John Madden

Born in Dumbarton, Scotland’s John Madden started playing for the local junior teams Albion and Hibs, and dovetailed his football-playing with a job as a riveter in a local shipyard. Madden eventually joined the senior Dumbarton team in 1886, and that heralded the start of a 44-year career in senior football.

Madden reached the Scottish Cup final with Dumbarton in 1887 and, after brief spells in England, with Gainsborough Trinity and Grimsby Town, he returned to Dumbarton before a move to Glasgow Celtic in 1889. On 12 May 1888, however, Madden had guested for Celtic in their first ever game, a 5-2 win over Rangers. Celtic won the Scottish Cup in 1892, but Madden missed the final. The following year, however, Madden and Celtic won their first League title, and a second title followed in 1894. After a brief time out of the game, Madden played four matches for Dundee before another move to England, to Southern League club Tottenham Hotspur, before he eventually retired in 1898.

Madden won two full Scotland international caps, in 1893 and 1895 (both games against Wales), and he scored five goals, four of them in the 1893 match. At the beginning of 2020 he remained one of only 11 men to have scored four in one match for Scotland. After his retirement, little was heard of Madden until 1905 when he became the first international coach of a Czechoslovakian football team, when he joined Slavia Praha (Prague). He remained with them for 25 years and, under his guidance, they were runners-up in the 1929 Mitropa Cup, the forerunner of the European Cup (now Champions’ League), and were Czech League winners in 1925, 1929, and 1930. Madden also coached the Czechoslovakia national team to the controversial Olympic final against Belgium, in which the Czech team left the field in protest at refereeing decisions. They refused to return and forfeited their medal. Madden retired in 1930 but, despite being old and frail, he could still be seen at Slavia training sessions shouting orders to players from his wheelchair.