ROBERT SMYTH McCOLL
— Bauldie | 16/09/1904 —

Sir, — To say that you are welcome back to your "dear home land" after a short residence on a "foreign soil" is, indeed, to borrow the words of the Immortal, altogether superfluous Rangers, in spite of a goodly figure paid for you passage, have received you with open arms, whilst the Scottish football public generally hail your return with the heartiest and liveliest satisfaction. To all these you are one of the "giants" of football, although your intellectual, rather than your physical, makes you worthy of this high-sounding title. It is, I think, uniqye and appropriate that to-morrow as a gallant "Light Blue" you make your debut almsot within a stone's-throw of that unreserved enclosure, when, as a modest, yet manly youth, you acquired the art of shooting.

Master manipulator! You were, I understand, captain of the jnuior Benmore F.C., the members of which disported themselves under the shadow of the clasic slopes of newest Hampden, the best known of the youths being Tom Crookston and Tom Gibbons, both of whon followed in your steps and gained the Queen's Park in 1894. It seemed when you donned the black and white colours and stepped rather timorously afield in them that you were marked our for promotion. This came to you rapidly after a temporary stay in the Strollers Eleven and you were drafted into the first eleven to the position of inside-left, a place formerly occupied. I may tell you, by such distinguished Queen's Parkers and amateurs as T. C. Knight, D. S. Allan, J. T. Richmond, and W. A. Lambie. Your movements in this place were, however, hampered, and, desirous of having more elbow-room, you were installed as centre forward, without ceremony and unanimously. Then as sucessor to such Queen's "head centres" as Willie M'Kinnon, Dr. John Smith, George Ker, George Somerville, and William Sellar, you made, what is more, found your mark. Expert Snapshottist!

I single out one of these, and he George Ker, as the player to whom in respect of your deadly shooting and your unstoppable and uninterpretable method, you bear of all past Queen's centres the most resemblance. The only distinct feature in which you differ from the inventor of the art of low shooting is your want of charging power. Than Goerge Ker there was no neater, and, for his weight, more powerful charger, but then he learned this art as a back and half-back, and you have not yet graduated to either position, nor do I think if you were that your nature and style are suited to forcible football. It has beeb yout mission on the field to prove that (as one of the philosophic poetic of Hampden hath it) —

"That reason has changed her seat;
That the brains are in the feet."

By a guileless simplicity of method, by a coy like shyness, by a ready watchfulness, and by the instantaneous ability to seize the "golden opportunity" (when this presented itself near goal), you have demonstrated that you are one of the centres of the century, and an attaction as such to the thousands to whom you play has been a delight of delights, and the recollection of its sparkling beauties, the fondest of their football treasures. It is true you are indifferent and lackadaisical at times, but this failing may be permitted you in view of the super excellence of your general form.

Renowed visitor. None appreciated your sterling qualities more than the members and patrons of the Queen's Park, and to them it was indeed a wrench of wrenches when you so suddenly and unexpectedly left their ranks. As your return now at a time when the forward play of the club is not too brilliant or successful, it is but natural that thoughts of your past will come trooping along, and that there will be many who would you were what you once were, "the classic of the classics," the leader, the inspirer, and the elctrifier of their attacking force. These thoughts will be deepened and intensified because of the fact that you will be accompanied to-morrow by another and hardly less distinguished ex-member of the Queen's in Robert Cumming Hamilton. No single Scottish club has contained in its ranks at one and the same time two greater masters and to see you two in other colours and serving the enemy against your old friends is indeed enough to stir and bring that rosy tingle to the cheek that bespeaks the inward troubling. Seeing you are now a Ranger, I may be permitted to recall one of your first and most important appeaarances for your old love v. your new, which you cannot have forgotten. It was, then, in the Glasgow Cup competition of September 28, 1895 that you, with a then Queen's Own Company, consisting of Messrs K. Anderson, W. Sinclair, H. Smith, J. Gillespie, R. M'Farlane, D. Stewart, W. Stewart, T. Waddell, J. Cameron, and W. A. Lambie, met Rangers — M'Leod, N. Smith, J. Drummond, N. Gibson, J. Burns, D. Mitchell, J. Stewart, H. M'Creadie, J. Oswald, J. M'Pherson, and A. Smith. The first tie ended in a draw at Ibrox — 2-2; but on the replay at Hampden Queen's won 3-2. That victory established your fame as a centre, and in honour of it the "old welkin" and slopes rang as they have seldom done since.

Lad o' mettle! You were ever a desirable opponent to the Corinthians, against whom you first played in 1895. Seldom have two such cultured centres opposed each other as you and G. O. Smith, a pair of beauties, if not dromios. You exchanged those gentlemanly compliments which make play so enjoyable, and which betray the true sportsman. While "G. O." has almost ceased to answer to his initials, you, however, are still going, and that, too, in the way toward goal the Master of Ludlow would like to see you travel.

Sir, — Comparisons in many cases are of the "odeious" order, but between you and your great predecessor in the Queen's ranks. George Ker, the comparison as to style is very close and very appropriate. Thus you were both deadly and instantaneous shots. Ker being the inventor of the "daisy cutters," which did not strike the goal bar, whilst you may be styled the snipper-snapper, the homocea of modern Scottish centres. George Ker displayed an especial fondness for the right wing, but this was possibly due to the fact that the Jonathan of his early life, the late Eadie Fraser, played there with Willie Anderson.

Sir, — It is needless to say that your entrance to the professional ranks, and your departure for Newcastle were the greatest football sensations, not only of a season, but of the century. Your classic friends on the historic slopes were paralysed by your action, and many of them questioned the wisdom of the step. "Every man is the architect (or ought to be) of his own fortune," and you were quite right to utilise your brilliant talents as a player to advance your worldly prospects, and place yourself in a position of independence. It is true that you were note success over the Border your Newcastle friends expected, but I beg to say that this was not owing to want of ability so much as to the deliberate purpose of your opponents in allowing you to play pure, unalloyed football, in which beauty, and not the "beast," was the prominent feature. Your return to Bonnie Scotland, and to that part of it specially known as Ibrox Park, will. I venture to think, be attended with a revival of that old form with which you delighted, bewitched, and, at times, electrified thousands. Our football here is not so virile, so harsh, so hard, or so unscrupulous as it is in England, and, with the aid of the neutral linesmen, you should again be able to pose and pirouette as you did for the good old Queen's for whose world-famous colours you still cherish an undying affection.

Sir, — You are a man so far of four memorable days and four outstanding events. These are your birthday, the day in which you donned the Queen's colours, the one in which you fondled that blank cheque from Director Telford, and the day upon which you scored three successive goals for Scotland in the presence of Lord Rosebery, whose warm personal congratulations you had in the Celts' pavilion, and now, finally, the day on which you became a ranger for the Rangers.

Doubtless all these red-letter days are fixed in your memory, and most of all that "Primrose" one at Parkhead, the heroes in which I here append as a happy national and personal reminiscence, which to you now must have a peculiar significance, seeing no less than five of your new clubmates were with you at Parkhead on that never-to-be-forgotton Primrose, and for Scotland palmy, day.

Goal, H. G. Rennie.

Backs, N. Smith and J. Drummond. 

Half-backs, N. Gibson, A. Raisbeck, and J. Robertson.

Forwards, J. Bell, R. Walker, R. S. M'Coll, J. Campbell, and A. Smith.

Sir, — Your traits are unique and pronounced. Thus the cult you evidently learned from Wm. Sella and John A. Lambie of sauntering afield, with your mailed fist encased in an ample left pocket, coolly clutching the coin of the realm, was unique, and to our "Lady of Hampden" a distinctive feature, which made her at once lisp sweetly "There's Bob." You wore an easy, self-possessed appearance, even facing John Drummond and Nicol Smith, Danie Doule and Bernard Battles, that showed you were self-possessed and little influenced (at least to outward appearance) by these football giants. Your tricks on the ball were of the inimitable order, that one of feinting to pass the ball round the opponent's right and then covertly bringing it back with the inside of your ankle was a never-failing "tip," with which even a James Kelly was baffled and left.

Then your shooting was very deadly, the succes of it lying largely in the deceptive single at which the ball was sent and the inability of the mooter keeps to read your eye or interpret your movements. Again, your success lay in the unexpected way in which you let drive, even from thirty yards out, at the standards, the ball even from that distance travelling from your catepultic left foot with a precision and force worthy of a Ker. Your curious and seemingly inevitable habit of lying bodily towards the ball on the left induced the bulk of your passes in that direction, although some less critical set it down to the favouritism you had for clubmates.

Sir, — You are a master of poses, a lier in wait for passes, an initiator of moves, a capper of other players' work, a crown and ornament to all the passes and the passers with whom you fraternally and obligingly combine. Charging you largely ignored, and hence such half-backs as Kelso, Longari, Forman, and Crawshaw resorted to force as the remedey wherewith to bottle you up and put a summary stop to your artless and artistic purouetting. Few past and fewer present, head centres have shown such beautiful, neat, close work on the ball, and it is literally true of your style that you were able to turn within yourself and so deceive and fool to the top of your bent the "plungers" who by one fell charge sought to put you out.

Sir, — I cannot claim your as free, general or as judicious a passer as G. O. Smith (to whom in some personal and cultured traits you bear a strong resemblance), but you were the superior of your English rival in smartness of movement in individual command, and in telling finishing power. Your weakness lies in the assumpton at times of a lackadaisical mood and in want of physique around goal to make your presence felt on the enemy. A little more of Le Diable and a little less of the milk of human kindness in your composition would make you a great power afield, and one there fore to be more feared (if not respected) by your opponents. Your deficiencies in this feature may be made up by your old amateur friend, Robert Cumming Hamilton, with whom you are now to be associated as a "gallant Light Blue."

And now, honoured sir, that you have returned to stay, may you play as you wee wont to do, and so delight our football audiences with cultured displays that are too scarce, even on classic slopes.