And so to Alex Wylie himself. He is, perhaps best described, as, for example, Alexander Watson Hutton is of the Argentine game, as the Father, and twice over, of Renton football and therefore much more. He would see his remarkable village-club in five years from rebirth rise right to the top in Scotland. But it would in that same time also develop what would become not just its tactics and therefore style but Scotland's as a whole, thus should he not also be considered the Father of our game? Furthermore, with the Scottish Game provably the one that was taken round the World, should he not then also be lauded as the Father of the Global Game. Yet where is the recognition, where are the laurels? Unlike the arguably less significant AHW, AKW's last resting-place is adorned neither by stone nor bloom.     

Yet, unlike 1921, forty years earlier and having been on a first brink, in 1882 the Renton fire that time had proved not quite to be extinguished. Something or somebody made the club reapply for SFA membership and it clearly had enough of a team once again to enter the Scottish Cup. And whilst we know little more of the players than that the Hannahs, Andrew aged 18, who was living on Main St, David, 15, at Park Buildings and perhaps a 16 year-old John McNee from Succoth farm. might have been involved it did so with some success and a degree of notice again taken in the Press. The club would reach the fourth round only to lose at home to Lugar Boswell but had on the way defeated Falkirk, Southfield 1-14 and Alcutha 1-3 Moreover, in a 6-1 victory over Paisley Athletic its "brilliant passing had been very much admired" and at the end of the season in April, whilst it would lose to Vale of Leven, 4-2, but do so with The Vale having just been Cup-finalists and the match "well-contested".   

And, whether it was the case by the end of 1882-3 or not, by the start of the following season, 1883-4, there was or would soon be not just a team, a group of at least eighteen, but one to be reckoned with, in which there were names, which might have emerged almost as if by magic but would within our years become literally major players. Of them Archie McCall and Donald McKechnie, 

both also living in the village on Main St., were just 22 years-old, Alick Barbour again on Back St. aged 21, as was John Lindsay, also from Main St, and James McCall, Archie's half-brother so also on Main, Bob Kelso and James Kelly, both on Thimble, and Will McColl, the only outsider, possibly from Jamestown, all 18 or so. And also throw into the mix the McIntyre brothers, Alexander and John, from Stirling St., aged 23 and 21 respectively, whose elder sister, Christina, had a decade earlier married John Kelso, Bob Kelso's elder brother.  

It would be on 8th September that they, as a collective, would first come to the attention of the wider, Scottish footballing world. It was the first round of the Scottish Cup and they were drawn at home to neighbouring Dumbarton, the previous season's Cup-winners and thus vanquishers of The Vale. Just then the early rounds were regional. And contrary to all expectations they beat them 2-1 with what was clearly something of a mystery team  - John Lindsay, Archie McCall and Andrew Hannah the backs, Bob Kelso and Donald Mckechnie the half-backs and the forwards, James McCall, Alick Barbour, John Mall, of whom nothing is known except that he may have been Irish-born and emigrated to the USA, Joseph Thomson from Back St and Andrew Hannah's future brother-in-law, and the McIntyres, one of whom scored. The Glasgow Herald would write of them:

"It may be remembered that the Renton club succeeded some years ago in running into the final tie, and played with the Queen's Park but on that occasion they were unsuccessful, since then the club has been little heard of, Saturday's team being an entirely new one." 

But the Cup-tie was not the first game that had been played that season. A week earlier on 30th August there had been an odd one on-the-face-of-it, again at home, a first against non-Scottish opposition, won 10-1 but also the result of former more glorious times The away-team was Irwell Springs, the works team from the Irwell Springs Dyeing Works, the Irwell being Manchester's river. The team still exists today, now as Bacup Borough, Bacup being the neighbouring town. The club had been formed in 1879, one of the last in that Lancashire footballing hot-spot and by two brothers, John and Robert Rankine, said both to have been "former Vale of Leven players", the assumption being that they had played for The Vale. It is unlikely. They were not Vale-men. Both had been born in Rutherglen, where its football club had been founded in 1875, but there is a link and it is not to Alexandria.

Both John and Robert were in the textile trade and it had in 1878 taken them, the former aged twenty-two and the latter twenty, from Scotland to Bacup in the first place. John was a Turkey-red Dyer, Robert, a cotton yarn dyer, who would become the works manager but meantime a clear passion for football outwith their professional lives did the rest. Moreover, once in place the brothers would stay. John would marry a local girl. Robert would shortly after arrival return to Rutherglen for his bride, Annie, with whom he would have seven children. But in 1891 she died and a year later Robert at thirty-four would remarry. His new wife would be twenty-four. Her name was Magdaline Gillespie. She had been born in 1868 in Dumbarton and 1881 had been living in the parish of Cardross, the same one as Renton but in Levenbank St. in Dumbarton, and was still there in 1891 by then a Printfield Worker. 

It suggests that Robert certainly knew the valley of the Leven, had contacts there, might even have briefly worked and lived there in the mid-1870s, could even have played football there and be held in high enough esteem in Renton not just for the 1883 visit, but one exactly a year later and then a third game, on 2nd April 1885 this time in Bacup, the first but far from the last time Renton would demonstrate its emerging abilities outwith Scotland. Indeed, that third game would be part of a Lancashire tour, which still suggested frailties. Irwell would be beaten 1-3 but the game the following day against Blackburn Olympic was lost 3-1 and the one the day after that against Bolton Wanderers was also a defeat, 2-1.

In the meantime the 1883-4 in Scotland had seen the Tontine team after the knocking out of The Sons of Rock progress to a third round defeat to The Vale. It would go to the defaulted final. Then the 1884-5 campaign would start with a narrow first round win over Alexandria's other team, Vale of Leven Wanderers, be followed by a far easier 2-10 victory over East Stirlingshire in the second and another, 9-2, over Northern from Glasgow in the third, this as Queen's Park was knocked out. November's fourth round would produce a narrow home win over St. Mirren and the there was a stroke of luck, perhaps two. The club was granted a bye into the quarter finals and there defeated Rangers, did the same to Hibernian in Edinburgh in the semi-final and thus only had to face Vale of Leven in the last match.         

But in the process there had been changes. More generally the first player from the whole Vale pf Leven to have gone South professionally had been Dan Friel from The Vale. It had been in the summer of 1883, he had been twenty-two, was uncapped and had left for Accrington. The next to go had been the following season, the same club and was more immediately notable. It was Sandy McLintock, capped three times, aged thirty and Burnley-bound. This was as his home-club was rebuilding as the team of the previous decade aged Johnny Ferguson was still playing but now thirty-four. As to Renton by the end of the 1884-5 season, whilst the defence remained settled, Alex Grant had replaced the younger McIntyre and, as the wing-pairing with Alick Barbour, nineteen year-old James Kelly the mysterious John Mall.   

And 1885-6 was in terms of personnel to start much the same. John Lindsay was in goal, Hannah and Archie McCall the preferred half-backs in a 2-2-6. That is until December against Cowlairs when three half-backs was tried with a player called Watt between McKechnie and Kelso. It, the 2-35 system, was not new. It was a formation that had come out of Wales in 1878, Midland and now Northern teams in England were now using it, Edinburgh football had also turned to it early with Nick Ross, when he was at Hearts, a notable exponent, and from there it had been creeping westward plus all the international teams except Scotland now employed it too. Nor did it even at Tontine go away. For the following game 2-2-6 was reverted to but against Hibernian in the one after that it appeared to be back with now Alex Grant in the middle of the three, whilst for the Cup Final against Queen's Park on 13th February the line-up was Renton conventional.  

But then came the Preston debacle. It was to be their first meeting. It took place on 27th March 1886 and at Deepdale. There were nineteen Scots on the pitch. PNE, as they had for much of a season that had see them undefeated and only handful of draws, fielded eight as Renton was massacred 7-0 so it could not be anything to do with national styles. It was personnel or tactics as Dewhurst scored after fifteen minutes and then Jimmy Ross scored two, Nick, his brother one, from full-back, as did John Goodall, Jack Gordon and even known hard-tackler, Davie Russell, from defensive, repeat defensive centre-half. And it led after the match to Renton captain, Alick Barbour, sitting down with his opposite number, Nick Ross, ad getting him to explain in detail what Preston was doing and Renton was not. It proved to be a revolutionary conversation but not quite yet. The club had first to return to a 3-5 home defeat to Hibernian.

Clearly thinking and change were needed and perhaps first showed thier faces in a 6-2 defeat at home of Aston Villa on about 20th August 1886 but with no team known. Subsequently on the 25th September 1886 at the start of the new home season Renton faced Rangers and played three half-backs, Kelso, Kelly and a new name from the second team, Allison, with Barbour and a another new name, seventeen-year-old John Campbell as the right-wing pairing. But then it was Kelly and Barbour for the next game and three weeks later Barbour and Campbell once more with now McIntyre and Kelly the central pairing. 

However, by this time something in captain Aleck Barbour's mind must have been taking shape. Throughout November, December and into January 1887 the formation remained the same against home-grown clubs and in defeat of visitors Accrington in October, a home draw with Blackburn Rovers in November and an away win in Blackburn in December. Something was gelling but then it needed to. In January Preston was coming north not for one but two games a week apart, a friendly and an FA Cup tie. 

The friendly was on 15th and ended as a 2-2 draw. But on 22nd Preston got down to business. The result for Renton was a 2-2 home defeat, the response to which and the fact that the Dunbartonshire team had never yet beaten the Lancashire one was that first Barbour dropped himself, bringing in a further new name, Neil McCallum from Bonhill, replaced Kelly for the game after that, brought him back and then played himself with either Campbell or McCallum for the remainder of the season, which was going more or less to end with an April tour to, you have guessed it, Lancashire once more.  

It did not go well. The first game was at Preston It was a 2-1 defeat. Then came draws at both Burnley and Bolton Wanderers, at which point but aged just twenty-five he clearly decided at his home-town club at least he had done what he could. That summer he joined the Bolton club and, whilst he returned to live Renton or more specifically to Bonhill village to live out his life after football he would spend the rest of his on-field and coaching days across The Border. 

As such he would be the first Renton player to make such a more, although there had been more leakage from The Vale. In the summer of 1886 Robert Mcrae had gone effectively from its second team. Without having played a first-team of note again Burnley acquired his services Then the summer after it would be Will McColl to Morton with George Davie at twenty-three and  a centre-forward moving briefly to Renton and eighteen year-old James Cowan going the other way, both probably feelings their paths blocked by talent ahead. And this was as, meanwhile, the captain's armband at Renton would between end of season 1886-7 and start of 1887-8 be passed to Archie McCall. 

And at that point quite simply something extra happened. Perhaps it simply timing, perhaps its was that McCall's by then twenty-six year-old head had in it ideas for fine-tuning or that he just had different leadership qualities. The suspicion is that it was a little of all three, combination of a little more experience and maturity throughout the team, an adjustment of Kelly as the normally central one in the half-back trio from predominantly defensive duties a la Preston to more attacking ones as might befit a player, who had begun as a proto-inside-forward and an ability to cajole Kelly from behind to hold a position behind the five forwards but not between but in front of the Scottish tradition of two half-backs. And the results were to be spectacular. With a fairly steady first-team and a total pool of about twenty-five players by the turn of the year they were in the Cup semi-final with a tally of thirty-nine goals for and six against and here is the run of games from the 1st January to the denouement at the season's end.                     

2nd January 1888 Dundee Harp - Renton 0 - 5

3rd January 1888 Forfar Athletic - Renton 0 - 4

14th January 1888 Renton - Queen's Park 3 - 1 SC

21st January 1888 Dumbarton Athletic - Renton 0 - 2 Dunb Cup 

4th February 1888 Renton - Cambuslang 6 - 1 SCF

11th February 1888 Renton - Vale of Leven 1 - 2 Dunb. Cup Final

25th February 1888 Hearts - Renton 0 - 3

3rd March 1888 Rangers - Renton 3 - 7

10th March 1888 Scotland - Wales

Queen's Park - Renton 1 - 1

17th March 1888 Scotland - England

24th March 1888 Ireland - Scotland

Partick Thistle - Renton 2 - 4

31st March 1888 Renton - St Mirren 3 - 2

7th April 1888 Kilmarnock - Renton 1 - 1

14th April 1888 Renton - Morton 2 - 2 

19th April 1888 Queen's Park - Renton 2 - 2 GCC

21st April 1888 Sunderland - Renton 2 - 4

28th April 1888 Vale of Leven - Renton 0 - 5

2nd May 1888 Queen's Park - Renton 0 - 2 GCC

8th May 1888 Rangers - Renton 1 - 5

12th May 1888 Renton - Cambuslang 4 - 1 GMCC

19th May 1888 Renton - West Bromwich Albion 4 - 1  WC

26th May 1888 Scoto-English played Scoto-Welsh

28th May 1888 Celtic's first game 

2nd June 1888 Renton - Preston NE 4 - 2  WC2

In the twenty-six games over five months four finals (and they say modern, professional footballers play too much) were reached and three won. There was just the one defeat, to The Vale in the Dunbartonshire Cup. There were three draws, two when resources were stretched by internationals, one to Queen's Park. Seventy-two goals were scored for and twenty-four conceded, exactly 3:1 and, as well as taking the Scottish Cup then playing and roundly defeating the English Cup winners, West Bromwich, to become de facto World Champions, they finally beat Preston, which the following year would be the World's first Double-winners.

Oh to have seen a rematch that following season but it could never be because at that moment the Renton World would all apart, a combination of rapaciousness rom both sides of the border. First came the departure t newly-formed Celtic of both James Kelly himself, there to be captain, and Neilly McCallum, but it should also be remembered that Andrew Hannah went initially to West Bromwich, Frank Dyer to Bolton, George Davie to Everton and William Brady to Burnley, 2:1 South to North. And Vale of Leven was not immune either. It lost James Coyne also to Everton and from its first eleven John Forbes to Blackburn and Tom McLean to Notts Co., two North, seven South. And the drain would continue at the end of the following campaign with from Renton John Lindsay going to Accrington once more, Andrew Hannah, another to Everton, Harry Campbell also to Blackburn, John McNee to Bolton Wanderers and even Frank Dyer brought back from Bolton to replace Kelly taking himself to Vale of Leven. And to that, never mind that Dumbarton was now being similarly impacted, must be added The Vale's losses -  John Baird to Aston Villa, Frank Dyer off again, this time to Warwick County and James Cowan again to Warwick County before Aston Villa - total seven South and one North. But even then it did not stop. In the summer of 1890 Renton was virtually cleaned out. John Harvey and John Campbell went to Sunderland, David Hannah to Sunderland and Liverpool, Patrick Gordon to Everton, Billy Fraser to Stoke and Robert McDermid to Accrington. And by the middle of 1891 it was worse - Duncan McLean to Everton, George Campbell and James Brown to Aston Villa, Harry Gardiner to Bolton, Duncan McNair to Middlesbrough Iroopolis, John McNee back to Bolton, John Cameron to Stoke, John Duncan to Notts Forest, Willie McArthur to Sunderland Albion and George Davie to Arsenal. Moreover, still there was no end. 1892 would see the departures of Andrew Hannah, James McBride and James Kelso, all to Liverpool, and Thomas Towie briefly to Celtic and then Derby County. In 1893 its was Gilbert Rankin across to Vale of Leven, Robert Glen to The Wednesday, John Cowan to Preston North End and Aston Villa and Andrew Hannah back to Liverpool, in 1894 Jack McNee, now to Newcastle Utd and Jock Bell to Wolverhampton Wanderers.  

And to that has still to be added The Vales losses and again Dumbarton's. From the former there were in 1890 John Murray - to Sunderland, Alex Paton - to West Manchester, Archie Osborne - to Notts County, James McLachlan - to Derby Co., John Walker - to Grimsby Town and Daniel Paton - to Aston Villa, in 1891 Andrew Whitelaw to Notts Co., James Sharp to PrEston North End, John Baird to Aston Villa, James McMillan to Everton, (Neilly) McCallum to Notts. F. and Malcolm McVean to Liverpool, in 1892 Daniel Bruce to Rangers and Johnny Darroc to The Wednesday, in 1893 amazingly none and in 1894 Duncan (Mc)Nichol to Darwen. 

It means in the seven season from 1888 there were something like seventy-eight net out-flows English clubs and and ten to Scottish ones, eighty in all in all or eight teams, one plus a season. It was, of course, unsustainable. Indeed, the club would begin a long wither-on-the-vine, whilst those who remained taught the rest of the nation the distinctive Renton cum Leven way of play, those who went to England did the same there and in time largely but not entirely the former would take to the wider World what would be a still distinctive but now renewed Scottish style of play; a mobile, attacking, passing rather than defensive, non-Preston, pivotal centre-half, essentially the first mid-field, positioned in front of narrow half-backs with full-backs able to widen and all behind a forward-line, already operating in pairs that had or would soon produce from the back-up- or half-forwards of the old system the inside-forward, right and left. And from those adjustments would emerge the concept of inside-forwards fetching and carrying, the one-man mid-field become at times three and almost organically the system of the half-backs marking inside-forwards and full-backs the wingers. 

Jimmy Mullen, the experienced Scotland captain a full forty years of the victorious Wembley Wizards team of 1928 perhaps best expresses the fundamental differences and the on-field outcome. He said: 

"I want to emphasise that all our forwards are inherently clever. ... But I wish to say that the English tactics were wrong. The Saxon wing-halves paid more attention to the wingers than the inside forwards – therefore the latter were given a lot of space. It is a common thing in England to let wing halves, and not fullbacks, mark the wingers. It doesn’t pay and I don’t know why they pursue it." 

However, that is not to say that at inception It was a method of play, which did not take a little time to bed in. It stuttered somewhat, not least because Scottish football was having to face the two-fold challenge of the acceptance of professionalism and, caused by the existence already in England of the same, an outflow of talent so large that the national team, until 1896 drawn only from Scotland-based players, was, as results show, severely weakened. By that time well over two hundred Diasporan-Scots including many of the best were turning out and therefore living Down South. But once in place and with most of our ablest players eligible it first, pre-Great War, it regained its confidence and post-Great War at home entered a Golden Era only narrowly outdone in terms of results by the decade from 1875-1885. This was whilst, elsewhere, it, it being in this case very largely the direct product of Renton and The Vale, had been and was through global export now beginning the disseminating of the three bases of the modern game, from 1872 and shortly afterwards both organised defence and attack and from 1888 the essence of a fully-functioning link between the two, a first mid-field, albeit the centre-half of whatever ilk has been supersede by the centre-back o -backs. Yet all is perhaps not lost. In the libero, in the alchemy of a Pirlo or an Iniesta perhaps the ghost of James Kelly remains.