RobertSmyth McColl
1 Best known as the man whose name appears over the doors of around 300 newsagents in the UK, Robert Smyth McColl was also one of the greatest footballers of his day. He scored 13 goals for Scotland, and in the 1900 game against England at Celtic Park, which Scotland won 4-1, he scored a hat-trick. Our photo, which was taken especially for the Evening Times at the Russell Hotel many years later, shows Robert with the other nine surviving members of
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that team.
Born in Glasgow in 1876, Robert started playing football with the junior club Benmore in 1892 and moved to Queen’s Park two years later. (He scored six goals in a league game against Port Glasgow Athletic for Queen’s Park, a record which has never been broken.) Robert also played for Newcastle United for three years, before returning to Glasgow in 1904 to play for Rangers. He returned to
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Queen’s Park in 1907.
In 1901, Robert and his brother Tom opened their first store in Albert Drive in Glasgow (Robert became known as ‘Toffee Bob’ as a result.) The business grew quickly and in 1916, they opened a factory to supply 30 branches with sweets. Our archive picture from the 1940s shows one of the workers at the factory on North Woodside Road taking her time coating almonds in chocolate for the shop window displays all over Scotland. In the 30s, branches opened in England and the shops started selling newspapers and cigarettes. By 1935, the firm employed more
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than 800 people.
Robert was inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in November 2011. He is the only player to have scored a hat-trick against each of
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the other home nations. Robert served as a sergeant in the Royal Army Service Corps during the First World War. He died in November, 1959, and is buried at Cathcart Cemetery on the south side of the city.