Away.
It was late October, heading into winter. A few more games. Billy Synnott was now a footballing veteran playing with young men on the Pittsburgh Rovers team. 36 years old, he had known injuries and suspensions, wins and losses and retirements. The FA Cup. The English League. The Irish League. The Leinster Senior League. The Irish Cup. The Belfast City Cup.
And now in Lawrence Park in Pittsburgh far from home, a cup semi-final awaited against his old Homestead Steel Works team. He'd scored in the quarter-final replay to get here, pushed forward in seeking the win. Playing in his favoured left-back position Synnott, as competitive as ever, received the commendations of the local sports reporters. But to no avail. His team shipped seven goals to two for Pittsburgh Rovers. The last hurrah.
The month had not started well for Billy, missing the first game of the quarter-final. He had received a 14-day ban from the United States Football Association for an incident in the 1915-16 National Challenge Cup qualifying round against Braddock in late October:
Pittsburgh Rovers will be without the services of Synott and Magill, these players having been suspended by the National Association for 14 days through being sent off the field last Saturday in the cup-tie against Braddock. Donaghey of Braddock is also suspended for 14 days, and Stalker, of the same club, for 60 days, for their part in the same affair.
The highest level competition in America in which Synnott could play, his Rovers team giving as good as they got, going down 0-3 to three goals in the last 25 minutes in a good quality if feisty nine v nine game: 'The first-half produced some of the finest football played here', according to the scribe on duty that was marred by four red cards - one for Synnott for 'an exhibition of the manly arts'. (Edward Donaghy, one of the infringing players from Braddock would later become a noted soccer referee in the USA).
After a stint ‘working’ in Glasgow, marrying a Glaswegian named Agnes Kelly (the daughter of Irish parents), and with 50 dollars to their name Mr & Mrs Synnott set-off on the ocean liner California, bound for a new life in the USA.
On August 31st, 1910 they landed at Ellis Island, listing Homestead PA as their destination where they would stay with a friend, Peter McKinney. According to Billy himself, recounting the story in 1956, he emigrated to the United States of America to play for five dollars a game and a twenty-five dollar (or four pounds ) signing-on fee to play for the Homestead Steel Workers Football Club in Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania.
Homestead FC were a ‘works’ team – players were recruited to both play for the soccer team as well as work in the steel mills, which was common feature of ‘contract’ at the time :
their jobs demanded strength, skill, discipline, and a sense of fearlessness because their work was frequently dangerous……….. These steelworkers expected their sports heroes to be as tough as they were, to have high standards, and to perform on the athletic field as they performed in the steel mills.
Billy Synnott was being paid five dollars ($129 in today’s money ) a game to play soccer – an honour in itself - in addition to the weekly wage of a steel miller worker which was no more than twenty dollars . Yet the works was tough:
The nature of the work, with the heat and its inherent hazard, makes much of it exhausting. Yet these men for the most part keep it up twelve hours a day. It is uneconomical to have the plant shut down. In order that the mills may run practically continuously, the twenty-four hours is divided between two shifts. The greater number of men employed in making steel (as distinct from the clerical staff) work half of the time at night, the usual arrangement being for a man to work one week on the day and the next on the night shift.
The Homestead FC team had a long history stretching back to 1897 when Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English migrants formed a football team. Soccer football was actually played since about 1886 when Johnny Kerr, a Scot (pictured below, back-row, far left) organised a team at Gratztown - Shanor Station FC - in Pittsburgh. Other pioneers in Pittsburgh were Jim Hughes (Madison FC), the Vickers brothers (McDonald FC) and Jim Mountfield (East Liverpool FC). By 1894, there was a league established: The Wastern Pennsylvania & Eastern Ohio League with six clubs - Mckeesports, Curry and Roscoe being the others. By the time of Synnott's arrival, he was joining an established scene - and one that payed its players.
Success followed him, in the Pittsburgh District League, winning league titles in 1910, 1911 and 1912. Capturing the cosmopolitan soccer scene in the USA at the time, in 1956, Synnott reminisced on soccer career in the USA, Billy recalled ‘I met many Irish and Scottish friends there and some of them were first-class players. There were fine footballers among them Germans, Italians and Poles too’. Billy was not the lone Irishman in Pittsburgh. In 1911, the Ancient Order of Hibernians held their seventh annual field day called ‘Irish Day’ in nearby Pittsburgh, with upwards of 25,000 in attendance. Synnott representing Homestead No. 34, took part in the soccer games that year with teammates by the name of O’Toole, Sweeney, Halloran, Walsh, Fedigan and Lally.
Homestead FC were to win titles in 1913, 1914 and 1915 and win the Spalding Cup (West Penn Challenge Cup) in 1916, losing in the 1918 final. However, William Synnott does not appear in the records as a Homestead player after 1913, and it seems has returned to full-time working – he lists his profession as as ‘mechanic’ on his application form for residency in 1917 - and is coaxed out of retirement for one more season with Pittsburgh Rovers, a losing semi-final being his final game.
For Billy, it was the last chapter of a 17 year long football career that started spectacularly with Shelbourne FC playing on the south-side of Dublin in Ireland in 1898.
Shelbourne FC
'The Reds' as Shelbourne FC were known as were founded in 1895 came into being after Johnny Rowan from Bath Avenue decided he could pick a team of local boys to beat the pick of two sides he watched playing in Sandymount. In a foretaste of his commercial planning there were a series of prize draws arranged to fund the team and purchase uniforms for a new club in Dublin's burgeoning association football scene. In a mix-up a chocolate and sky-blue kit actually arrived! By nature of their surroundings these local boys were from tough, streetwise, working class families from Ringsend and Irishtown, areas bordering the Dublin docks.
Their first game (versus a team called Fitzwilliam Rovers) was in early January 1896 and were to join the Leinster Junior League in time for the 1896-7 season. Without a ground of their own, they played firstly in Havelock Square, then Claremont Road, then Park Avenue, then to Beaver Row and by 1899 in either Clonskeagh, the home of Tritonville FC or in the Catholic University Grounds in Sandymount Village - essentially wanderers without a home ground of their own.
Winning both cup and league in its inaugural year, Shelbourne FC set themselves apart from other teams and clubs who would flicker and fade from the scene. My personal favourites were Madcap Rovers who were outlasted by Shelbourne who play until this day, now in their 125th year.
Now seniors, they reached the Leinster Cup final in 1897-98 only to be beaten by Bohemian FC (3-1) and runners-up in the Leinster League to the West Kents Regiment. But by the 1899-00 season they had attracted ex-Tritonville players (McCaul, Carpenter, Lee and Moore) and Dublin Gaelic footballers Ledwidge and Heslin (also ex-Phoenix AFC) as well as a young defender - William Synnott.
For 19 year-old Billy Synnott and his team-mates, the Leinster League campaign started well but ended in mediocrity - it was in the Cup were they would make their mark. Overcoming Richmond Rovers (after three replays) and the holders Bohemian FC in the semi-final - one final game at the City and Suburban Sports Grounds (now Croke Park) and their opponents Freebooters FC, awaited.
Freebooters FC
Socially, logistically and professionally there could be no greater contrast between Shelbourne and the Freebooters. Shelbourne were a team of labourers, clerks, smiths and sawyers, led by Bermuda-born clerk George Smith as captain. The Freebooters were, professionally - a different class.
The chief Freebooters promoter and instigator of ‘The Pirates’, as they were known as, were brothers - John (Jack), Jim and Arthur McCann. The McCanns were cricketers of note and the Freebooters also fielded a cricket team with considerable overlap between the football and cricket teams. Sons of the wealthy banker, stockbroker, farmer and Nationalist M.P, James McCann (who was President of the club and in 1901, of the Leinster Football Association (LFA), John McCann was also a stockbroker, Arthur became the farmer of the family while Jim became a Benedictine monk at Downside in England and another brother became Jesuit priest. They resided in the palatial Simmonscourt Castle in Ballsbridge which is where the Freebooters played all their home games.
In establishing the Freebooters AFC, the McCanns drew from their ‘old school’ English college’s network. Indeed, this seems to be the mission of the club: The founders wrote that they were 'anxious to promote union and fellowship amongst the old boys' of Stonyhurst, Downside and Beaumont.' By the time of their first games in October and November 1897, the starting line-ups included Stonyhurst graduates the Meldon brothers, George and Phillip, and two ex-Stonyhurst and Bohemian FC recruit Simon Scroope - and from Beaumont College, John McCann, the three O’Reilly’s - Percy, Henry and Harry - and William Morrogh-Ryan. They remained amateur throughout their existence, not unlike the gentle amateurs of southern English ‘gentlemen’ sides and played in white shirts with green collars, green knicks and green socks.
As a new club in the nascent association football scene in Leinster, the Freebooters were quick to establish themselves as a competitive team. When we look at their playing personnel, we can see that (apart from their schoolboy training) many had turned out for other teams including the University of Dublin (Trinity College Teams) prior to the establishment of the Freebooters AFC. As far back as 1895 W. Crozier had a Crozier XI team playing against Clongowes, while playing himself for Trinity alongside future Freebooters William Murrogh Ryan, P and J Meldon and Cecil Finny. Crozier and Ryan would represent Leinster v Ulster in December 1895 . An intervarsity match against Cambridge saw the same Trinity-based Freebooters in action. Indeed, it could be said the Freebooters were also a product of Trinity College which may explain why in October 1887 we see the Freebooters emerge, with their first recorded game versus a Trinity College team.
By December 19th that year, they pitted themselves against the best team in Dublin at the time – Bohemian FC – drawing 4-4 – in a game that was ‘watched with interest by the crowd, the majority of which consisted of ladies’ . While amateurs to the hilt, they were certainly no novices. As young fit single upper-class gentlemen, they were not unattractive to the curious ladies.
Competitively, a number of other games are reported with references to a ‘league’ of some sort in the 1897-98 season, but by February of 1898, Freebooters AFC withdrew from the league, their place taken by a Yorkshire Light Infantry team, with no reason reported. This is probably the Leinster Senior League.
However, by the start of the 1898-1899 season the Freebooters are fielding two teams: one in the Leinster Senior League and a second XI in the Leinster Junior League and they are included in the draw for the Irish Cup, the premier all-Ireland competition open to Dublin-based teams. The Freebooters, after earlier victories against Trinity College and the Yorkshire Regiment teams were to be defeated 3-2 in the fifth round that season by Bohemian FC, in a game played in Simmonscourt. Interestingly, Oliver St John Gogarty played with Freebooters and Bohemian FC in the same month, claiming he had not given ‘authority to the Freebooters to register his name this season’. The Freebooters did however gain the services of Bohemian FC’s Gibraltarian, Gonzalo Canilla who was also a cricketer of note and a medical doctor.
The good form continued with the Freebooters competing with the best with away victories recorded against Cliftonville, in their annual friendly and, against Bohemian FC in the Leinster League. Behind Bohemian FC, they were runners-up again in the Leinster Senior League and were beaten one-nil by their Bohemian FC nemesis in latter rounds the Irish Cup at Glasnevin.
At Simmonscourt, they had notable victories against the army battalion teams in particular and these results were not going unnoticed: in January 1899, four Freebooters were chosen to represent Leinster versus Ulster at Jones Road in Dublin: Scroope as captain, the two Finney brothers and Philip Meldon. The Ulster team contained seven internationals and in front of an ‘enormous’ crowd (seven-thousand), won 3-1 with the far-from-overawed Leinster scoring one goal (by captain Simon Scroope) and a penalty missed by Meldon.
Meldon, was to gain the ultimate honour of becoming an Irish International in March that year – scoring the winning goal on his debut versus Wales in the Home International Championship in Belfast. Amongst the ten Ulstermen he was the only Dublin-based player picked, watched by a crowd of ten-thousand. Philip Meldon was to be the first player from the Leinster Association (and Dublin) to be chosen to represent Ireland.
With Ulster and Belfast-based players having been exclusively chosen by the selection committee up until then, with limited success, it was decided to cast the net more widely to include both English-based players and Dublin-based players for the very first time with Archie Goodall from Derby County, Taggart of Walsall, Morrison of Burnley. Freebooter, Philip Meldon was the scorer of the winning goal, was carried aloft off the Grosvenor Road pitch amidst the ‘wildest enthusiasm’ with victories rare for the Ireland team at that time.
The choosing of Freebooters for international and interprovincial honours was on merit and no surprise: the Freebooters finished second in the Leinster Senior League and were quarter-finalists in the Leinster Cup competition in only their second full season.
Meldon was retained for the next fixture, away to Scotland, but with only one of their English-based contingent (Archie Goodall) and nine amateurs in the team they suffered a heavy defeat (1-9), with a second Dublin-based player Dr George Sheehan of Bohemian FC captaining the side.
In 1901 (and 1902), individual honours were afforded to Freebooter players – James Nolan-Whelan, Henry Mansfield and Harry O’Reilly were picked on the annual interprovincial match between Leinster and Ulster. Harry O’Reilly was called up to represent his country in a 13-0 drubbing in Glasgow while Mansfield and Nolan-Whelan received the greatest honour by representing Ireland versus England with Nolan-Whelan and Reilly on a the losing Ireland (0-1) side versus Wales in Belfast that year. Played at the newly-built Dell in Southampton, two late goals by England saw Ireland lose 0-3, with Nolan-Whelan praised for keeping the score low.
The choosing of Freebooters for international and interprovincial honours was on merit and no surprise - a serious statement of quality for the final versus Shelbourne in April 1900.
Freebooters (0) Shelboune (1)
On April 28th, pitted as underdogs 'making a bold bid to win the cup for the first time' against the 'well-known' Freebooters players, 'The Reds' took to the field at full strength - Synnott slotting into the half-back position in place of Ledwidge (their star player). A 5 pm Saturday kick-off ensured a decent-sized crowd (4,000) for the the blue riband game of the year. The Freebooters were augmented by the arrival home of two military men Harry Mansfield and Philip Meldon from duties in England while Shelbourne had Jack Ledwidge (Geraldines GAA) missing from the team.
Ledwidge had earlier that month won the All-Ireland Football championship against Waterford on April 8th and was now prioritising the Dublin GAA championship. Jack Heslin was also an All-Ireland winner and played in the final for Shelbourne. Ledwidge was a loss to the team: he had represented Leinster away against Millwall (2-2) and versus a Derry XI (4-0) in friendly games the previous year and was by far their most experienced and accomplished player).
A glimpse of Dublin in April 1900 can be caught in the Pathe film of the visit of Queen Victoria to Dublin in April that year. The Queen left Dublin the day before the match.
'The weather was on its best behaviour, but the nature of the surface rendered good football out of the question', reported the Irish Times. Continuing:
'concerning the game and its result there are a few things to be said. Shelbourne won by a penalty goal to nothing, and are to be congratulated on their success; but had the result been reversed on the play it would have been a more correct indication as to the merits of the teams. No one grudges Shelbourne their win, as it will do Leinster football a deal of good.............but nevertheless when one looks back on Freebooters as footballers - it cannot be gainsaid that they play a more scientific game than any team in Leinster.'
The penalty was scored by George Smith, against the run of play and with a vigourous rearguard action Shelbourne held out with 'dogged perseverance and keen-spirited tackling'. This was Synnott's and Shelbourne's first senior success - the first of many over the next 120 years of senior football in Ireland.
William Synnott was born in 1879, and by 1901 was one of seven children in a six-roomed house on Parnell Place, Harold’s Cross, Dublin. The 1901 census lists his father’s profession as ‘clerk’, while his mother’s is listed as ‘dressmaker’. William is listed as a ‘smith’. In total eleven people (including two boarders) are listed living in the Synnott abode. This was very typical of the time in working-class households, in the economic climate that existed. Dublin, at the turn of the century had the worst slums in Europe and the Synnott household seemed to be doing better than many.
But Billy Synnott was more than a 'smith' - he was a talented young defender on the Shelbourne AFC team with a long career in football in Ireland, England and the USA ahead of him.
On April 13th, 1901 now had two senior titles as Shelbourne held onto their title beating Bohemian FC in the final, and coming runners-up in the Leinster Senior League on the same day Freebooters were losing (0-1) to Cliftonville in the Irish Challenge Cup.
On September 7th, 1901 for the opening game at Dalymount Park, Bohemian FC welcomed their Dublin rivals Shelbourne FC. Harry Sloan scored Bohemians first-ever goal at the famous Dublin venue and William (Billy) Synnott scored the second goal, a penalty, to equalise before Bohemians ran out a 4-2 victors. At the time, both Shelbourne and Bohemians were amateur clubs competing in the Irish Cup against Irish League teams containing professional players from the north of Ireland. Three months later, Synnott guested for Bohemian FC in a prestigious friendly versus Glasgow Celtic, in a 2-0 victory for the visitors.
The 1902-03 season ended in controversy for Synnott's Shelbourne. Insisting on an English referee, claiming all Dublin referees were biased or not up to the task, they refused to play in the Leinster Senior Cup final against their nemesis Bohemian FC. The Irish Football Association and Leinster Association were astounded, imposed a fine and a six-month ban when Shelbourne did not turn up - and a walk-over awarded the honours to Bohemian FC.
In a marked and rapid improvement of the 'socker' playing metropolitans, this was the second year that a Dublin-based team had challenged northern Irish dominance (Bohemian FC lost 1-2, in 1899-00, also to Cliftonville) and Synnott was not to go unnoticed by football teams in the heartland of Irish professional football: Belfast.
Initially it was reported that Synnott had signed for Manchester United as a professional for the 1903-04 season. Then Belfast Distillery announced his intentions to sign for them. Finally, it was Belfast Celtic who secured his signature as a professional - with his forms signed and witnessed by JJ Ledwedge. Synnott was on the move. And this time he would be paid to play footbal.
Although, professionalism in Irish soccer was legalised by the Irish Football Association (IFA) in May 1894, it was seen as a necessary evil. Ostensibly, it was to prevent Irish players being enticed to the English and Scottish leagues. In fact, it was as much to regulate the under-the-table payment systems, well-known in football circles, to which staunch amateurs opposed.
Not all northern Irish football clubs embraced professionalism - Cliftonville FC remained amateur until 1970 – but, Linfield FC of Belfast, as a professional or semi-professional outfit, drubbed the amateurs of Bohemian FC 10-1 in the Irish Cup Final 1895.
It was not until the 1905-06 season that Dublin clubs, under the auspices of the Leinster Football Association (LFA) ratified professionalism. Shelbourne FC were the first Dublin team to turn professional. James Wall was the first 'paid player getting a halfpenny per week and a halfpenny per game. Now, a more professional outfit, in that season Shelbourne succeeded in winning the Irish Cup in Dalymount Park. This was also the first time a Dublin side had prevailed against the northern Irish powerhouses in the Irish Cup.
These were the days of unashamed ‘shamateurism’. The lines were somewhat blurred between what constituted amateurism and professionalism and the attractions of each. It was not until 1901 that the IFA insisted upon players having a written contract. Until then, players had no right to tenure, nor to a transfer. Synnott, the ‘professional’ footballer in 1903 would travel on weekends for Belfast Celtic games, finally moving permanently to Belfast in 1904 for a £2 /10- a week. Still, it was common for players to be out of contact at the end of every season.
By the end of the 1904 season, it was reported that Synnott had not yet agreed terms for the following season with Belfast Celtic: ‘his terms are stated too be somewhat prohibitive, and Synnott refuses to sign on for less’.
By May, things were out of the Belfast Celtic’s hands when the same source reported that ‘Belfast football circles were surprised to-day by the intelligence that Archie Goodall, representing the Glossop club, sailed for England last night with two first-class players, and the signature of a third, who has frequently played for Ireland in internationals. The two men who crossed were Cairns (Belfast Celtic), inside right, and Synnott of the same club, right back and formerly of Dublin Shelbourne. The third man is Hugh Magennis, Linfield’s clever right half.
Synnott was on the move. Again.
Archie Goodall was a maverick , to say the least and an Irish international and the oldest Irish international, at the time, to score a goal. He was at this time player manager of Glossop when he brought Synnott over to England, playing in the second-tier of English football, including playing well against Liverpool in a 2-2 draw at Anfield, and earning four pounds a week. Not to mention a signing-on fee of ten pounds. Billy Synnott seemed to know his worth.
And he got to showcase his talent for his new team on a visit back to Ireland when Glossop played Shelbourne at Serpentine Avenue in February 1905, Glossop winning out 4-1 in what was described as a ‘one of the best pieces of farcical comedy’ – Glossop outclassing the home team, it was obvious to spectators that they were trying NOT to score. In the team that day for Glossop was the now veteran Fred Spiksley, another man who would wander the globe with football as his passport. (Interestingly Fred would spend some of the WW1 years in Pittsburgh at the same time is Billy Synnott. There are no recorded reunions between them in the USA).
1905 was also the year Synnott was picked to play for Ireland versus Wales on April 8th in Belfast in the Home Championship. Unfortunately, he was unable take up the position ‘his club being obliged to refuse his services to the Irish Association owing to their position in the Second Division table, they being only a point removed from the last three'.
By December 1905, things had turned sour for Synnott at Glossop Football Club. It was reported that ‘in common with some of his club mates, Synnott, the ex-Shelbourne centre back, has come the displeasure of the management of the Glossop club, and has been suspended….for breach of club rules. Since leaving Ireland Synnott has justified his reputation as a first-class man, but owing to injuries has not often played.’
He returned to Ireland for the 1906-07 season, playing for both Belfast Celtic (as captain) and later transferring to Glentoran FC and by September 1907 was back playing with Shelbourne. By 1908 he was off again, to Glasgow. For love and work, it seems.
There are no records of Billy playing football in Glasgow. He himself cited work as the reason for his departure, perhaps this was a kind of retirement. Certainly, Dublin was a tumultuous place in 1908 and 1909 with strikes, marches and a general economic malaise in the air. Irish nationalism and notions of rebellion were fermenting among the working classes and money and work were tight.
Billy returned home to Dublin regularly after the Second World War, finally settling back in Dublin in the early 1950s and was to be found in grounds in Dublin watching every game of significance and he had plenty to say about football as he saw it in the 1950s:
I'll tell you what I think of the lads at home. I'd like to see eleven of them on the team to play England in the World Cup - provided they play their own style of football.
As the first Dubliner to play professionally in England and in the USA his thoughts on player's making the grade abroad still ring true:
If a player has football ability and wants to make the most of it professionally - why not? Good luck to him. it's an honourable man-sized adventure. But remember, English clubs don't 'make' players . The natural ability must be there
In 1962, Billy Synnott passed away in Baggot Street Hospital, not far from Ringsend where he played and captained Shelbourne FC some 50 years earlier. Billy is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin with his wife Agnes who predeceased him in 1958.
If you are passing, say hello to Billy - a forgotten pioneer of football in Dublin. Unfortunately, there is no headstone to commemorate Billy. The grave-marker is St. Mary/F2/102.
Home.
(Written and researched by Michael Kielty for distribution through Twitter as part of the Common Read Project for a Digital Storytelling course I teach. I would appreciate any additional information, errata identification, corrections or contributions by email: info@commonread.com)