ROBERT DALRYMPLE

Full Name: Robert Rodie Dalrymple

Born: 02 January 1880

Came from: Heart of Midlothian   Went to: Rangers

First game: 01 September 1903   Last game: 22 April 1905

Appearances: 92 (92/0)   Goals: 31

Often known as Bob, or Dally during his playing career, Dalrymple was an inside-forward and was born in Paisley. He began his career with Westmarch (often called Westmarch XI) in his hometown. They were a junior club affiliated with St Mirren, as was common at the time, for Scottish League clubs to have secondary, local feeder clubs. Westmarch existed from 1896 until 1903.

He then joined another Paisley-based side, Scottish Football League Second Division club Abercorn. They were founder members of the Scottish Football League and played at that level from 1890 until 1915. However, eventually they could not compete with local rivals St Mirren and folded in 1920. He played 31 times and scored 11 goals for the club between 1900 and 1902.

In 1902, he moved to Edinburgh to play for First Division Heart of Midlothian and later that year spent time with Kilbarchan, from the Renfrewshire village of the same name, on loan. He scored on his Hearts debut in a 1-1 draw with rivals Hibernian on October 1902. He later helped the club reach the 1903 Scottish FA Cup Final, playing in a 1-1 draw against Rangers at Celtic Park in April 1903, The replay one week later, also ended in a draw. He was to eventually receive a runners-up medal after Hearts lost the second replay 2-0 in front of 32,000.

He spent just one season at Hearts, scoring twice in six games, before heading south to join Argyle, in time for the club's first professional season, as a Frank Brettell (Argyle's first-ever manager) signing. A versatile player, he was a fixture for the next two years filling a variety of forward roles, but mainly as an outside-right. Notably, he scored the club's first FA Cup goal, and scored a second later in the game as Argyle defeated Whiteheads 7-0 in the 1st Qualifying Round, in October 1903. Whiteheads were an amateur club based in Wyke Regis, near Weymouth, and were the works' team of the Whitehead Torpedo Works.

He finished his debut season and Argyle's first in the Southern League with 18 goals in total, in 43 appearances, across both Southern and Western League competitions. The following season, under Bob Jack, he was among the goals in the FA Cup again, earning Argyle a 1-1 draw at Newcastle United in the 1st Round in February 1905. Adding a further 12 goals in the league competition, he won his first major title at the end of the season as the club were crowned Western Football League champions in the 1904-05 season. In total he played 92 times in green, scoring 31 goals.

In 1905, he then returned to Scotland, to sign for Rangers, but only stayed for one season, making 12 appearances and scoring four goals in the 1905-06 season. He then moved back to the south, with Portsmouth in the Southern League, for the 1906-07 season.

After a single season at Fratton Park, a three-year stint at Fulham back in the Football League followed, where he scored 40 goals in 98 games. He then had a war-interrupted nine-years spell with Clapton Orient (who later became Leyton Orient), after joining in January 1911 for £300. He would go on to make 139 appearances and score 38 times either side of the conflict.

During the conflict, Dalrymple served as a Sergeant (Service Number F/267) in the famous Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), in the 17th (Service) Battalion (1st Football), known as the Footballers' Battalion.

He enlisted as a Private at the Fulham Town Hall in December 1914 and rose rapidly to Lance Corporal in January 1915, then to Corporal in February 1915 and finally, to the rank of Sergeant in May 1915.

Serving whilst with Clapton Orient, in December 1916, he was misreported in the Sporting Chronicle as being killed in action, along with fellow soldiers Tim Coleman (Nottingham Forest & England) and Norwich City's George McDonald. Rumours of their deaths had been greatly exaggerated, McDonald was in hospital after a cartilage operation and Coleman and Dalrymple were "resting" behind enemy lines with the 17th Middlesex. He had however, been injured twice during the conflict.

As comrades wrote to England to correct the mistake, fun was had at the front amongst the three soldiers, Dalrymple was to joke about his "second time on Earth". He was demobbed in February 1918, and after the conflict, finished his time with Clapton Orient in 1919, making seven further appearances. He then ended his career back in the Southern League, with a brief spell playing for and coaching Welsh side, Ton Pentre, who were in the league from 1909 until 1915, and again after WWI from 1919 until 1922.

His senior career had lasted from 1902 to 1919 and he made 417 appearances scoring a very respectable 133 goals.

He was to spent the next three decades or so of his post-football years as a Fitter. The 1921 Census shows him as living in Plumstead, in SE London, and with his occupation listed as an Engineer's Fitter (he had returned to his original trade). By the 1939 Register (compiled at the outbreak of the WWII to issue National Identity cards) he had moved slightly further out into Bexley, in Kent, and was listed as an Aircraft Fitter / Assembler.

In his later life, he moved to the coast and he passed away in Worthing in Sussex, in July 1970, at the grand old age of 90 years old.