With what post-1888 can only be described as the pillaging of initially the first and then second elevens the Vale of Leven clubs, in particular Renton, it might have been expected that they would have simply collapsed through lack of players, with the Tontine Park team the first to go. And to begin with that was exactly what looked to be happening. Having, with still half the "World Champion" squad remaining, in 1889 it still had managed to reach the semi-final of the Cup, losing to eventual winners, Third Lanark. But in 1889-90 with another four having moved on by the season's start but a further ten by and at the end second round defeat by powerful Dumbarton was the limit. Meantime The Vale had managed in the same two campaigns only second round and that on a bye but then the final, only lost to Queen's Park on a replay with in both matches taking the lead and holding it until the last gasps. In the first match The Spiders had equalised in the 89th minute, in the second in the 80th with the winner scored two minutes later. 

And then the Scottish Football League was formed, with all three Leven clubs in the eleven starters but very different outcomes during and by the end of that first iteration. Dumbarton would on points with Rangers be joint-champions but with the former having the far better goal-difference. Moreover, The Rock had almost managed The Double, defeated only in the Cup final by a single goal by Hearts. Meanwhile, The Vale would finish eighth but be re-elected but Renton would find itself having in September 1890, so after hardly a game, having been expelled with then its "record expunged".

And the reason for Renton's league, in fact general situation was said to be professionalism but might been spite. The younger McCall, James, although still only twenty-five, had been with Renton from its resurrection. He had played numerous times and on the way accrued five caps, three against England. Quite simply, as an amateur and quite probably shamateur, he had given club and country sterling service, yet when a benefit match was arranged for him there were complaints, compounded by a friendly that followed.

The testimonial had been on 31st May 1890 at Celtic Park, between a Celtic eleven and Old Renton and was conciliatory, the latter winning 2-0 with both James Kelly and Neilly McCallum playing alongside their former team-mates and against their then current ones. Yet the SFA, very probably at the behest of staunchly amateur Queen's Park, did not like it. Renton had been advocating for payment to play. McCall was "earning" money from football. Then the friendly would be on 27th September against Edinburgh Saints, a badly disguised St. Bernard's team, that club from Edinburgh having already been suspended by the SFA for "professionalism", as if all the teams in the top flight of the Scottish game were not at it in one way or another. Was James Kelly living on thin air?

The result from the on-going argument was from the beginning of October the suspension of all the Renton players, who had taken part in the "Saints" encounter and of the Renton committee seemingly sine die. In truth it did not matter that year in the Cup. The club had already been knocked out at the beginning of September in the first round. But the league was a different matter and no doubt with the financial backing of Alex Wylie, Renton did not roll over. In fact the club took the SFA to court and on 2nd December there stated its case. It makes interesting reading as a barometer of the power-struggle going on between the Glasgow-based, footballing authorities and the clubs elsewhere outwith.

"Renton claim they are not professional and that their expulsion was illegal that they are still members of the Association and are entitled to all rights, privileges and benefits of membership. Payment of £5,000 (around £650,000 today) is due in compensation. The SFA contend that their proceedings complained of are valid and regular.

On conclusion of their presentations, the record was closed and the case sent to the Procedure Roll. This is a procedure where the legal issues in a civil action are considered before proof of facts.

(Renton) Court statement(s) in full

Renton FC was among the earliest to join the association, and, with the exception of the Queen’s Park Club, Glasgow, there was no other club in Scotland whose career had been more distinguished, or whose name had been more favourably associated with football throughout the world. The club are leases of a field at Renton, and they expanded hundreds of pounds in improvements of the ground and building a grand stand and pavilion, with a view to permanent occupation in connection with the association. The association is managed by a committee of 17 members, including a president, vice-president and treasurer. On or about 1st October a letter was addressed by John K. McDowall, secretary of the association, to Robert Cameron, Match Secretary of the Renton club, conveying the resolution which is complained of, and stating also that the Renton players who played against the “Edinburgh Saints” were suspended until 30th April 1891, and that the individual members of the Renton committee were prohibited from taking further part in football affairs in Scotland. Pursuers understand this decision was come to on account of a match which, on the 27th September, Renton played with an Edinburgh club known as the “Edinburgh Saints”. Defenders, it is said, maintain that this club was composed of the same persons who composed the Saint Bernard’s club, which had been dealt with for professionalism. Pursuers say they received no intimation in terms of sub-section of rule 11, which provides that names of clubs and players declared professional shall be posted in the association rooms, and intimated to various clubs and affiliated associations, nor was the same St. Bernard’s club posted in the association rooms. Pursuers believed, and assert, that it is a fact that the “Saints” were distinct from the St. Bernard’s. In token of the bona-fides of the Renton club, the fact of the intended match was communicated to the secretary of the association, and he, on 25th September, replied that the committee of the association had come to the decision that, in their opinion, the “Edinburgh Saints” was the same club as the St. Bernard’s, and therefore they decided that clubs could not play them during their term of suspension. The Renton club, finding these clubs were not the same on the 26th September, wired Mr McDowell to that effect, and in replay received a telegram that the committee had decided that they could not play the Edinburgh Saints. In the meantime all arrangements had been completed for the match, and it was accordingly played. Pursuers were not aware and did not admit that the St. Bernard’s were legally declared professional or suspended, and they call for production of the books and correspondence on the subject.

The action of the defenders is declaring the Renton club professional and expelling them was, they maintain, wrongful and oppressive in the circumstances, and was not legally carried out. No notice, it is said, was given to the pursuers of the course defenders intended to take, no enquiry was made by the defenders and no opportunity was afforded to pursuers of stating defences, although they tried good defences to state. Further, it is believed by pursuers that no meeting of the committee was summoned to deal with the matter, nor was notice given either of the meeting or its object to members of the committee; the expulsion was not conceived or carried out in good faith; pursuers were entitled to notice of the charge to be brought against them, and to have an opportunity of being heard in their own defence, but this privilege was not afforded, and they were condemned unheard. They requested the secretary to call a general meeting of the association to consider the case, but their request has been refused. Defenders, it is maintained, have no power to expel clubs or declare clubs professional; there is nothing in the rules or constitution conferring such powers; the association is a partnership in which all the members, or at least all the clubs, are partners. The consequences of the expulsion are very serious; pursuers cease to have use and benefit of the funds and property of the association to which they have materially contributed; other clubs which are, members of the association and affiliated associations are debarred from playing them. They had a large number of fixtures for the season, which would have yielded considerable revenue, and could not now be played. They are excluded from contending for valuable prizes offered by the association out of its funds, and they have thrown on their hands the burden of maintaining their grounds without corresponding benefit of having association matches played on them."

And on that basis, after a legal battle lasting the rest of the season, Renton, against the considered odds, won. In April 1891 it was reinstated and, despite losing all its first team bar, two, none other than the McCalls, re-recruited, and with renewed fire in its belly. In the second season of the league, won this time outright by Dumbarton, it finished a creditable sixth of twelve and in the Cup made it to the semi-final to lose after a replay and ironically to still non-league Queen's Park. 

But for The Vale it was a different story. After having fielded thirty-three to thirty-five players the previous season in reaching the fourth round of the Cup then seeing seven of the better ones move on and, obviously scrapping the barrel, using over forty in this campaign, Cup-exit had come in the first round and not a single league game was won. The club finished bottom and with no Second Division yet in place was not re-elected. In fact, although in 1892-3 it continued with a season in the Football Alliance, finishing eighth with again over thirty players tried, it did not get beyond the Preliminary Rounds of the Cup, when for 1893-4 season the second tier of the League did come into being it was not included and the following season it even ceased to be professional and returned to amateur status. Indeed in terms of the League it would only join Division Two in 1906, to be a team that then oscillated between the foot and the middle of the table; that is until 1924 dropping to Division Three, as it existed for a single season, joining the Alliance once more in 1926 for again a single campaign before in 1929 ceasing to exist altogether until resurrected in 1939.       

Meanwhile Dumbarton, having topped the Scottish League in its first two years had slipped down the First Division table. By 1895 it was second to last, in 1896 last, relegated to Division Two, and by the summer of 1897, despite just reaching but badly losing the Cup Final, had resigned even from that, not returning until 1906-7. It meant that in 1897-8 only one Vale of Leven club remained in even the second flight, yet that would not be the case for many months more. The following season even Renton was gone but not without a fight. 

From 1893 the Tontine club had gradually dipped. In 1892-3 it had not survived the first round of the Cup and finished eighth of ten in the League. Three of its players had gone by the start of the season and still there was demand. Whilst two, including briefly Alick Barbour, were back from Down South, seven others were on their way. It meant for 1893-4 there were step-ups required, some too young and some aging, and it showed. The team only made the second round of the Cup and finished bottom of the First Division to be relegated to the Second. And, whilst three more players would take the English shilling this time they were replaceable, even improved on. In fact so astonishingly good was the new crop, because it was tantamount to an annual harvest and replant, that the team, noted and remarked on elsewhere for its youth, led its new division in December 1894, would finish third, take the Dunbartonshire Cup and reach the 1895 Scottish Cup Final. Indeed, there were in the main eleven just two senior players, Archie McCall, captain, and, dropping back from the forward-line, at centre-half, Scottish centre-half, thirty-years old and much-travelled Will McColl, grandfather of Ian (John) McColl, future Rangers and Scotland player and manager of, by results, the most successful national team since pre-Second World War and to this day. However, the claim is something of a chimera. It is true that all the others in that team were aged between twenty and twenty-two but then football was in that era still a young man's game. Indeed, whilst this one averaged twenty-two, the Renton team to have won the 1885 final had across the board been a year younger.   

As to the final itself, it was played out on 26th April at Ibrox. About 13,500 watched on, with James Cleland on the the Edinburgh club's left flank giving the right of Renton's defence all sorts of trouble. He scored a brace to just one in reply and it looked as if, if the pattern of previous seasons was to be repeated, the moment had been lost. There would be exits. Yet, in fact only, two of the youngsters moved away and they were both squad players so there was seemingly potential for a repeat and it almost happened. As the league position was more or less held, fourth instead of third, the Cup semi-final was reached, albeit with narrow wins, only to be this time lost, to Hibernian in Edinburgh and only by the odd goal in three.      

Yet between the two seasons - 1894-5 and 1895-6 -  and beneath the surface there actually had been three other changes, two subtle and one more obvious. The first was that Alex Wylie probably had, albeit briefly, other priorities. In the General Election of July 1895 he had been chosen as Conservative MP for Dunbartonshire and, whilst his tenure lasted barely six months, perhaps it had been enough for him literally to take his eye off the ball and the purse-strings, enough, indeed, for in the summer of 1896 now eight of the younger players to move on, but notably this time, as reflection of a changing market, only two South. Six simply moved across to rival, Scottish teams. The second was that Will McColl, early in the 1896-7 season and as something of a metaphor for the future of the club as a whole, broke his leg so badly that it might even have contributed, with other football-related damage, first to prolonged hospitalisation and then his premature death; at his passing he would be just thirty-eight. And the third was Archie McCall, James having already stepped back except in extremis. In the autumn of 1895 Archie had been there at left-back and captain. By the same stage in 1896, aged thirty-five, it appears he was no longer. After twelve years of peerless service time had simply caught up.

Renton would in April 1897 finish joint sixth of ten in the Second Division, then in 1897-8 be eleventh of eleven and resign, never to return. It would then spend the rest of its existence mostly in the Western League before in 1922 being wound-up with meantime a final glory season and a sweet and sour moment of pathos for Tontine Park. The latter was that Archie McCall, ever constructive, was said to be one of brickies, who built the housing-estate that now stands on it. The former is that its 1906-7 team reached the quarter-final of the Cup only to lose at Hampden to a Queen's Park team that had just joined the first division of the League for the first time, there itself to struggle and eventually fail. And the now wee Renton had managed it not only by in the previous round beating a Dundee, which only months later would finish second to Celtic in the league, but also St. Bernard's in the one before that, it destined to top the second division, with The Vale just below in joint-second and Dumbarton fourth. Such are the miniscule margins and the manifold ironies of our game.