John Alexander Lambie (18 December 1868 – 25 December 1923) was a Scottish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

in the 1880s and 1890s. He still holds the records as the youngest

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

player and captain of all time.

Career

Lambie was a regular in the Queens Park first team by the age of 16, and quickly won the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1886 Events January–March * January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. * January 5– 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella ''Strange ...

.Name: Lambie, John Alexander
QPFC.com He had been due to make his international debut for

in a game against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

on 20 March 1886 aged 17 but had to withdraw at short notice, and due to his replacement James Kelly scoring (on his own debut) this has been recorded erroneously as among the youngest feats of international goalscoring.Oldest and Youngest Players and Goal-scorers in International Football

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...

, 20 September 2018 However, Lambie was still barely 18 when he did play against the same opposition on 19 February 1887 in a 4–1 win for Scotland and was appointed captain for the occasion, setting national records which both still stand (the youngest goalscorer Willie Groves set the mark a year later). In an era when international fixtures were far less common than modern times and with differing selection conventions, Lambie's second and final cap was against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

on 17 March 1888; Scotland lost 5–0. His international career was effectively ended when he moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

for business reasons in May 1888, where he appeared for

London Caledonians London Caledonians F.C. was an amateur football club based in London, primarily for Scottish players. They were founder members of the Isthmian League, which they won in its inaugural season. They remained in the league until 1939 when the club f ...

, the Corinthians,

Swifts Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

and the city's representative side. He made a guest appearance for Queen's Park under a

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

in the

1892 Scottish Cup Final The 1891–92 Scottish Cup was the 19th season of Scotland's most prestigious football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally mea ...

, then featured more regularly for the ''Spiders'' in the 1893–94 season before returning to England.

Personal life

His younger brother

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

was also a noted footballer with Queen's Park and Scotland (he too won the Scottish Cup and made his international debut while a teenager); A third brother, Robert, also featured for Queen's Park; the three siblings' careers barely overlapped in terms of playing together.Chapter XXX.—Famous Brothers
History of the Queen's Park Football Club 1867 - 1917, Richard Robinson (1920), via Electric Scotland

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lambie, John 1868 births 1923 deaths Scottish men's footballers Footballers from Glasgow Scotland men's international footballers Men's association football forwards Queen's Park F.C. players London Caledonians F.C. players Corinthian F.C. players Swifts F.C. players

Career

Personal life

See also

References

External links