History Of Arrochar Football Team >   

Memories of Arrochar and Tarbet Football Team

By (Snowy –  Ian MacLachlan)

I came to Arrochar in 1949/1950 and began the Arrochar and Tarbet Football Team in the early 1950s.  First of all I started being involved in running the children’s sports day in front of the old Village Hall. I then became involved in the football, which was held on the football pitch at the Arrochar Hotel.  The first team was a school team who played matches against Garelochhead and Rhu in the Lochside League.  Even though this was a school team, the players were very good and very competitive.  The team interest began to stop the boys of the village hanging around, as there wasn’t much for them to do.  (Miss Grierson of the Red Cross was not in favour of the team as many of her patrons from her classes had defected to the football team).  There were two Arrochar and Tarbet teams - one in the Lochside League and one in the West of Scotland League.  There was always a team in the Lochside League but a sponsor was required for the West of Scotland League.  Our first sponsor was the Alexandria Torpedo Factory, which was connecter to the Torpedo Range at Arrochar.  Arrochar was the first county team to get into the West of Scotland League, followed by Oban, in around 1965. 

Before the team had changing facilities near the pitch, the team changed in the village Hall and walked down to the pitch.  Then Mr Ross of Ross & Sons donated a small hut to the team to be able to change at the edge of the pitch.  This was a bonus but it was only big enough for one team at a time to change. 

When the proposal to build houses behind Kirkfield Place came on steam  (now MacKenzie Avenue) the council had to move the Wee Tighness School, which stood at the point of access to the site.

The team was later lucky enough to acquire the building, which was placed on the football pitch below the police station. This gave the team changing facilities and the housing for a full size snooker table, which, I believe, came from a Mr Tait of Ben Reoch House.  It was taken apart to be moved to our hut and pieced back together by a professional firm of snooker and billiard table makers, all funded by Mr Tait.  The table gave the young boys of the village many an hour of fun.

However, because visiting teams were not prepared to use our meagre facilities the Council eventually built the facility now known as the Pavilion. 

The team would train on both Tuesdays and Thursday, then play matches on Saturday and in midweek.  Often the team would play two matches on a Saturday.  For those players not lucky enough to get on the pitch on Saturday, they would normally be included in the midweek matches against the likes of Strachur.  The reserve team would normally play its matches at Tarbet, but both teams had been known to travel as far as Aberdeen and Blackpool for a match.  The Aberdeen match was a riotous affair with the many of the team being carried out of the bar to the bus after the match!  At one match the Helensburgh Advertiser got the result very wrong.  Instead of the result being 17 – nil, they paper wrote 71 – nil!  We’d had tough matches but never that bad!  Whenever a navy ship or submarine was berthed in the Loch, we would play against them, sometimes twice a week.  These matches always generated lots of support – particularly from the local girls interested in the men in uniform.  The team did play the Navy at Rhu one time and had to get special passes to get into the Base to play.  When the team won the [Colin Munro?] Cup for the first time with a win over Greenock, the team paraded the cup through the village and was presented with a bottle of whisky.  A good night followed that win, with memories of events after about 7pm a little hazy.  During one match, I forget where, Billy Ross and his brother raced off the pitch into the surrounding woodland, had a scrap and then both came back on the pitch to continuing playing.  The team was full of characters like that.

The goal posts were kindly made by the Hydro Electric workmen at Loch Sloy from old steel girders.   The pitch was a constant problem with a large area of it being what can only be described as boggy.  But this helped contain the opposition!

The Arrochar team new how to negotiate their opponents into to the ‘bog’ to their own advantage!!

There was always money spent on the pitch, digging drainage and reseeding the areas, which had turned to mud.  One season it became so bad the pitch had to be completely dug over in order to be suitable to play in the West of Scotland League.  In the end the condition of pitch contributed to the demise of the team.

In the very early days the team had no sponsorship and the players had to buy their own football strips.  The original strips were big, thick wool shirts of red and blue but the team colours later changed to red and white.  I remember on one occasion a set of new strips had arrived for the team, minus the goalkeeper’s shirt, so I set about getting hold of a nice silk shirt for the goalie.  In a rush on the Saturday morning, I scooped up the new kit along with the black shirt for the goalkeeper and set off.  It was only when the team came to get changed I realised that instead of the new goalkeepers shirt, I had picked up my wife’s black skirt instead!  The goalie didn’t wear it by the way.

To raise money for the football team, the team held dances in the ‘Tin Hut’ on a Friday night.  Each dance had a raffle and prizes were donated by local businesses.   The dances were very well attended with many girls travelling some distance from the likes of Crianlarich and Ardlui to come to the Friday night event, as well as the local girls working in the hotels.  There were even occasions of some people being barred from the dances for bad behaviour.  But they would turn up the following week, apologise and be let back in.  I remember being in Clydebank one day going about my business when I was confronted by a large man with a heavily scarred face.  I was worried I was about to be thumped but the man said “I know you, you threw me out of the Arrochar Dance on Friday.  It’s a really good dance by the way, the best around.”  Sometimes the dances were held on a Tuesday as well as a Friday.  The bands ranged from local musicians to bands from around the county which were paid a nominal fee for entertaining the crowd.  Many a musical career was born at the Arrochar Football Dance.  Another bonus was the burn by the side of the hall doubled as a fridge for the ‘half bottles’. The ‘Tin Hut’ later called the ‘Iron Lung’ was a temperance building????.

The funds collected were recorded in the yearbook.  The total income for 1960 for example was £144, 18 shillings, which was a combination of the dances and collections made at the game.  A hat was normally passed round the supporters and as there was usually a large turnout to the games an average collection at a match would be around 18 shillings.  We always listed expenses though, even down to the 9 shillings 6pence for the tea after the match.  The records for 1966 show an electric clock bought for the pavilion along with grass seed, manure and cost of labour for reseeding the pitch.

Some of the funds went towards buying a team bus.  Before the purchase of the bus, the team had relied on the goodwill of local car owners.  Both the Torpedo Range and Jimmy McTavish provided transport for the team.  Then MacTavish offered the team a bargain in a Bedford Bus, which had a door which always fell off.  The Club bought it cheap and it’s rumoured its still being paid for!.  The bus had wooden seats which were so hard that by the time the team reached their destination the team couldn’t feel their legs.   The bus was a little worse for wear with lots of holes in the bodywork which the team would fill with their old chip wrappers after the game.  Unfortunately this practice led to the demise of the bus when it caught alight after one outing.

Many an interesting journey to away games was had on the team bus – depending on who was driving that day determined how fast the team got to the match.  Trying to find the opponents ground, often in Glasgow, was a constant source of amusement.  This was in the day before Sat Nav and many a time we got lost.  On one occasion the bus and some of the travelling fans got the directions so wrong that the bus made a turn closely followed by the supporter’s cars only to find they had driven onto someone’s driveway!

There were many stars in the team and a few of them could have gone on to play professionally.  George Brown caught the interest of Dumbarton Football Club but despite a twinge of envy of a professional players lifestyle, stayed loyal to Arrochar as he enjoyed playing with the team so much.  George, who joined the team in 1963, still holds the record for the training run which went from the bottom of the football pitch to the mast on Cruach Tarbet and back.  Many of his team mates would comment that they would still be running up the hill while George was passing them on his way back down.  His record still stands at 21 minutes.

Looking back at the Team Yearbooks show how consistent the team was, the same names appear regularly in the match reports.  The boys enjoyed both playing and training far more than lads do today.  It seemed to give them discipline and set them on the right track.  Most turned out well.

I gave up coaching the team but never left really.  Barry Kelly took over from me but I always kept in touch with the players and the results.  I came back to make the tea from time to time and enjoy the biscuits!  In the end the team died out due to lack of interest from the younger boys, they were more interested in watching the football of the Old Firm games than playing themselves. 

Arrochar and Tarbet Football Club Honours

Scottish Amateur Cup Match Report

Weir Recreation 3                           Arrochar 0

Arrochar put up a good show in this cup.  Match at Newlands, to the extent that they received congratulations twice after the game.  First Weir’s were full of praise for the hard game Arrochar gave them and admitted they did not expect such a competitive game from a Fifth Division side.  The referee was the second to congratulate both teams on the sportsmanship which this game was played.  And although Arrochar were out of the Cup they were all in agreement that this was the most enjoyable game of the Season.

Match Report

Arrochar Reserves            2                      City Chambers 3

The reserves had also their best game of the season on Saturday too and came within five minutes of a draw when City got the winner five minutes from time.  In the absence of an official referee, McGilvary, Arrochar's ex-keeper on holiday in the Village, was called upon to take up the unusual role with the whistle.

Match Report

Eaglesham 6                                    Arrochar 1

Eaglesham did not give Arrochar time to settle at Eaglesham on Saturday.  From the stating whistle they went into a spirited attack and scored three goals in 26 minutes.  They settled down to play a professional style of football and netted a fourth before half time and it looked as if the final score would go into double figures at this stage.

Arrochar had got over their shock start when play restarted and the second half was more even.  Eaglesham still having the better finishing and were fully justified to their two second half goals.  Arrochar’s goal came when C McLachlan was knocked down in the penalty area when they had one of their few chances of scoring.  I Parlane was Arrochar’s on the spot man and easily beat the over confident keeper.  This is one game for Arrochar that is best forgotten.

Coronation Cup Match Report

Arrochar 2                                        PO Phones 4

PO phones won the game but it was Arrochar who took all the honours for their outstanding performance against this First Division side.  From their previous friendly encounter it was unbelievable how much extra effort both teams could put into this cup game.  PO were lucky to get a soft penalty after 20 minutes play but they had to fight hard for their next goal which did not come till after the interval and it did not count for long when Arrochar came back hard and T Reid shot a cracker into their net.  Arrochar threw everything into attack after this and had PO tottering in defence but PO got a breakaway goal to put them further in the lead.  This did not stop Arrochar trying and on another of their many raids on PO’s goal it was I Parlane who shot the goal of the match from 40 yards which no keeper could stop.  PO’s fourth goal came before full time when Arrochar hesitated when they were justly expecting a foul award which was not given and a PO forward was quick to take the chance.  McLachlan was unlucky to receive a broken nose in a head encounter during the game.  But this was a hard sporting game, which both teams deserve full credit.

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