John "Jack" McPherson

John "Jack" McPherson would at half-back play in two of, from 1877, three consecutive Vale of Leven Scottish Cup victories. In the second his partner in what was then a pairing would be Will Jamieson. In the third it was James McIntyre. He was also to win eight caps, the most of all The Vale team, and be an almost regular between 1879 and 1885, captaining the international side for his last match, in which he also scored his only goal for the country. Moreover, in that same season, his last before retirement, he also captained his club side to a fifth Cup Final, having also been there in 1883, sadly defeats on both occasions. Yet, curiously, whilst there is a photo of him in later life there seems to be none as a player, either for club or in the national jersey.

Jack McPherson had been born in 1854 on the shores of Loch Lomond on the Balloch Park Estate, where his Rhu-born father had been a gardener. In fact his mother had also been born in Rhu, which begs the question, whether they knew the McNeils, with two of the sons, Moses and Peter, going on to be founders of Rangers and a third, Henry a major player at Queen's Park. Moses and Henry indeed would both also play for Scotland with their international careers overlapping that of Jack.

However, from Balloch the McPherson family would soon edge south, initially to Bonhill and then across the river to Alexandria. At sixteen Jack was already working. Hhe is described as a "Fieldworker", although whether that is print or agriculture is unclear. But by his mid-twenties he had trained to be a Brass-Finisher and his working life was more or less set. Moreover, in 1887 and curiously in Glasgow, by then described as a Brass Founder, he married Margaret Galbraith, a farmer's daughter from Ardoch by Kilmaronock and they were to have three children, two daughters and a son, settle in Dumbarton and slowly prosper. In his thirties in 1891 he is a Brass Finisher once more, working, it is said, in the town's shipyards yet by his mid-forties in 1901 he is managing a Brass Foundry across the river in Dennystown.         

In later life Jack would turn his sporting attention to bowls. He was President of Dumbarton Bowling Club. He had also won the Vale of Leven Tennis Championship but that was after almost a decade on the football field. He had broken into the Vale of Leven team aged twenty-two in 1876, four years after its foundation. His arrival allowed Sandy McLintock to drop to full-back. He left the team at thirty before, perhaps even marking, the start of decline both on- and off-field. 

Jack McPherson would see out his days in Dumbarton. He would die there in 1934, aged seventy-nine, outliving Margaret by thirteen years. But for burial he would return to Alexandria and its Vale of Leven Cemetery.     

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