As the Dark Blues travel to Celtic Park this weekend, we take a look at a player who played for both clubs, Barney Battles Senior.
Brave and bustling Bernard Battles was born in Springburn, Glasgow on January 13th 1875 but moved to Midlothian when still a boy and played his early football with Bathgate Rovers.His talent was soon spotted by Hearts and he moved to Tynecastle 1894 and helped them win the Scottish League Championship before leaving for Celtic.
Whether at full-back or half-back, Battles was noted for his bravery, commitment, enthusiasm and fearlessness and although he lacked speed, his finely-judged interventions more than compensated. He made his Celtic debut in the first game of the 1895/96 season in a 2–1 win over Dundee at Carolina Port on August 10th. He remained with the club, on and off, until 1903, winning a League Championship medal in 1896, and winning back to back Scottish Cups in 1899 and 1900.
Late in the 1895/96 season, after Celtic had won the championship, friction cropped up (described in the press as “the famous little episode”) when Battles, alongside team mates Divers and Meehan refused to strip for a match against Hibs unless certain newspaper critics were removed from the press box.
Celtic’s directors took the moral high ground and offloaded all three players and Barney left for English club Liverpool, where he played where he played in three ‘test’ matches for them.
Battles however preferred to remain north of the border and joined Dundee in May 1897. With finances tight at the four year old club, it was a period of transition for The Dee with Gilligan, Thomson, Barrett and Longair departing and Hillman, Kelso, Blyth and Battles coming in and Barney proved to be an astute signing.
Battles made his Dark Blue debut in the first game of the 1897/98 season in a 6-0 home win over Clyde and played in 15 of the 18 league games that season as well as four Scottish Cup ties.
In January he scored his first Dundee goal against old club Celtic at Parkhead and the following month scored against Rangers, netting the first in a 2-1 home win whilst playing the whole game with a broken wrist in splints
Dundee finished 7th in a 10 team league, avoiding having to apply for re-election on goal average while in the Scottish Cup reached the semi-finals for the second time in their history.
After knocking out Partick Thistle 2-1 at home in the first round, Dundee met St Mirren at Carolina Port and Barney played in the 2-0 win with his poisoned arm in a sling!
After defeating Hearts 3-0 at home in the quarters, Dundee were drawn away against Division Two leaders Kilmarnock with the tie to be played at Rugby Park as semi-finals were not yet played at neutral venues.
Battles lined up at half-back and within five minutes Malcom McVean gave The Dee an early lead. They got a second when an attempted clearance by the Killie keeper struck John Mallock and rebounded into the net but the Ayrshire side were undeterred. They pulled a goal back before the interval and then scored a further two in the second half to reach the final, where they lost 2-0 to Rangers.
The defeat was not only a severe blow to Dark Blue dreams of glory but also to their finances and when the club struggled to pay the players wages at the end of the season, their was another exodus of players for the second summer in a row.
Amongst them was Battles and he would return to Merseyside and play a league game for Liverpool before the end of the season.
In October, “with all differences set aside”, Barney rejoined Celtic and he blossomed into one of the finest backs in the country. He impressed Scottish selectors with his consistent performances and in 1901 starred in all three Home International matches (including the 2-2 draw with England at Crystal Palace) and also played for the Scottish League as well as for the Glasgow Association against Sheffield in 1902.
Nicknamed ‘Gentle Barney’, Battles was popular in the east end of Glasgow and after his return to Parkhead in 1898 the Celtic support sang:
“Back to the Celtic again
Let us join in the happy refrain
Out with your rattles
For Big Barney Battles
Is back with the Celtic again!”
In 1898, he broke his wrist again and played the next two games with his arm in splints and held in a sling and after a victory over Rangers, the papers proclaimed him “St Bernard Battles, Patron of Parkhead”.
After leaving Celtic he had a short second spell with Dundee before joining Kilmarnock in 1904 where his life and career came to a sudden end when he developed pneumonia.
He had looked the picture of health, a big man with a big personality: tall for that era, ‘he stood 5 ft 10 ins in height and scaled 14 stone’ – ‘full of lusty health and manful power’ – so when he went down with influenza after playing against Rangers on Ibrox in January, no one was alarmed. But in these pre-antibiotic days, disease got the better of him as the flu turned into pneumonia and he died suddenly at home on February 15th 1905, aged just 30, leaving a wife and two young children behind.
His funeral drew one of the largest crowds ever seen in Glasgow. The 1,000-strong cortege assembled at Celtic Park, but could scarcely get through the crowds that lined the road there were reckoned to be 40,000 plus many more watching from the windows of every house en route to the Dalbeth Cemetery.
The monies taken from the stand at the 1905 Scotland v Ireland match at Celtic Park were donated by host club Celtic to the grieving Battles family in tribute to their former player.
Battles died before the birth of his son, Barney Battles Jr., who was named in his memory and he would go on to have an excellent career with Hearts and play for Scotland as well the USA whilst playing for the Boston Soccer Club. In 1966, Barney Junior presented his father’s 1895/96 Championship gold medal to Celtic manager Jock Stein.
