John Tait Robertson (25 February 1877 – 24 January 1935) was a Scottish

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 means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player and manager who played mainly as a

left half A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He won 16 caps for his country, scoring three goals. Having started his career at

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, Robertson moved to Everton of the English

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

in 1895, and then

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

in 1898, with whom he won the

Southern Football League The Southern League is a men's football competition featuring semi-professional clubs from the South and Midlands of England. Together with the Isthmian League and the Northern Premier League it forms levels seven and eight of the English fo ...

in his only season. He then returned to his homeland with

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

, where he won three consecutive league titles in his first three seasons. Robertson was the first player signed to Chelsea in 1905, and served as their player-manager in their first-ever season, in addition to scoring their first competitive goal. He finished his career in the same role at Glossop North End.

Playing career

Club

Robertson began his career at

, and moved to Everton in 1895. He spent his first two seasons at Everton in the combination team, and made his first team debut in September 1897, against

Wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

. Robertson then spent a single season at

in 1898–99, winning the Southern League. Following that, he returned to Scotland and won three consecutive

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

championships at

in his first three seasons, plus a

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1904–05 Scottish Division One The 1904–05 Scottish Division One season was won by Celtic. They and Rangers had finished the league campaign level on 41 points, and a play-off at Hampden Park (doubling up as a fixture in the minor Glasgow Football League) was arranged to ...

title, when he scored but Rangers still lost to

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

.(Rangers player) Robertson, Jacky
FitbaStats In April 1905, Robertson was the first player to be signed by the newly-formed

Chelsea Football Club Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge. The club competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. The ...

for the role of manager, but continued to play as well (he was 28 years old at the time). It was Robertson who scored Chelsea's first competitive goal, in a 1–0 win at

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...

on 9 September 1905. In his first season, he led the club to a third-place finish in the

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

, one place off promotion. Robertson then surprisingly resigned from the club (third in the table at the time) on 27 November 1906. Chelsea were promoted to the top flight at the end of that season under caretaker secretary-manager

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. Soon afterwards Robertson became

player-manager A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

Glossop Glossop is a market town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is located east of Manchester, north-west of Sheffield and north of the county town, Matlock. Glossop lies near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Manches ...

, where he remained until summer 1909, when he became reserve-team manager at

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

. With the sponsorship of Alfréd Brüll and a London fabric company, Robertson arrived in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

to coach

MTK Budapest Magyar Testgyakorlók Köre is a multi-sports club from Budapest, founded in 1888. It has sections for football, handball, basketball, volleyball, futsal, ice hockey, water polo, cycling, gymnastics, athletics, fencing, canoeing, boxing, wrestlin ...

in 1911, where he remained for two years before returning to Britain in 1913. During his two years stint, he won the Hungarian Cup in the 1911-12 season, as well as finishing runners-up twice in the league, both times behind

Ferencvárosi TC Ferencvárosi Torna Club, known as Ferencváros (), Fradi, or simply FTC, is a professional football club based in Ferencváros, Budapest, Hungary, that competes in the Nemzeti Bajnokság I, the top flight of Hungarian football. Ferencváros wa ...

. He was considered to be one of the coaches responsible for the development of football in Hungary between the 1910s and 20s, by introducing physical preparations and technical innervations to the Hungarian game.

International

Robertson made his debut for

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 ...

on 2 April 1898 while at Everton, in a 3–1 home defeat to

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 ...

in the Home Nations Championship. His second cap came on 8 April of the following year, while at Southampton. All of his 14 remaining caps came during his spell at Rangers. He captained the Scots in his fourth match, as they beat England 4–1 at home on 7 April 1900. His first goal came in his sixth match, on 2 March 1901, in a 1–1 draw with

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, again as captain. Robertson was Scotland's captain in five matches, and scored two more goals, both against Wales. The last was in his last international on 6 March 1905, in a 3–1 away defeat in

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

Death

He died at the Royal Cancer Hospital,

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in January 1935.

Honours

Player

Southampton * Southern League championship: 1898–99 Rangers * Scottish First Division: 1899–1900, 1900–01, 1901–02 *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1903 Events January * January 1 – Edward VII is proclaimed Emperor of India. * January 19 – The first west–east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east–west broadcast having been ...

**Runner-up:

1904 Events January * January 7 – The distress signal ''CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''. * January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system. * ...

1905 As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony i ...

Manager

MTK Budapest * Magyar Kupa: 1911-12

References

External links

*
Everton career summaryChelsea career summaryRangers career summary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robertson, John Tait 1877 births Footballers from Dumbarton 1935 deaths Scottish footballers Scotland men's international footballers Southern Football League players Scottish Football League players English Football League players Southampton F.C. players Greenock Morton F.C. players Everton F.C. players Rangers F.C. players Chelsea F.C. players Glossop North End A.F.C. players Scottish football managers Scottish expatriate football managers Chelsea F.C. managers Glossop North End A.F.C. managers MTK Budapest FC managers Manchester United F.C. non-playing staff Scottish Football League representative players Men's association football wing halves Men's association football player-managers English Football League managers