South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 21 January 1961
Conisbrough Visitor from U.S.A. Forecasts Future Set-Up
British Football Clubs Will Join Continental League
BACK home in the United States after six months in this country visiting his relatives and friends here, and renewing acquaintance with British soccer, is a former South Yorkshireman, who, though he is now a citizen of the States and has lived there many years, might well be described as South Yorkshire’s most travelled football “fan.”
He is Mr. Horace Kelly, a one-time glassworker at Conisbrough and a member of a well-known Conisbrough family, who for many years was, until his retirement, a foreman in a sewing machine factory during the Chicago area.
During his holiday sojourn he stayed in this district with the former Denaby United groundsman, now groundsman at the Northcliffe Modern School, his brother-in-law, Mr. George Albert Taylor, and his sister, Mrs. Taylor, of Bentneck Street, Conisbrough and immediately before his return to the States with his brother, Mr. Ben Kelly, former president of Denaby United, and sister-in-law, Mrs. Kelly, of Crookhill Road, Conisbrough.
Past and Present
Before his departure to America 30 years ago he was in Britain in the morning and back home within 24 hours one time. Mr. Kelly, in his younger days an official of Denaby United, gave the “South Yorkshire Times” some of his views on past and present British football.
“I have had the opportunity this season of seeing a number of clubs from First Division to Fourth Division,” he said, “and I have come to the conclusion that the future pattern of British soccer will be based on a super-league in which 10 or 11 of the most important British clubs will break away and join Continental football.
“The best match I have seen this season from a footballing point of view was a 4th Division game in which York City caught my eye. I have come to the conclusion that the ‘stars’ of former days were more impressive than those of to-day.
“I never saw a better forward ever saw was Hughie Gallacher, but the best all-round footballer was Charlie Buchan.”