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It always seems strange that these days not only are there so few Scottish players abroad, there are also so few Scottish coaches. Especially when things weren’t always that way. Far from it.
I’m attempting to put together a show for Previously…Scotland’s History Festival that gives some recognition to the Scottish coaching pioneers who helped play a formative role in the foundation of football in countries – and at clubs – which have gone to be of major significance in the beautiful game. This is the 3rd of my articles on the topic. If you have any more information or corrections to add to the piece below then please get in touch via the comments section below.
In my last article, I described Sparta coach John Dick as a man of mystery. He had nothing on the first Scot to manage Juventus though, William Aitken. Or was it George Aitken? Both John Madden (Jake) and John Dick (Johny) went by nicknames in their managerial career, but at least it’s easy to see how they were arrived at. The Scottish footballer William ‘Billy’ Aitken spent his Juventus management career being referred to as ‘George’ Aitken.
If establishing his name is awkward, let’s move to what should be a more simple topic. The year and place of his birth. In fact, the sources I’ve been able to find list two different dates (9 years apart) and three different places of birth. The places of birth aren’t exactly next door to each other either. They’re listed variously as Peterhead, Ayr and Edinburgh.
– His profile in a book of former Port Vale players gives his year of birth as 1894 and his place of birth as Peterhead. ((http://www.amazon.ca/Port-Vale-Personalities-Jeff-Kent/dp/0952915200))
– His profile on a site listing ex-Newcastle Utd players agrees with that year of birth but gives his place of birth as Ayr. ((http://www.toon1892.co.uk/detail_player.php?id=4))
– Sites relating to Juventus give his year of birth as 1885 and his place of birth as Edinburgh. ((http://www.myjuve.it/managers-juventus/george-aitken-1.aspx))
So what do we now about Billy Aitken?
Well, in February, the Daily Record managed to find a surviving relative, his niece, Elizabeth McKay. Their article uses the Peterhead birthplace for Aitken, so perhaps this had been cleared with his niece. She described him as:
“…a quiet man who never spoke much about his football achievements or his time with Juventus. He wasn’t a boastful man.”
Not much further light was shed apart from…
“After he retired from football and returned to Britain, he settled in Newcastle where he was a rep for a wine company. To be honest, we do not really know much about him. He was a bit of a man of mystery.”
To the extent that:
“I don’t think he had children and we were not sure if he ever married.” ((http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/gran-will-cheer-celtic-even-though-1647774))
And to think that had he been a modern manager he’d have managed about three autobiographies!
We can establish that his playing career in the UK included Queen’s Park, Rangers, Port Vale, Newcastle Utd – who paid £2500 for him in 1920 – and Preston North End. After leaving Norwich City in 1927 he spent a season with now defunct non-league side Bideford Town, before joining Juventus in 1928 as manager. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Aitken_(footballer)))
Yes. That’s right. Apparently that was a possible career move in those days!
So how did the move come about? The specifics of it are lost to the mists of time. What has been mention though is that – without ever having played for them – Aitken was a disciple of the style of Herbert Chapman’s famous Arsenal side and offered to train the Juventus squad to play in that fashion. ((http://ilpalloneracconta.blogspot.it/2011/03/george-aitken.html))
The Juve President of the time who appointed him was Edoardo Agnelli, son of Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of Fiat. Umberto Maggioli’s 1966 book “Hurra Juventus” ((http://ilpalloneracconta.blogspot.it/2011/03/george-aitken.html)) was written 36 years after Aitken’s departure from the Old Lady, but does at least give an insight into the impression that Aitken left behind.
Maggioli describes Aitken as, “a very nice gentleman” known for “technical football”, but goes on to paint a picture of a coach who struggled to win the support of some players and board members in his attempts to introduce a new style of football to the side.
The man Aitken was inspired by, Herbert Chapman had arrived at Arsenal in the close season of 1925, soon signing veteran England forward Charlie Buchan and appointing him as captain. In June of that year, the offside rule altered from attackers needing three opposition players between themselves and the goal, to only needing two. Buchan suggested adapting the traditional 2-3-5 formation to react to this. The new 3-4-3 formation played by Chapman’s side would become known as the ‘W-M’ due to the shape formed by players lining up in it.
That tactical change, and Chapman’s Arsenal side in general, are remembered with reverence…but it still seems strange that at that point Juventus would have wanted to ape their style. By 1928 Arsenal had only managed one second-place and two mid-table finishes under this new system. Things wouldn’t actually fall fully into place until 1930. Between then and 1933 they lifted the FA Cup and secured two league titles. Chapman had announced in 1925 that he had a five-year plan and it actually did come to fruition that way. Perhaps Arsenal fans should wait to the end of the season to see how Arsene’s 9-year plan works out…
Despite this lack of success for the Arsenal model by 1928, Agnelli seems to have been behind Aitken’s revolution. Arsenal’s lack of success using the system up to then may have been on the minds of the players though. Maggioli mentions that Juventus’ full-backs “did not want to start playing in a way that had never worked.”
Player power may not be such a modern phenomenon then. Indeed, the mention of Juve’s 1929 1st leg victory over Jake Madden’s Slavia Prague side in the Mitropa Cup (Central Europe’s international club tournament of the time) that is to be found on the IFFHS site describes Juve’s full-backs of the time, Viri Rosetta and Berto Caligaris, as “world famous”. ((http://www.iffhs.de/?f05fd0f0838cac2b98e0a3fcb45fe4a4129d815e85fdcdc3bfcdc0aec7cdeeda8a384f04788ec0384f17)) Players of such stature digging their heels in can’t have helped Aitken.
If Aitken was ahead of his time with the W-M formation, the same seems to have been the case for his methods of physical preparation. According to Maggioli, Aitken introduced a method of alternating running, walking and breathing-time, akin to the interval training favoured by top sports scientists of today. Again, it seems that the players were unhappy. The Dizionario della grande Juventus says that “He was replaced by Carlo Carcano since his grueling training methods had antagonised several players.” ((http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Aitken))
Juventus would go on to lose the 2nd leg in Prague 3-0 and exit the Mitropa Cup in the first round. Albeit, the club’s Wiki page for that season gives the positive spin that they “reached the quarter-finals”. Yes, of an 8-team tournament. ((http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-Ball_Club_Juventus_1928-1929))(Though they did have to beat Inter in a play-off for the right to enter) But did his side lose because of the tactics he put in place or because of his stars’ reluctance to follow them?
Perhaps realising that he was losing the battle for the dressing room, Aitken seems to have tried to use humour rather than shouting to get his message across. Players who didn’t fully exert themselves in training or in matches received the wry comment that they could play into their 60s… ((http://ilpalloneracconta.blogspot.it/2011/03/george-aitken.html))
One reason why Aitken didn’t want to be too harsh on his players verbally may have been that he still saw himself as one of them. Something suggesting that the later birthdate for Aitken is the correct one is that he was still playing in training matches and friendlies for Juve during his time with the club. There is mention of him playing in a 6-1 victory over a touring Buenos Aires XI, for instance. ((http://ilpalloneracconta.blogspot.it/2011/03/george-aitken.html)) He was banned from playing competitive matches though, as at that time the Italian FA had just outlawed foreign players.
Indeed, up to the season before he took over, Juve had had a Hungarian player-manager, Jozsef Viola. After the ban he had left the club to become manager of Inter (then still known as Ambrosiana). In a strange twist, after a season he acquired Italian citizenship and returned to Juve as a player. ((http://www.tuttojuve.com/gli-eroi-bianconeri/gli-eroi-in-bianconero-jazsef-viola-52429))
Aitken now had to deal with his predecessor being in the dressing room and under his instruction. A situation that must have been made even more awkward by Viola enjoying a marginally better win-percentage as Juve boss and having led a far more free-scoring side.
Viola’s two-season reign had seen a 56.7% win rate as opposed to Aitken’s 55.2%. Aitken’s team conceded 9 goals fewer than his predecessor, but only managed to produce 134 goals rather than the 159 of the Hungarian’s. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Juventus_F.C._managers)) When Barry Ferguson behaved like he was a better manager than Paul le Guen, at least le Guen could take comfort in the knowledge that it was an untested opinion.
The 1928-29 season was the last one before Italian football would ditch the group format. Juve finished 2nd in Group B (there were only Group A & B) behind Bologna, who would go on to defeat Group A conquerors Torino and be named as national champions.
The next season was the first season of Serie A and Juve achieved what Maggioli describes as an “honourable” third place, finishing 5 points behind champions Ambrosiana (Inter) and 3 points behind Genoa. Sadly, “honourable” didn’t quite cut it, and he had to “pack up and go to the Cote d’Azur”.
To be fair, if you have to pack and go somewhere, there are worse places to end up!
Maggioli has a beautiful summation of Aitken’s time at Juve (perhaps rendered more poetic sounding by some quirky Google translate work…) “He had the character of the innovators who rarely have luck”. Maggioli also points out that the success that was to follow for Juventus probably owes something to the groundwork laid by Aitken.
So what did he find to do on the Cote d’Azur? Well, along with working as a golf instructor (a man of many talents), the move allowed him to return to playing competitive football again, with A.S. Cannes. In 1932 (most likely at the age of 38, rather than a Roger Milla-busting 47) he was in the Cannes side that lifted the French Cup with a 1-0 win over RC Roubaix. He seems to have spent his first two seasons with the club purely as a player, before being appointed player-manager from 1932 to 1934.
France had only adopted professionalism in football in 1932, so it seems likely that he played for pleasure (and perhaps some illicit payments? Merely a guess, based on the conditions that led up to the introduction of professional football in most countries) up until that point, then was put in charge when the club took the step into the professional game. The Wiki page for the 1932 Cup Final ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Coupe_de_France_Final)) does list Aitken as manager as well as player…though the RSSSF record of the game doesn’t list a manager. ((http://www.rsssf.com/tablesf/francuphistfull.html))
The 1932-33 season saw the first French professional championship, split into two groups. Aitken’s side finished 2nd in Group B, but winners FC Antibes were disqualified and Cannes progressed into a play-off with Group A winners Olympique Lillois (a club that would later merge with SC Fives to form the current Lille OSC). Unfortunately, that innovators’ luck saw Cannes lose 4-3.
In 1934 he moved on to Stade de Reims, then still playing in the Amateur league that had been France’s top division only a few years before. He guided them to the 1935 French amateur championship, but the next year he was on the move again, to FC Antibes where he managed to keep playing as well as coaching. The Dictionnaire des footballeurs étrangers du professionnel mentions him as having played his last match in the French 1st Division for FC Antibes on November 18, 1938 at the age of 44 years and 290 days. It also refers to his time spent as a golf instructor in France, “his other great passion”. ((http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Aitken))
The outbreak of war put paid to his continental adventures and he returned to the UK to become a defence contractor with Vickers. His appetite for foreign adventure couldn’t have been diminished by the conflict though, as in 1947 he became manager of Belgian side Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, staying for a season. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Aitken_(footballer)))
His English Wikipedia page mentions him then coaching in Norway, but it needs his German wiki page to reveal that it was with Brann Bergen. ((http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Aitken)) German Wiki, unattributed, claims that he stayed with the club until 1950, but Brann’s official site – referring to a book published to celebrate its centenary in 2008 – suggests he merely had a short spell in charge in 1948. “It began with William Cook not returning. A New Englishman, Alf Young, was engaged, but he disappeared almost before he came when he got a better offer from his old club, Huddersfield. Scottish Aitken trained the team for a while, before William Cook reappeared in late summer after the season.” ((http://historie.brann.no/hovedserien-innfores/))
So what then?
Well, at some stage he returned to the UK to work for the wine company mentioned near the start of this piece. He died in 1973 in Gateshead, aged 79. ((http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/gran-will-cheer-celtic-even-though-1647774))
So that was Billy Aitken, a man who spent two years with Juventus introducing the club to new tactics and methods of physical preparation. Yet who went by the name of ‘George’ for reasons I’m entirely unable to explain. As for the date of birth? All the available evidence suggests that 1885 can be ruled out in favour of 1894. Place of birth? Hopefully the Record fact-checked that with his niece and we can take it as being Peterhead.
A remarkable life that left remarkably few sources behind. Even the photo on the otherwise very useful article at http://ilpalloneracconta.blogspot.it/2011/03/george-aitken.htm isn’t actually of the ‘George’ Aitken who managed Juve…but I’m pretty sure is actually of the George Aitken born around 25 years later, apparently in his Sunderland days. The photo looks like an older version of that George Aitken whose photo can be found online in a Third Lanark strip.
The internet seems to hold no photos and precious few memories of Billy Aitken.
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About the Author
Twice runner-up in Scottish Comedian of the Year finals, Teddy was named ‘Best Up and Coming Comedian’ at the Scottish Variety Awards in 2010. He’s written for two BBC Radio 5 ‘Unsporting Reviews of the Year’, and has also worked as both writer and script editor on the BBC1 Scotland football shows ‘Offside’ & ‘Only An Excuse?’. He’s been a Rangers season-ticket holder for the past 17 years, but he’s all about the football not “all that other sh*te”. Also has a fondness for Dynamo Kyiv that can be traced back to an unhealthy obsession with Alexei Mikhailitchenko (or Oleksiy Mykhalychenko if you prefer to transliterate from the Ukrainian rather than the Russian. That’s the unhealthy obsession we’re talking about.)
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“freshly minted topical gags…pin-sharp lines…great routine…a class act” Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk
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