As understudy to captain and virtual ever-present Jimmy McStay, first-team opportunities would be at a premium, and Celtic at that time did not run a reserve side. However, John did play one game that season, replacing McStay at centre-half for the Glasgow Charity Cup semi-final against Clyde at Celtic Park on Tuesday, 6 May 1930. The Celtic team that evening was as follows:
John Thomson; Willie Cook & Peter McGonagle;
Peter Wilson, John Ferguson & Willie Hughes;
Paddy Connolly, Alec Thomson, Peter Scarff, Charlie Napier & Con Tierney.
Celtic won 1-0 thanks to a goal early in the second half from Charlie Napier, one of three former Maryhill Hibs stars in the Celtic line-up. McStay returned to captain the team for the cup final against Rangers at Hampden four days later, ironically Jimmy losing the coin toss after the match ended level at 2-2. The Dundee Courier recorded that “Ferguson played a cool game at centre-half,” but that would prove to be John’s only competitive first-team appearance for Celtic. Seven of that team would win the Scottish Cup just 11 months later.
1930/31 – John commenced his second season at Celtic as the club made the decision to reintroduce a reserve team to compete in the Alliance League, the Dalmuir Bhoy proudly lining up in this photo of the Second XI in the summer of 1930.
As an aside, the trainer in the photograph is John Quinn, son of Celtic’s first-team trainer at that time Will Quinn. And I believe the player listed as J. Quinn on the front row to be James Quinn, who played trials with Celtic reserves at that time whilst starring on the left wing for Croy Celtic. I believe he was the son of the Celtic great of the same name and both he and brother Philip moved from Croy Celtic to Denny Hibs together at the end of that season.
As a very occasional article writer for the Star and a Dalmuir man, this article was ( almost literally ) right up my street. Thank you
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Cheers, Eugene. Much appreciated. There is a further development on that story, just yesterday, so watch this space!
Nice read Matt, I love reading these stories on lesser known players in the hoops and the thought that my Da may have heard or read about them at the time.
Cheers, Tam. That’s very kind of you. Yes it’s important that these stories are discovered and shared. I actually found out some more detail on this story yesterday so watch this space!