In fact football had been begun by others in the valley. It is said by some it was with the formation on 21st August 1872 in the neighbouring town of Alexandria of the Vale of Leven Football Club, nick-named The Vale, following a visit at about that same time of Queen's Park to Alexandria to demonstrate the Association game to local sportsmen. However, the result, by a second account, seems perhaps to have been less than successful with the formation of Vale of Leven Rugby and Athletic Club and it was that, by a third account, which then caused The Spiders to invite The Vale to Glasgow to Queen's Park itself on 21st December for another and this time successful go at conversion with an alternative Vale foundation-date given as 31st December. 

This all might imply a jumble of dates but the outcome was to to be definitive; for the round- rather than the oval-ball with the next game definitely between the two clubs on 11th January 1873, in Alexandria and resulting in a 0-0 draw. Moreover, it seems the two clubs could then not get enough of each other. A further game between clearly already well-matched elevens, but with The Vale team largely unknown, followed on with 600 on-lookers this time at Queen's Park, another 0-0 draw. And two weeks later on 1st March it was back to Alexandria again, this time with the away-team winning 0-1 in front now of 1,500. 

However, when it came seven months later to the newly-introduced Cup it was to be different story. The Vale was originally one of the sixteen starters by scratched before the first hurdle. And the reason was what was to be the opposition that day, Dumbarton. No doubt with some inside-knowledge and a complete lack of neighbourliness it objected to one of The Vale's players, John Ferguson, taking the field. It was football's first rammie, on the grounds that because Ferguson was a famed runner and had won prizes, even money, for his prowess he was a professional sportsman and therefore ineligible.

It was to take two seasons, including a further objection from Clydesdale the following year, to sort out. It fact it only happened when The Vale's President became SFA President, by which time the player in question had clearly impressed in friendlies; enough indeed in 1874, and against England, to win the first of his ultimately six caps, scoring at almost a goal a game. And the "manufactured" infamy also probably made him one of Scottish football's first stars and certainly its first working-class one, for what distinguished The Vale and Renton is that their players, in contrast to Glasgow and its largely middle-class teams, were mostly drawn from the young labourers of the textile-printing- and dye-works that lined at that time the Leven's banks. 

This it was not until the 1876-7 season that we have a first full listing of The Vale team, indeed the sixteen in the squad, on which it was able to draw to full effect. Having the previous season for the finally first time of real asking been able to reach the Cup semi-final, there to suffer defeat by the odd goal in three away to Queen's Park once more, it was now and still away to reverse the outcome and go on the win the final; the first clubs outwith The Spiders to do so. And meanwhile, with knowledge of both the previous season's Renton's and Renton Thistle's, we know that the former had then absorbed several of the latter and had rebuilt. Although 1876-7 had seen early defeat in the First Round to Dumbarton, 1877-8 would bring reversal to Third Lanark only in the semi-final and after two replays including extra-time, as in the other semi-  The Vale had received a bye and would in the final win the title once more.

But at that point, with The Vale again in 1879 and for the third season in succession taking the country's premium footballing trophy some at Renton seems to have changed. Firstly we again know the season's team and it was much changed once more. Five new players had come i. They included a McIntyre, probably James and therefore moving across from The Vale, where he had already appeared in the starting eleven and his brother, Andrew, was also well-stablished. Secondly, they got no-where. After a bye in the First Round they then were gubbed by Dumbarton, 1-6 at home including two own goals. And thirdly, they then seemed to struggle, indeed almost to disappear and nearly permanently. In 1879-80 it was a heavy defeat again to The Sons of the Rock in the Third Round but after replay in the First and then effectively a bye in the Second. In 1880-81 it was Second Round home-defeat to The Vale, in 1881-2 the club did not even make its First Round tie and at the end of the season matters were so poor it even resigned from SFA.

However, that is not to say that there were not activity and events elsewhere. On field in late 1879 The Vale had been knocked out of the Cup by Dumbarton in the First Round, at which point it turned its full attention to r rather back to shinty, going on to take Glasgow and the Southern area's premium trophy, the Glasgow Celtic Society Cup. And for the next two season Renton was almost to emulate them, reaching but losing the same final two years in succession, 1880-1 and 1881-2, in all three years with no line-ups currently known. However, it tells us one thing and perhaps indicates another. 

First is that shinty was after a decade still a game at the very forefront of sporting-activity, certainly on the upper part of the Leven, having before the arrival of football been the winter one of choice. In 1870 there is said to have been 2,000 spectators in Alexandria at the annual shinty match between the employees of the two calico printing works owned by the the Orr Ewing brothers, Alexander and John. Indeed the role of shinty in football and World sport in general continues to be under-estimated. The game had long been played even in the streets in the Scottish lowlands. There is documentation of how the sticks and ball used were also employed for early golf, with the team game a good deal older, perhaps 2,000 years older than the individual one. And that is to say nothing about the pivotal role of the game of the Gaels in Canada with ice-hockey and the literally crucial positional sense that footballers from all three Leven clubs were to bring to the beautiful game over the two decades to 1890.