Showing posts with label Glenbuck Cherrypickers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glenbuck Cherrypickers. Show all posts
21.8.15
Sandy Tait
Sandy Tait began his football career in his home village, with Glenbuck Athletic. Having played in the Scottish League for Glasgow Rangers and Motherwell, full-back Tait joined Preston North End in 1894. Tait played 76 first team games for Preston in 5 seasons.
He then moved to Tottenham Hotspur. In 8 seasons at Spurs Tait played a total of 322 first team games (207 in the Southern League, 79 in the Western League and 36 in the FA Cup).
In 1899-1900 Tottenham won the Southern League and in 1901 the FA Cup.
Tait's robust tackling earned him the nickname Terrible Tait, but he was fair- never being cautioned or dismissed in his career.
21.6.14
Glenbuck Cherrypickers
The village of Glenbuck in the Ayrshire coalfield had a football team. Nothing unusual there-except that the club, representing a village with 1,200 inhabitants, produced somewhere in the region of 50 players who made the grade in senior football, including 30 who played league football in England and one for Fall River (USA).
The club was formed in the late 1870's and was originally called Glenbuck Athletic.
It was at the end of the 19th century that the name Cherrypickers was adopted (following a prankish reference to an army regiment known as the Cherrypickers.
The Cherrypickers produced a number of Scottish internationals;
William Muir (1907); Alec Brown (1902 -04); George Halley (1910); John Crosbie (1920 -22); Bob Shankly (1938).
Sandy Tait, FA Cup winner with Tottenham Hotspur was also a former Glenbuck player.
The history includes Bill Shankly as a Cherrypicker, but David P Worthington (1997) writes:
Bill Shankly was never destined to join the illustrious band of Cherrypicker alumni. The first year he would have been able to play for them, 1930/1, he was not considered good enough. This was no disgrace as they once again captured the Ayrshire Junior Challenge Cup. However, this victory was to be their last, the final pit had closed and the Cherrypickers disbanded as the men were forced to seek work in other areas. When the next season began, Shankly had no club to play for and was forced to begin his career playing right half for Cronberry Eglinton. Cronberry were a decent local side but this was merely a stepping-stone for the eighteen-year-old Bill Shankly for whom greater things waited around the corner.
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