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Personal
Born: c1873 [TBC, wikpedia claims 1868]*
Died: 1910
Birthplace: Glasgow
Signed: 1890 (Glasgow Hibernian).
Left: 1892 (Patrick Thistle)
Position: Outside-left
Debut: Cowlairs 0-5 Celtic, League, 29 April 1891 (see below notes)
Internationals: none
Biog
| “Cunningham has a penchant for turning directly at goal, wriggling, twisting, like an eel.” Quote from Alphabet of the Celts book |
According to the Record of Pre-War Scottish League Players, John Cunningham signed for Burnley from Benburb in November 1889 before returning to Glasgow a month later to sign for the short-lived reactionary side Glasgow Hibernian club.
He then signed for Celtic from Glasgow Hibernian in 1890. John Cunningham was an outside-left who it is believed made his debut for the Bhoys in a 5-0 league win at Cowlairs on April 29 1891. However, he had to wait until October for his next match (Glasgow Cup match).
Due to poor record-keeping & match reporting, his actual debut is disputed.
Some reports seem to put his debut as in the Scottish Cup on 6 Sep 1890 in a 1-0 win over Rangers, but this is disputed and not certain. Willie McCallum is marked as having played in these matches and not John Cunningham.
To complicate matters, there is a record (according to eminent Celtic historian Eugene McBride) that John Cunningham played in a match versus the wonderfully named ‘United Abstainers‘ on 2nd November 1889 a game in which Celtic started with only 9 players yet still won 5-1 (the two missing players turned up after 5 minutes). The opposition side had the wonderful nickname of ‘The Teetotallers‘.
He hadn’t even officially signed for Celtic at this point (but players jumping between teams wasn’t uncommon in those early days of mostly amateur & often unorganised football). Cunningham also played in friendly matches for Celtic v Bolton & Preston North End on 23rd & 25th May 1889 respectively.
He played an estimated eight times for Celtic in the league & cup, which included a 5-3 win over Rangers in a Scottish Cup semi-final, scoring a fine goal going by a match report: “Cunningham beat [Rangers’] Haddow with a beauty“. He didn’t get picked to play in the final, which was to be Celtic’s first Scottish Cup title.
He left Celtic and signed for Partick Thistle in 1892.
After Celtic, he seemed to move around a lot, playing for Hearts, Rangers (both in 1892) and then Glasgow Thistle in March 1893.
He finally moved to Preston North End in September 1893 where he stayed for several seasons. Quite a feat when Willie Maley predicated that he was “destined to have a very short football career but which might have been a very fine one“, although also noted elsewhere as “He was the best-known of our Benburb captures“.
In 1897 he moved to Sheffield Utd, and played against Celtic once in 1898 in the British Championship double leg v Sheffield Utd (he played in the 1-1 second leg draw).
Again he moved frequently to other clubs, moving to Aston Villa in June 1898, Newton Heath (i.e. pre-cursor to Man Utd) in Oct 1898 and Wigan in 1899. He finally seems to have settled at Barrow, his final club in the records.
As he seemed to jump around clubs so much, maybe Willie Maley was onto something with his comments on John Cunningham. He had a long football career but generally a short tenure at each club he moved to.
Sadly, he passed away prematurely in 1910.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES | LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1890-92 | 6 | 2 | n/a | n/a | 8 |
| Goals: | 0 | 1 | – | – | 1 |
Honours with Celtic
Scottish Cup