Hello Mossend Swifts searchers
don't know if this will help (no photos - sorry) but this is an Extract from "Cauther Thoughts", and is in the period of the 1920's. The initial paragraphs are Dick Wilson's memories, the additions are from Bill Calder, my Uncle Bill, who was an apprentice Report with the Midlothian Advertiser at that time.
cheers ... Meg
Dick Wilson:-
The football teams operating at that time were West Calder Hearts, Mossend Burnvale, West Calder I.O.R. and West Calder Juniors. A few years later Mossend and Hermand operated 2 teams each in the Lothian Amateur League, with Woodmuir, Seafield, Addiewell, Loganlea, Newpark and Tarbrax also represented. Mossend were admitted to the 3rd division which they duly won. They continued and won the second division, and the following season were 3rd in the first division. Tom Boyd, George Boyd, Johnnie Bird, Fred Greig, Tod, Bob Reid, Dodger Fairley, Jimmie Eady, Billy Rutherford and Harry Walters, being some of their players.
Hermand 2nd team was almost wholly comprised of Girdwoods. A few of the first team players were Jim Martin, Gongie Paterson, Tom Borland, Jackie Hastie, Jimsie Forrester, and Will Crookstone. The latter received a broken leg during a match, as did Hastie (Newpark) against Mossend and Quin, West Calder Juniors against Port Edgar.
One evening match which took place at Hermand was against Addiewell. At the dancing the previous week, Jock Young (roadman) and Corrigan of Addiewell had come to blows, and the spectators all realised that the stage was set for a further confrontation., Sure enough the battle commenced, and when I arrived on the scene of the conflict, Jock had a hand inside each side of the others mouth, and was pulling with all his strength, which was considerable. All the while the crowd were shouting “Give us a fair fight”. I dread to think what would have happened if they had been allowed to continue.
NB by William Calder.
There was no such football team as Mossend Burnvale. (That was a cricket team captained by Tom Boyd). Nor can I recollect the I.O.R. running a team. The football team was known as Mossend Swifts and they played in top class football until they became defunct before the first war.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s the Mossend Amateurs operated in the Lothian Amateur League and were very successful. Their chairman was Wattie Ross and the Secretary Billy Rutherford. At that period every little row of homes had their football team. As a reporter I have had to go to Mossend, send off the report of the first half to the ‘News’ and ‘Dispatch’, race up the ‘loop’ line and through Parkhead Farm to Hermand, get what was happening there, sprint back to Burngrange for the end of the junior game, and hand the results in to the office for transmission to all Scottish papers, for that I sometimes, got one shilling!
West Calder Juniors were then quite a decent team and most of the players were local lads. I can recall seeing Tam Borland, who was captain and left back of the side, turning up at Burngrange Park in his pit clothes having worked the 6 - 1 shift in ‘West Mains’.
In junior football at that time the teams were raised locally and consequently the partisanship was intense. Who, for instance could ever forget seeing Jock Balloch gallop from his own goal mouth the whole length of the pitch to floor with one mighty blow an opposing fullback who had badly fouled Cauther’s outside right (Anderson from Seafield). This incident occurred in a Scottish Cup Tie at Blackburn in the days before buses had reached West Calder, when at least 80 per cent of he village males waked every step of the way to support their team.
Teams which appeared at Burngrange included Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, Armston Rangers, Ormiston Primrose, Loanhead Mayflower, Tranent Juniors, Wemyss Athletic, Musselburgh Bruntonians, Dalkeith Thistle, Easthouses Lily, Portobello Thistle, and, of course, Edinburgh Emmett against whom the aforementioned Jim Balloch scored a really fantastic goal. His playing was more brawn than brain and on this occasion he belted a clearance from the Burngrange Farm end and from about the eighteen yards line. As there was, as usual, a strong west wind blowing the ball got caught up in a sort of slip stream and finished up in the back of the Emmett net without touching a soul. The goal keeper was Scotlands’ current international junior number one and he just stood transfixed.
