The day Falkirk smashed the world transfer record!

How the Bairns came to make a sensational signing... paying £3m (in today’s money) for England star Syd Puddefoot

IT would be enough to send Jim White’s yellow tie spinning in the manner of a vaudeville comedian in the midst of a TV transfer deadline day special.

It would send modern commentators and journalists into a febrile state requiring medical intervention.

It sent tremors, exactly a century ago, through the football globe but would now be dismissed as a spoof, an act of fantasy.

It was the day Falkirk Football Club broke the world transfer record.

This headline would be enough to pique interest but the circumstances and aftermath of the transfer of Sydney Charles Puddefoot from West Ham United to Falkirk in February, 1922, are simply gripping.

It is a tale that once lay forgotten in the newspaper archives. It is now retold in all its glorious detail, all its transient glory, in a pamphlet compiled by Michael White, Falkirk historian and the innovator behind the Football Memories Scotland groups that do so much to brighten the lives of those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

It is a story that was once heard at the feet of a grandfather. ‘He was there when Syd was paraded around the town in a charabanc,’ White says of his granda, Tom Robertson. ‘He told me of how fans walked from the town to Bathgate to watch Puddefoot’s debut.’

The story remained with the historian and it has now been fully researched and published. It strips the mystery from an incredible transfer but it retains the intrigue.

Why did an English international — who had spurned interest from Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur — decide to sign for a middling Scottish club?

How was his signing-on fee of £1,000 (£600,000 in today’s money) raised and paid out? Indeed, how was the £5,000 in total outlay delivered to West Ham? Did a bag of cash sit on the table of a railway carriage from Falkirk to London before being decanted at the Boleyn Ground as legend insists?

How did Puddefoot fare and how was he a forerunner of Eric Cantona in terms of interaction with fans? And how did he end up in Turkey?

White takes a breath and answers all. ‘It is best to start at the beginning,’ he says.

PUDDEFooT had served with the Royal Fusiliers during the First World War and was stationed in Bridge of Allan. He played on loan for Falkirk in six matches, scoring five goals.

He returned to West Ham at the end of hostilities and subsequently played in the Victory Internationals against Scotland in 1919, scoring in both games.

He then made it known he wanted to leave West Ham and contacted Falkirk. Why? There were financial reasons. The maximum weekly wage of £9 was imposed in England. At Falkirk, Puddefoot was offered £10 basic, £2 for a win and £1 for a draw.

There was also that unprecedented signing-on fee and the possibility of what a West Ham statement called ‘a nice little competency’ — that is a business opportunity beyond the pitch.

The myth is that Falkirk manager Willie Nicol and several directors travelled by train to London with a medicine bag crammed with £6,000 in cash.

The deal was done but the myth is just that. The truth, according to the board minutes uncovered by White, is there was no bag of money, that the cash was finally raised by supporters’ bonds and that the deal split the directors, with resignations ensuing.

‘It looks as if the directors completed the deal with a bag of fresh air,’ says White.

Puddefoot duly arrived, beating the previous transfer record of £4,600 that saw Tom Hamilton move from Kilmarnock to Preston North End the season before.

‘He was paraded around the town in an open-top carriage and few could believe that Falkirk held the world transfer record for a footballer,’ says White.

‘Crowds had gathered at Grahamston railway station to see the arrival of a player they hoped would bring much longed-for success.

His debut was a Scottish Cup second-round tie at Bathgate (February 11), who were then a Second Division side and doing quite well.

Thousands of Bairns supporters made their way up the Braes to Bathgate and reports suggest that some had even walked to the game.’

Falkirk lost. But Puddefoot was to impress and infuriate during his stay at the club.

‘He was an innovator in that he was not a traditional centreforward,’ says White.

‘He would drop deep and could come in from either wing. He was strong, quick and sure in front of goal.’

Puddefoot led Falkirk up the league in his first two seasons and to a Scottish Cup semi-final in 1924 when they lost to Airdrie.

The Bairns slipped down the table in his final seasons and he left in 1925 to join Blackburn Rovers for £4,000.

It had been a lucrative but bruising experience.

IN a contemporary newspaper interview, he railed at the ‘roughness’ of the Scottish game and referred to spectators calling him names. He stated that he had twice ‘had to jump the railings’ to engage with the name-callers.

‘My offence, as far as I can see, is having an English accent. I must admit, though, I am indebted to Scotland for two things — I have reduced my golf handicap and increased my pace,’ he said.

He had also considerably improved his bank balance and unsuccessfully tried to persuade the club to sign his brother.

White adds: ‘At Falkirk, he had shown signs of the brilliance that had earned him war-time honours but he could be inconsistent. He had expressed concern at some crowd hostility towards him in games and sensed a reluctance from some team-mates to pass to him.’ He may also have been homesick.

So an extraordinary period at Falkirk ended and Lancashire beckoned. But what happened to Puddefoot?

He played 250 league games across seven seasons with Rovers and was in their FA Cup-winning side of 1928. He won two further England caps. In 1932, at the age of 37, he returned to West Ham but he was merely a spectre of times past and, after just one season, he opted to go into coaching.

Typically for Puddefoot, it would be a move that surprised English football. He travelled to Turkey to coach at Fenerbahçe, where he teamed up with Hungarian József

He was paraded around the town in an open-top carriage and fans walked miles to see him on his debut

Schweng, the club’s first foreign manager. He saw early success with the club, winning the 1932–33 championship, but moved to their Istanbul rivals Galatasaray on a one-year contract for the start of the 1933–34 season.

White says: ‘He was often referred to as “Hoca” Puddefoot, which is Turkish for teacher. His influence on the club and Turkish football in general was significant. With fellow Englishman Fred Pagnam, he is credited with much of the success of the professional game in Turkey and he often returned there in coaching and development roles after his time at Galatasaray.’

White says: ‘It was not always easy during his time in Turkey and the British press picked up a story of Puddefoot being “mauled” during one feisty local derby in 1934. This ended with police intervention and scenes of mayhem.

‘This has echoes of Graeme

Souness planting the Galatasaray flag in the centre of the Fenerbahce pitch after the 1996 cup final.’

Puddefoot returned to England soon after and managed Northampton for two years. But the intrepid traveller had had enough of the ‘insecurity’ of football management and, after he left Northampton, he made his living in business.

White reflects: ‘A century on, it remains a remarkable story. No agents, no clandestine meetings, no major sponsorship deal, no hidden extras, no press conference and no media storm. Just two Falkirk men heading for the East End of London and a transfer target in their sights.

‘I had heard eye-witness accounts — and tall tales — of Puddefoot’s arrival in Falkirk but I wanted to bring him into reality.’

He has succeeded. Puddefoot died on October 2, 1972, aged 77. White has resurrected him and a slice of sensational Scottish history.