his weekly fix of BwB managed to get more information about the photos featured on March 12.
“I have attached a view of the front and back of the photo featured in BwB,” he said.
“It mentions a five-year period, which gives it a possible date of around 1937.
“Thanks for getting it out there.”
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