But such was his talent that at seventeen he was signed by his first senior club, Morton, albeit for just a season before heading South, recruited by Everton. In fact he, an attack-minded half-back, had been bought to be brought through slowly. He did not play First Team for the Mersey-siders until 1897, so two years more, aged twenty, and even then it was not for long. Although that season he would play almost a full complement of games plus winning a first cap at barely twenty-one and against England he also became associated with the formation of the Association Footballers' Union and was one of the players to move or be moved on. He was to go to Southampton, outwith the Football League and its wage-cap and there was in the team that, as he personably would be awarded a second cap, take the Southern League title.  

And that was when  Rangers came in for him and where he would finally settle, spending the next six seasons at Ibrox, his family living literally a couple of streets from the stadium. With the Gers he would make over a hundred League appearances, one hundred and seventy-eight in all, win three League title, almost a fourth, the Scottish Cup, fourteen more caps and be Scotland's captain five times before leaving the club aged just twenty-eight, and to head South once more. In April 1905 he was appointed player-manager, recorded as Secretary-Manager, of the newly formed, in fact created, Chelsea. Indeed he was their first player, would score the club's first goal and in the first season take it to one place of promotion. Yet, already from third spot at the start of the next next season in November 1906 he resigned. Reasons are hard to fathom, even if such resignations/sackings have not been exactly a rarity at Stamford Bridge. And he did it having just moved to London but returning to Rutherglen to marry Edith Ferguson.  

In fact, as Chelsea was then promoted at the end of the season with the team he had effectively built, he first took a year off before in 1907 becoming player-manager of struggling Glossop, moving the family to North England, staying with the club for two seasons, rebuilding once more and taking it from fifteenth to eighth. But clearly all was not well and in 1909 he left and by accepting the post of reserve team trainer at Manchester United for two more looked to have taken a step down. However, events then took perhaps a surprising turn. With sponsorship from a London company and the President of the MTK club in Budapest in 1911 he was offered and took the job of coach to the club itself, winning the Hungarian Cup in his first season and twice finishing runners-up in the league. It is said that he brought to Hungarian football physical conditioning and technical innovation. He certainly paved the way for the arrival in 1914 of Jimmy Hogan, the man considered by the Hungarians as making their game.