Charles Thomson Craig (11 July 1874 – 11 January 1933) was a Scottish professional

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 lea ...

who played as a full-back. He played for both

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

and

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Stratford, London, Stratford, East London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English f ...

during their inaugural seasons, and later played in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

for

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is a professional association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Founde ...

and

Bradford Park Avenue Bradford (Park Avenue) Association Football Club, sometimes abbreviated as BPA AFC, is an association football club based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The team currently competes in , at the eighth tier of the English football league ...

Career

Craig was born in

and played locally for Dundee Our Boys, where he was part of the team that reached the Dundee Charity Cup Final in 1892–93, before they merged with Dundee East End to form Dundee F.C. He played for the new club for a season, making 13 appearances including in friendlies, before moving to Dundee Wanderers, where he made eight appearances. He then returned to Dundee for another four seasons but only rarely featured for the first team, before moving to the East End of London, first joining Silvertown, then Southern League First Division club Thames Ironworks, where he played in the club's final season before they were wound up and reformed as

Craig made his debut for the Ironworks in an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

third qualifying round match against

Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames Estuary, is Thurrock in ...

on 28 October 1899. During his initial season with the club, he made 18 Southern League appearances, including an end-of-season test match against

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...

, as well as six appearances in the Thames & Medway Combination and four in the FA Cup. He had played in a number of positions over the course of the season before he settled as a left-back. In that position, he formed a partnership with future Hammers manager

Syd King Ernest Sydney "Syd" King (1 August 1873 – 14 February 1933) was an English footballer and manager, and one of the most important figures in the early history of West Ham United F.C., West Ham United. Playing career Born Chatham, Medway, Cha ...

. Craig played in West Ham's first ever match, against Gravesend United on 1 September 1900, which ended in a 7–0 victory for the new club. He remained at the club for two seasons, making 60 appearances in league and cup. Nottingham Forest In Argentina and Uruguay

Nottingham Forest In Argentina and Uruguay

He moved on to

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was the top division of the Football League in England from 1888 until the end of the 1991–92 season, when its teams broke away to form the Premier League. From 1992 to 2004, the name First Division was g ...

club

in 1902, where he spent periods partnering both

James Iremonger James Iremonger (5 March 1876 – 25 March 1956) was an English cricketer and one of the players most unlucky never to play Test cricket. He did play a number of minor matches on the 1911–12 Ashes tour and was considered many times between ...

and Walter Dudley, and played in both full-back positions. Towards the end of his first season with the club, he came into consideration for the Scotland national team when he appeared in the

Home Scots v Anglo-Scots Home Scots v Anglo-Scots was an annual association football trial match organised by the Scottish Football Association between the 1890s and 1920s to examine the abilities of possible players for upcoming full British Home Championship internationa ...

annual trial match (he had also taken part in a trial 12 years earlier in his amateur days with Dundee Our Boys). In 1905, he travelled with Forest on their tour of Argentina and Uruguay. In all, he spent five seasons and made 136 League appearances at Forest. He then returned to the Southern League with

in 1907–08 and was part of the team that were elected to the Football League for the following season. He made only six appearances that season, however, before joining Southern League

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club is a professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was founded in 1902. Since 1935, Norwich have played their h ...

. Craig spent the next two seasons at Norwich, then moved on to

Southend United Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, which competes in the National League, the fifth level of English football. The team are known as "The Shrimpers", a reference ...

for the 1910–11 season. He then joined Welsh club Merthyr Town, who were at that time competing in the Southern League Second Division and was part of the team that achieved promotion to the First Division in 1911–12. He played for the club for a further two seasons before retiring from football in April 1914. Craig had made over 400 appearances for his various clubs.

Style of play

Craig, who was and , had been described as a "genial, good natured giant" by a contemporary journalist, and also as "one of the most scrupulously fair players it would be possible to find".

Outside football

When Craig moved to London, he worked as a

mechanic A mechanic is a skilled tradesperson who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially engines. Formerly, the term meant any member of the handicraft trades, but by the early 20th century, it had come to mean one who works w ...

at the

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle Public Limited Company is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage products to food and industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s, it began to diversify, eventually dive ...

sugar refinery in

Silvertown Silvertown is a district of West Ham in the London Borough of Newham, in east London, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, Thames and was historically part of the parishes of West Ham and East Ham, Becontree Hundred, hund ...

. He lived in Tate Road, opposite the refinery. He then found work as a marine engine fitter at the

Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company The Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Limited was a shipyard and iron works straddling the mouth of Bow Creek at its confluence with the River Thames, at Leamouth Wharf (often referred to as Blackwall) on the west side and at Cann ...

and played for the company's

works team A works team, sometimes also referred to as factory team and company team, is a sports team that is financed and run by a manufacturer or other business, institution, or organization in a broad sense. Works teams have very close ties with thei ...

. He also had some success as an athlete, winning medals in track events. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Craig served with the mechanical section of the

Royal Army Service Corps The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and do ...

. He was stationed at Bulwell Hall, as were a number of other local sportsmen. Following his

demobilisation Demobilization or demobilisation (see spelling differences) is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and milita ...

, he ran a

billiard hall A billiard hall, also known as a pool hall, snooker hall, pool room or pool parlour, is a place where people get together for playing cue sports such as pool, snooker or carom billiards. Such establishments commonly serve alcohol and often ha ...

in the centre of Nottingham. In later life, Craig lived in

West Bridgford West Bridgford () is a town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Rushcliffe, in the county of Nottinghamshire, England. It lies south of Nottingham city centre, east of Wilford, north of Ruddington and west of Radcliffe-on-Trent ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

. He died in his home, aged 58, on 11 January 1933. He had been ill for several months and his death was described as "not unexpected". He left a widow, a son and a daughter.

References

External links

Charles Craig
at westhamstats.info {{DEFAULTSORT:Craig, Charlie 1874 births 1933 deaths Footballers from Dundee Footballers from the London Borough of Newham People from Silvertown People from West Bridgford Footballers from Nottinghamshire Scottish men's footballers Men's association football fullbacks Dundee Our Boys F.C. players Dundee F.C. players Dundee Wanderers F.C. players Thames Ironworks F.C. players West Ham United F.C. players Nottingham Forest F.C. players Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. players Norwich City F.C. players Southend United F.C. players Merthyr Town F.C. players Scottish Football League players Southern Football League players English Football League players Royal Army Service Corps soldiers British Army personnel of World War I Military personnel from Dundee