There is probably no better known football player in the four kingdoms than Hugh Wilson of Newmilns, Sunderland, Bristol City, and Third Lanark, Glasgow. These are the clubs he has served, and he has been a faithful servant to each and all. He will be known to posterity as the greatest half-back Sunderland ever possessed. He gave the best years of his life to the Sunderland Club; and it was only after many years, when his great natural powers began to wane, that he transferred his services to Bristol City and afterwards to Third Lanark of Glasgow. While he was with Sunderland, Wilson was prodigal of his strength. He was never content with doing one man's work on the field. He always put forth a giant's strength, and spent his energies regardless of the time when even the most active lag superfluous on the stage of life. If ever a man gave up all that he possessed in the way of his natural talents to his employers that man was Hugh Wilson. When his epitaph is written, — let us hope in the far distant future — it ought to be, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

For some nine years during the halcyon days of Sunderland, when it was virtually a Scotch club with an English name, Wilson played as half-back; but later on, when the strain began to tell on him, he played as a forward and scored many goals for his side.

Amongst many smart and famous men in the Sunderland Club Wilson was always a dominating personality. For one thing he was a big man — strong, muscular — brimming over with vitality, a strenuous worker living laborious days, and doing all he knew for the game and the team he loved. At throwing in from the touch-line he could throw the ball farther than any man living; and during the days when it was not compulsory to bring the ball over the head with both hands he could practically throw the ball into the goal mouth from the half-way line. A throw-in was better for his side than a free kick, and it was probably owing to the prodigious distance he could throw the ball that the rule was altered. But this was a mere detail in the scheme of Wilson's prowess as a half-back. As a breaker up of forwards he had few equals and no superior. If an opposing forward gave him the slip once, he was not likely to do it again. Against two or more forwards he could frequently hold his own; and such was his power of perception in anticipating an attacking movement that he has more than once single-handed stopped a whole line of forwards. A pass in the air he would frustrate with his ubiquitous head, which always seemed to be popping up to the discomfiture of his opponents, and his long legs would shoot out and intercept the most dangerous-looking pass along the ground. He was a sore thorn in the side of many of the cleverest forwards ever seen in First League football. In smashing up combinations he employed only fair and sportsmanlike tactics, and though many of his opponents felt sore at the way Hughie spoiled their choicest efforts they readily forgave and admired him. But it was not merely as an iconoclast that Wilson was head and shoulders above most half-backs of his time. His negative qualities were only equalled by his positive qualities. In stopping his opponents he never forgot to put his own forwards in motion with the ball at their toes. Wilson kept a cool head even in the most critical moment, and where other men would relieve the attack with a mighty blind kick to anywhere out of danger, Hugh would gracefully plant the ball to perhaps a wing man lying handy, or to the wonderful centre forward J. Campbell, who could be depended upon to make the most of the opportunity. 

Wilson could pass as precisely as the man who had played a forward game all his life, and he could shoot for goal with all the force, accuracy, and deadliness of the best forward in the land. IIugh knew by instinct when to take the ball and when to look after the man. Man or ball Wilson would have, and if he missed both he would hardly forgive himself. He was one of those men to whom victory is dear, and who feel defeat as a personal disgrace. To win the match he was engaged in was the first law of his being. Most of his old colleagues in the Sunderland ranks were of a similar temperament, and it goes without saying that their losses were few and their victories many. Wilson, Aald, and Gibson formed a half-back line that has never been surpassed, and the greatest of these was Wilson. Other great combinations of half-backs have been known, such as Robertson, Russell, and Graham of Preston North End; Crabtree, Cowan, and Reynolds of Aston Villa; Hendry, Needham, and Howell of Sheffield United; but it is doubtful if any of these illustrious trios of half-backs were for all-round effectiveness the equal of the Sunderland three.

It is very rare indeed to find a man playing for some twelve years as a first-class half-back through all the vicissitudes of League life and then suddenly become a first-class forward. I do not pretend that Wilson was in the same class as a forward that he was as a half-back. He could afford to come in on a lower plane and yet be hailed as a very capable forward. It would be impossible to put Wilson into any position on the field that he would not fill with credit. His knowledge, his expe- rience, his natural genius for the game, was such that he could play almost perfectly in any position. Was a back hurt? Wilson could take his place. Was the goal-keeper disabled? Hugh was immediately called upon for the vacancy. Was a forward injured? Bring up Wilson, was the invariable cry. He was one of those versatile men like Ernest Needham, who could almost fill two positions at the same time. He would be up with the forwards in the general advance, and yet ready to fall back to a defensive position the moment danger was in sight. 

In temperament Wilson was always a boy. He was a man amongst men in all that pertains to manliness, and yet he was in spirit always the joyous Ayrshire laddie that loved football better than the money it brought him. Wilson still plays the game on the slopes of Cathkin Park, and though the years have somewhat slowed his pace, and the fires of youth are not burning with the fierce light of former days, his heart is still young, buoyant, and juvenile. It is a compliment to say that he has, if possible, more friends in England than in Scotland. Wherever he went he made friends and knew no enemies. I sometimes think that his heart is still on the banks of the Tyne, and that he sighs for the days of Lang Syne and the scenes of his greatest triumphs. Although Wilson was so long and so intimately connected with England he never lost his love for his country and his countrymen. When Captain of the Sunderland Club he welcomed the English player as well as the Scottish. He felt no distinction, and he made none. Sport with him knew no nationality, but in the great trials of the nations on the one day of the year, when Scotland met England, Wilson became a Scot of the Scots for one day only, and all he ever knew of football was pressed into the service of his country.