Alick had been born in Dennystown in Dumbarton in 1862. He was the first child of the second marriage of John Barbour, a Glasgow-born Patent (perhaps Pattern) Maker. However, his mother was a Renton girl, Margaret Colquhoun, who herself was widowed in her village in 1868, with by then three children, six and under. 

Margaret would then turn to work in the print-fields. Alick himself would start as a Dye-Works labourer. But he was clearly playing futba' locally and in 1883 would join Renton itself. However, work would then take him to Tayside. He spent 1885 to 1888 also playing and training there at Our Boys, the club that in 1893 was to be one half of Dundee. It explains the Barbour absence from Renton's all-conquering 1888 team. But, despite his growing reputation as a trainer, also perhaps calls into question any part he could have had in those same years in the tactical change Renton underwent, the introduction of the attacking centre-half.