Tom Maley, the son of a soldier by the same name, was born in Portsmouth in 1864 and is thus four years older than Willie. He became a great athlete and footballer once the family moved to Scotland, and had already played a few games for Partick Thistle, Third Lanark and Hibernian before that famous night in December 1887, when the two members of the nascent Celtic club came to ask for his services. He had trained as a teacher and would one day become Headmaster of Slateford Industrial Schools in Glasgow and St Mary’s, Calton.
Both Maley boys played in the inaugural Celtic game on Monday, 28 May 1888, Willie at right-half and Tom at inside-right. Reports of this game are not always clear or precise, but it seems that Tom scored a hat-trick that day. He was also reported as having been one of the entertainers at the post-match social soiree at St Mary’s Hall, East Rose Street. It is clear that Tom Maley was seen and, indeed, saw himself, as an integral part of Celtic FC from an early stage of its existence. Nor was he in any way modest about his achievements and attributes.
“Speed, stamina and dash… all three were mine,” he once said.
He was probably correct, but he would taste defeat in Celtic’s first-ever Scottish Cup final in February 1889, in spite of getting a good Press in most accounts of both the ‘snow final’ and the official game. He had scored goals against Cowlairs, Albion Rovers and St Bernard’s then a hat-trick against Clyde on the way to the final, but in truth he was never a great player, in the way that some others were, and he was soon beginning to lose out to some of the new players that were coming to the club, in many cases from Hibernian.
The irony was that it was he himself who was playing his part in bringing the new players to the club, for he was now a Committee member, and an energetic one at that, doing all that he could to bring the very best of footballers to the Celtic club. Tom was made a Director in 1897, when the Limited Company was formed, and worked well with his brother in the re-building of a great team.
In 1902, Tom decided that it was perhaps time to turn to management as well. The youngest brother of the family, Alec, would do likewise, becoming in time manager of Clyde and then Hibernian, however Tom, with his wide knowledge of English football gleaned from his many trips south of the border to scout for Celtic, was invited to become the manager of Manchester City.
City had been relegated in 1902, but Maley, building a side around the legendary Welshman Billy Meredith and including a few Scotsmen like ex-Celts Tom Hynds and Willie McOustra, took them out of the Second Division in his first season, and then, in 1903/04, took them to the FA Cup final at the Crystal Palace against Bolton Wanderers.
The game was scheduled for Saturday, 23 April 1904. It so happened that the Scottish Cup final was the week before, and Tom would have wished to have been in two places at once, for while Jimmy Quinn was scoring his famous hat-trick at Hampden, his City team were defeating Small Heath of Birmingham 4-0 at Hyde Road, to give themselves an outside chance of the English title, as Sheffield Wednesday lost heavily to Newcastle that day.
It would all be decided the following weekend. Tom invited brother Willie to Crystal Palace (Willie felt able to leave Celtic for one week – Quinn scored five as they beat Kilmarnock 6-1) to see Manchester City beat Bolton Wanderers 1-0, and thus we had the rare phenomenon of the Cup-winners in England and Scotland being managed by brothers! Sadly, City lost to Everton on the Monday and had to be content with second place in the Football League.
David Potter
