Bristol Rovers, founded in 1883, is the more senior football team in the city, but they were not known as Bristol Rovers until 1898, having previously been known as the Black Arabs, Eastville Rovers and Bristol Eastville Rovers. Their nickname is “the Pirates”, for no other reason than the seafaring connections of Bristol, but they have also been known as “the Gas” because of a gasworks near their Eastville ground.
They joined the Southern League in 1899 having played in the Bristol and District League, which became known as the Western League. In season 1902/03 they wore a black and white vertical strip, and would do so until 1919. They joined the Football League in 1920, the major moment of triumph in the Southern League coming in 1905 when they won it. (I am grateful to Mike Jay and Stephen Byrne, two Bristol Rovers historians, for supplying this information).
The manager of Bristol Rovers was a man called Alf Homer. He had been in position since 1899 and would stay in some capacity until 1928. Rovers owe a great deal to him. He was welcoming and encouraging to Young, and like most English teams of the day, Bristol Rovers employed many Scotsmen, so Young did not exactly feel lonely, even though he would not have been human if he had not been a little homesick. Bristol was a long way away from Kilmarnock.
The big sporting interest of that summer in Bristol was of course the Ashes between England and Australia. It was one of the epic series won 2-1 by Australia as Joe Darling and Victor Trumper took on Archie McLaren, Wilfred Rhodes and Ranjitsinghi. Gloucestershire’s moment of glory came in the Fifth Test when their local hero Gilbert Jessop “the croucher” hit a century in 85 minutes to help England to a famous victory at the Oval.
It was the day when the two Yorkshiremen George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes, England’s last two at the crease, edged home to win by one wicket. According to legend (but almost certainly without foundation) Hirst said to Rhodes “we’ll get’em in singles, Wilfred”.
On that particular day (August 13 1902), Young made his home debut at right half at Eastville as Cartlidge, Dunn and Griffiths; Young, McLean and Lyon; Muir, Howie, Corbett, Wilcox and Marriot beat Watford 5-1 in the First Division of the Southern League, with Fred Wilcox scoring a hat-trick before 5,000 spectators. It was a good start to the season, for the previous week, they had beaten Northampton Town 2-1 at Northampton.
The Southern League contained teams like Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Queen’s Park Rangers, and although it was still probably considered inferior to the Football League, the fact that Tottenham Hotspur had won the FA Cup in 1901 and Southampton had reached the final in 1900 and 1902 showed that the standard of football played in the Southern League was quite high.
Tottenham Hotspur were the biggest team in terms of support, (110,280 had attended the first game of the 1901 FA Cup final at Crystal Palace between them and Sheffield United) and Young celebrated (if that is the right word!) his 21st birthday on January 10 1903 at White Hart Lane on the wrong end of a 0-3 defeat before a crowd of 12,000. Southampton won the Southern League in 1903. Young was out of the team on November 29 1902 when Southampton beat Rovers 3-1 at the Dell, but he played a creditable part when Southampton came to Eastville on March 14 1903 and were, by all accounts, lucky to get away with a 1-1 draw.
The FA Cup campaign lasted no longer than one round, as far as Bristol Rovers were concerned, in season 1902/03. Yet it took Millwall three games to get the better of the Pirates. A 2-2 draw at Eastville on December 13 was followed by a trip to London to play a 0-0 draw at North Greenwich (the Den would not be opened until 1910) on the following Thursday afternoon, and the tie was finally resolved on Monday December 22 at the neutral venue of Villa Park, Birmingham when the Pirates went down 0-2 before a minuscule crowd. Young played in all three games. The Cup was won by Bury that year, beating Derby County by the record score of 6-0 in the final before 63,102 fans at the Crystal Palace.
Young played a total of 19 League games that season,in all three half back positions, although mainly as a right half. He was more of an asset than a debit however, in his 19 games. he won 9, drew 5 and lost 5. His final League game for the club was against Kettering Town on April 4 1903. But in spite of having met and courted a young Bristolian lady, Young was wanting home to Scotland.
To be continued tomorrow…
David Potter
An extract from David Potters 2013 book, Sunny Jim Young – Celtic Legend.
