By 1901, the Young family had moved to 1 McLelland Drive and James had followed his elder brother John into the Iron Turner trade. But James now 19 was like most Scottish boys of that age, utterly obsessed with football. Unlike most however, he was good at it, (the Bible perhaps would put it “many are called, but few are chosen”) and he cut his teeth with quite a few of the juvenile and junior football teams which abounded in the locality. He played for Lilliemount Juveniles, Dean Park, Kilmarnock Rugby XI, then, hoping to turn professional, he had an unsuccessful trial for Kilmarnock FC, before playing for Stewarton and Shawbank.
In February 1902, he felt that he should move on, leave the area and perhaps turn professional in England. It was of course a huge leap in the dark to become a professional footballer. It was not guaranteed that a living could be made from it, and it was undeniably a short life with no professional footballer likely to be plying his trade beyond the age of 35, and of course, injury could cut it shorter than that. But it was what he wanted to do. He tried his luck for a short spell in early 1902 with Barrow, and I am grateful to Phil Yelland and Mike Gardner for their help.
It is of course possible that his motive for moving to Barrow-in-Furness was to ply his trade as an iron turner, and that football was an added extra. There would certainly have been a job for him there, because Barrow in 1902 was a hive of industry, specialising in steel and shipbuilding. Sometimes called the “English Chicago” because of its rapid growth, its metamorphosis in the 19th century was truly phenomenal. There are Scottish parallels in places like Coatbridge and Airdrie which barely existed in 1800, yet were bustling, thriving hives of industry by a hundred years later.
Henry Schneider’s discovery of hematite steel and the Furness Railway led to Barrow developing quickly on a grid plan – one of the largest planned towns in the British Isles. By 1901, there was a population of over 67,000 when a hundred years previously, there had been less than 2,000 living in the town at the end of the Furness peninsula, sometimes called the “longest cul-de-sac in Britain”.
Barrow were a very young team, founded only the previous year in 1901 and played at a ground with the unlikely name of “The Strawberry”. In 1902 they played in the Lancashire League, and Young joined them in time to play six League games and two friendlies at least (possibly another one against the Edinburgh side St Bernard’s) between February and the end of the season. The League games were against Stalybridge, Workington, St Helens, Darwen, Wigan United and Southport, and the friendlies were against Workington Black Diamonds and Bolton Wanderers. He was clearly good enough to attract the attention of Bristol Rovers.
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