FREE SCORING NESBIT IN 1920!!

As the Dunfermline "Athletic" programme, for the match v Inverness Caley Thistle, pointed out, it is 100 years ago that the incomparable Andy Wilson became the first ever Pars player to win a full international cap.

He would score the opener in his second game v Ireland in a 3-0 win. He was a fixture in the Scotland National team for the next three years and 6 of his eventual 12 international caps came as a Dunfermline player.

He remains the only Dunfermline player to have captained Scotland. The Heritage Trust, to their credit, are now working with Hearts, Middlesbrough and Chelsea (he captained them for six seasons) to put together a cast iron case to have him included in the Scottish Football Hall Of Fame.

Andy Wilson was one of the greatest Centre Forwards of his generation and yet the Club got him for nothing.(This would be the equivalent of the Pars getting eg Leigh Griffiths for nothing these days).

He was valued in 1920 at £2000 ie £90,000 today. It happened as we were part of the Central League, outwith the jurisdiction of the Scottish Football League. The Athletic Board felt the Second Division was disappointing.

He came from Newmains in Lanarkshire where he was born in 1896. Sadly, he was badly wounded with shrapnel in his left arm at the Battle Of Arras in 1918 in the Great War. He lost the use of his limb and wore a glove to mask his withered arm. It did not stop him becoming an outstanding billiards player in later years. He had played for Middlesbrough and Hearts but the Directors got him to sign and helped him buy the Sports Shop on Guildhall Street.

By this date in 1920 he had scored 35 goals and missed 8 penalties and scored one with a header while lying on the ground, the "Dunfermline Press" reported.

Gates were rocketing on the back of this and a derby with Cowdenbeath would attract 18,000.Pars Fans often came home with a blackened face as coal dust was carried by a strong wind off the ash terraces. It was now that the Directors bought the ground, moved the stadium further east and drew up plans (you can still see at East End Park) for a Stadium to take 64,000 Fans! By 1922 The Central League came to an end and the Second Division was resurrected.

Unfortunately, all our illegally signed players had to be let go, so Andy returned to Middlesbrough. The newspapers of the time spoke of his wonderful ball control, bullet shot, guile and dynamism.

He had scored 100 goals in two seasons. He would be the first British footballer to play for a French club (Nimes) and would briefly manage Walsall.

Oh and his second name was,uncannily, Nesbit! He died in 1973.
JL