THE BEST LEFT HALF-BACK
— John Tait Robertson | 06/04/1928 —

Funny how easily you can cause trouble.

Just because I put into print what great many people were saying. I am getting straight lefts and hooks from all directions. I'll be a lucky man if I escape being completely knocked out.

An Ibrox reader (no name or adress given) is sarcastic. He says "everyone knows that Jacky Robertson is the greatest half-back who ever lived — because Jacky Robertson told us so." When? Where?

This is not a subject I like to talk about at all, but if the Ibrox reader wants my opinion as to the finest left half-back I have ever seen, it is not Jacky Robertson, but Hugh Wilson. Left half was the position of both of us, but I was never in Hugh Wilson's class.

GREAT MEN ALL.

If the Ibrox man cares to put Jamie Hay, Peter M'William, Bill Stewart (Everton and a Scot), James M'Mullan, and Ernest Needham (an Englishman) as some who should go in front of me. I shall say he is right. These were, or are, all left half-backs to whom I take off my hat.

I have never claimed any credit for the 1900 win, because it was our three inside forwards who paralysed the English defence. I enjoyed watering them just as I enjoyed watching our boys at Wembley.

I am grateful for a letter from a Buckhaven reader who makes one or two quite fair points. "None of the great Englishmen he (that's me) mentions played for teams who had the record of Huddersfield."

TWO BADGES ON ONE DAY.

James Crabtree was one of those I mentioned, and, with Aston Villa, he won an English Cup badge and a League Championship badge on the same day. This came about through the Villa winning the Cup final and their nearest League rivals losing points at the same time.

I admit that "a glut of caps does not make for perfection," but a player does not get them for nothing. Steve Bloomer was recognised by every Scottish defence in the ten matches he played in as the most deadly forward they could meet. He scored 28 goals in International matches, and no Scotsman or Englishman comes near that record.

BOBBY AND JIM.

From Possilpark, I have a postcard from a gentleman who suggests that I was rather unfair to Jim M'Menemy in saying that Robert Walker had no equal in his time. No one ever had greater admiration for the Celt than I had. There was very little in it, but I suppose there must be a best, and, in this case, I hand it to the Heart. Scotland was lucky to have two such master forwards for inside right.

Some of my other critics are merely abusive and I don't suppose they expect me to reply to them.

1900 TO 1928.

Did I forget to tell you that after Wembley a telegram was despatched to the Regent Palace Hotel, London, bearing these words:—

"1900 congratulates 1928 on magnificent victory.— R. S. M'Coll."

We were all inside the spirit of that message.