RS McColl - the Scottish footballer turned corner shop king

By Andrew Southwick
BBC Scotland

Published 5th May 2022.

Image caption, 

Robert "Bob" Smyth McColl was one of the greatest footballers of his day

His name is known nationwide from the McColl's convenience store chain but few are aware of the extraordinary footballing talents of RS McColl 

Described as "the greatest centre forward in the world from the 1890s to the 1900s", Robert Smyth McColl was arguably football's first superstar. The Pele of his day. 

Known as '"Toffee Bob", BBC Scotland sport reporter Chick Young believes he would be worth £25-30m if his career had been 100 years later.

McColl's, which has 1,400 stores, has now collapsed into administration,putting 16,000 jobs at risk. 

• McColl's convenience store chain on brink of collapse
• Morrisons makes last minute bid to save McColl's

A rescue bid by Morrisons, which had a partnership agreement with the chain, failed to save it - and now administrators are searching for a buyer. 

But what do we know of the man who put his name to a once thriving business empire?

Humble beginnings

McColl and his brother Tom were brought up in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow. Leaving school at 13, he earned just 81p a month as a clerk. Yet fame and fortune lay ahead. 

He began his career with junior club Benmore in 1892 and moved to Queen's Park in 1894, before playing professionally with Newcastle United.

"We are not talking about a good player, we're talking about a brilliant player," explained Ged O'Brien, project director of the Scottish football museum, on a 2002 BBC Radio Scotland documentary on McColl's life.

For Scotland he managed feats unmatched by anyone else in dark blue. He scored hat-tricks on subsequent weekends against Wales and Ireland, and added another treble against England - the only man to score three against all of the home nations.

"He scored 13 goals in 13 internationals, it's quite remarkable," said Chick Young.

"Three hat-tricks over 13 months for his country. If someone was doing that now you would be talking about a £25-30m player."

McColl's ambitions took him south of the border, where Newcastle were prepared to pay him £5 a week, although it wasn't an altogether happy time for him.

"He came down with a very big reputation, so he was in effect a marked man in England," explained Newcastle's official historian Paul Joannou. 

"Defenders really dished out quite a lot of punishment to him and its recorded he did suffer quite a lot at the hands of the rougher and tougher defenders."

'Toffee Bob'

With age and injuries, he knew his best footballing years were behind him, and began looking ahead to the future. His £300 signing on fee for Newcastle had give him a nest egg. 

He had a hobby of making sweets and saw no reason why he couldn't match the other shops that were beginning to emerge.

He and his brother opened their first small shop in Queen Margaret Drive in Glasgow in 1901, selling among toffees and chocolates gingers.

"Their most famous confectionary was cream caramels," explained nephew Donald McColl. "Lovely toffee done in a gold wrapper with the lion on it. They had a lion on their logo and on all their confectionary."

Bob McColl still played football up until 1910, scoring 37 times in 55 games for Rangers, then returning as an amateur to Queen's Park. In one of his final games he scored six goals against Port Glasgow, a Scottish record that stands to this day.

 

The small sweet shops started by the McColl brothers grew to a nationwide chain of stores.

 

By the mid-1920s McColl's had expanded to 150 shops in Scotland, the north of England and Northern Ireland. However, the Wall Street Crash in 1929 overnight cost them 80% of their wealth. 

"They lost a lot of money in US steel," said Donald. "If they had been able to hang on to their shares they would have doubled their money in about seven years' time."

In order to offset the loss they sold the company to Cadburys but remained as directors. 

By the time he retired from business in 1951, "Toffee Bob" had earned a prestigious place in Scotland's history. As a player with Queen's Park, Newcastle United and Rangers he was known as the prince of centre forwards. The newsagents he founded have until recently stood the test of time. 

He died in 1958 having left a footballing and business legacy behind.

There were many examples of Bob's generosity. His Scotland team-mates from the 1900 win over England would be taken to Wembley. He founded the junior football competition the RS McColl cup, a trophy still played for today.

His daughter Nancy Thomson described him as a very modest and kind man.

"He had quite a sense of humour. He was always very busy with the business but I remember the twinkle in his eye and I used to think 'here's a story coming up'," she recalled.

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APRIL 30, 2020 / IAIN DUFF. www.ianduff.wordpress.com

Bobby McColl can lay claim to the title of Scotland’s first football superstar and more than a century after his most celebrated feat, his name is still known all over the UK.

But as hugely talented as he was, it wasn’t his talents as a centre-forward that have given him legendary status. In fact few of the people who recognise his name today will have any idea of his football background.

“Toffee Bob” was a prolific goalscorer, superb dribbler and exquisite passer and is considered one of Scotland’s greatest ever players. He scored three hat-tricks for the national team and his treble against England in 1900 is part of Scottish footballing folklore. He also enjoyed a successful domestic career at Rangers, Queen’s Park and Newcastle United.

Yet for all his sporting achievements, it’s thanks to the chain of newsagents and convenience stores that bear his name – R.S. McColl – that he made his fortune and the reason he is still a household name today. When McColl signed for Newcastle United in 1901, he received a £300 signing-on fee and chose to invest a third of it in his brother Tom’s confectionery business. The name of their three Glasgow shops were promptly changed to R.S. McColl to cash in on Bob’s celebrity.

The business expanded quickly, moving into selling ice cream, cigarettes and newspapers. By the mid-1930s, the firm employed over 800 people in 180 branches – many of them next door to cinemas. The McColl’s name has survived the passage of time, and is still on high streets up and down the country today.

Glasgow-born Bob had joined Queen’s Park as a 17-year-old and it was while he was with the amateurs that he made his name. His first international appearance was as a teenager against Wales in 1896 and he scored his first two goals a week later against Ireland. He hit the target in his next four games – including hat-tricks against Wales and Ireland in consecutive weeks.

His most famous game for Scotland was the international match of 1900 when he once again scored three times in the 4-1 win over England at Celtic Park. As well as being a resounding victory, the game is famous for the colours Scotland wore. Instead of the traditional blue, they sported jerseys in fetching pink and primrose – the colours of Lord Rosebery, president of the Scottish Football Association. The shirt McColl wore in the game is on display at the Scottish football museum at Hampden.

When he decided to turn professional in 1901 more than 50 clubs in England tried to sign him. McColl chose Newcastle United, who offered him the significant sum of £5 a week, and he spent three years on Tyneside. He didn’t particularly enjoy his time in England and he moved back north to play with Rangers in 1904.

R.S. McColl at Rangers in 1905

His time in Govan was relatively short and not massively successful, although he had an impressive scoring ratio of a goal every other game . In his first season, 1904/05, he scored seven times in 13 league games, helping Rangers finish level on points with Celtic, who won a play-off at Hampden to be declared champions.

He also played a part in getting the Light Blues to the Scottish Cup final, only to lose out to Third Lanark in a replay in front of a crowd of 55,000. As an aside, that run to the final featured a semi-final against Celtic which was an early example of the sort of crowd trouble that has regularly blighted clashes between what would later be known as the Old Firm. With Rangers leading 2-0, Celtic fans invaded the pitch with 10 minutes to go and forced the referee to abandon the match. Celtic conceded the tie allowing Rangers to proceed to the final.

Unfortunately those two second-places were as good as it got for McColl at Rangers. He had joined the club just as the team that had won four successive league titles was breaking up and the next few seasons would be a fallow time for the Ibrox side.
McColl scored six times in 13 games in 1905/06, but in his last season at Ibrox he only managed one appearance.

In 1907 he persuaded the authorities to reinstate him as an amateur so he could return to Queen’s Park. His footballing achievements weren’t quite over though.

In 1910, on his very last game, he scored a record six goals for Queen’s Park in a league match against Port Glasgow Athletic.

McColl was always a popular figure and it appears he was a generous man. Every two years he re-united his Scotland teammates from the 1900 victory over England and took them down to the international at Wembley at his expense. Bob and Tom sold the business to Cadbury’s in 1935, but remained at its helm until retiring in 1946. He died in 1959.

After numerous takeovers and mergers, the McColl’s business is now part of a nationwide chain of convenience stores and newsagents. There are currently 804 McColl’s convenience stores across the UK. Although the company’s 513 newsagents are known Martin’s in England, in Scotland the R.S. McColl name lives on.

Edited May 6, 20224 yr by erskblue