The British League Cup 1902

To be the Champion of Britain was, as we have seen, the equivalent of being the Champion of the World. The domestic football of England and Scotland was without equal well into the 20th century.
From the 1870s onwards there were showdowns between English and Scottish clubs , both formal and informal, and then in 1902 a tournament called The British league Cup was played.
Unfortunately this was not the grand championship that it might have been. The tournament was set up by Glasgow Rangers as a fundraiser for victims of the Ibrox Disaster. The trophy Rangers donated was the £100 Exhibition Cup that they had won by beating Celtic at the Glasgow International Trade Fair the previous year. 

The four teams that took part in the British League Cup were the League Champions and runners up from the recently ended domestic season in England and Scotland, namely Sunderland, Everton, Glasgow Rangers and Celtic.

The Football League Div. 1 1901-02
		P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1	Sunderland	34	19	6	9	50	35	44
2	Everton	34	17	7	10	53	35	41

The Scottish Football League Div. 1  1901-02
		P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1	Glasgow Rangers	18	13	2	3	43	29	28
2	Celtic	18	11	4	3	38	28	26

30.04.02- Celtic 5 Sunderland 1
Played at Ibrox, attendance 4,000

Celtic	Sunderland
Edmond	E. Doig
Watson	Annan
Battles	Watson
Loney	Ferguson
Marshall	McAllister
Orr	Jackson
Livingston	W.Hogg
McDermott	R.Hogg
Campbell	Miller
McMahon	Gemmell
Quinn	McLatchie

Billy Hogg was the only Englishman in the Sunderland team. Both sides were considered to be below full strength and receipts of £100 were taken. 

01.05.02- Everton 1 Glasgow Rangers 1.
Played at Goodison*, attendance 8,000.

Everton	Glasgow Rangers
G Kitchen	M Dickie
G Eccles	N Smith
J Watson	J Drummond
S Wolstenholme	N Gibson
J Blythe	B Neil
W Abbott	J Stark
J Taylor	J Graham
J Brearley	J Robertson
A Young	R Hamilton
J Bell	J Miller
T Dilly	A Smith

20 minutes of extra time was played.

03.05.02-  Glasgow Rangers 3 Everton 2
The replay was held at Celtic Park. Four of the Rangers players from the first match were absent, as they were playing in the international at Villa park that day (this was the 'replay' of the Ibrox game at which the tragedy occurred) the players were Nicol Smith, Drummond, Robertson and Alex Smith. Everton's Jimmy Settle appeared for England.


17.06.02- Celtic 3 Glasgow Rangers 2
The final was played at Cathkin park on 17.06.02- This was the day of The Coronation of King Edward VII.  A crowd of 12,000 turned out. The takings were reported as being '£265 at the gate and £49 at the stands'- the total raised by the 4 matches was £900.

Celtic		Glasgow Rangers
McPherson	GK	Dickie
Watson	FB	N.Smith
Battles	FB	Crawford
Loney	HB	Gibson
Marshall	HB	Stark
Orr	HB	Robertson
Crawford	F	Lennie
Campbell	F	Walker
Quinn	F	Hamilton
McDermott	F	Speedie
Hamilton	F	A.Smith

Jimmy Quinn

Celtic's Jimmy Quinn scored 3 goals in the final. 

*Some sources state that this match was played at Celtic Park- a report in The Edinburgh Evening News (02.05.02) makes it clear that this was not the case.

05.04.02

Full House- the game in progress

In July 1902 Alexander McDougall, a building contractor and timber merchant of Partick, appeared at Glasgow Circuit Court charged with Culpable Homicide.
In 1899  Glasgow Rangers had decided to invest £12,000 on ground improvements at Ibrox (the eventual cost was £20,000).  McDougall had submitted an estimate of £5280 to construct timber terraces in the ground. The charges were based on the assertion that McDougall had used inferior pine in the construction and had not built the beams and joists in the requisite manner. After a 2 day trial a unanimous verdict of not guilty was delivered.
This, of course, was a postscript to the Ibrox Disaster. The collapse of the terracing during the Scotland v England match on 05.04.02 had led to the deaths of 25 spectators and more than 500 people had been injured.

Remarkably, reports of the abandoned match appeared in the press. The opening line of the account below beggars belief. 

Incidentally- this was the first occasion on which both nations had fielded exclusively professional teams.
In the first half of the match Scotland were attacking the western end of the ground at which the accident occurred. There are conflicting accounts of the incident. It would appear that the terrace collapsed after about 15 minutes play, and that play was suspended for about 20 minutes before the decision was made to play on.
Officially the match is recorded as abandoned and does not count towards the official records of the Football Association of the Scottish FA.