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The Crowers' forwards showed great pace, and one of them, Will Cumming, repeatedly got past me, despite the smart manoeuvring of my master. Will, however, was somewhat wild in his dribbling, and could not keep the ball close enough to his toes.
My master, who was quite an adept at corner flag-kicks, was sent to the spot, and placed the ball in a good position, but Bob Prentice got it up in his hands at a critical moment, and threw it clear. Good runs were eventually made on both sides, and once the Crowers nearly lowered our colours, but nothing was got by either, and the game was drawn.
"That 'ere rooster thinks he's on the top of the heap," said our driver, laughing. "I guess he's not used to travelling in a close conveyance. Listen! How all the crowers in the neighbourhood give him back a note of defiance! But he knows that he's safe enough at the bottom of the basket."
In after life, however, my master found several foemen worthy of his steel amongst backs and half-backs in the Flying Blues, the Crowers, the Cedargrove, Red Cross, and North Western, and he sometimes came off second best. It is all very well to say that there were "great men in those days."
A few of the Red Cross and Cedargrove forwards sometimes gave him a fright, and in one match with the Leven Crowers he was fairly outwitted by Boyd and Ned M'Donald in a cup tie. I fought hard in that memorable battle myself, and never got such a saturation with water and mud in my career; but we were beaten.
The more, in fact, I think of it, the more I am convinced that the present make of football boots is a new-fangled device in the shoemaking trade, for are they not now got up of American leather, brass nails, and other abominations, free of import duty! He told the old man that he was going to play a match with the Leven Crowers that very afternoon, and must have me.
At the outset of the game the rain poured down in torrents, and as most of the play was on the Crowers' portion of the field, the umbrella was put up, amid the laughter of the partisans of John's contingent and the pent-up indignation of the followers of the Crowers, who mustered strong on the occasion, and demonstrated a strength of lungs truly astonishing.
I heard him say the Conquerors had "licked" these clubs over and over again, and that they weren't in the same street. Talking about the Leven Crowers, they were not to be despised. Although the haughty Conquerors had given them their first lesson in Association football, they were fast coming up on them in some of the points of the game.
The Crowers' goalkeeper was a good one, and could clear his place of defence with great ability, but the backs were not of much account. Pate M'Wherry and Luke M'Tavish did the work at half-back, but their kicking was somewhat feeble when compared with those of the Conquerors, Tom James and Willie Keith.
There was no club in Scotland, except, perhaps, the Vale Crowers, that had made so much progress in the game as those Flying Blues, and few, if any, were gifted with the same amount of self-confidence. The Blues, nevertheless, had good reason to feel proud of some of their members, for they were young and active, and the very ideal of smart football players.
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