After breaking into top-level football with Airdrieonians, in 1910 he moved to England with Middlesbrough where he made 56 appearances, scoring 13 goals, before joining Liverpool in January 1914. He played at Anfield for eighteen months, and featured in the 1914 FA Cup Final (having scored both his team's goals to win the semi-final), but his career in England was ended by the outbreak of World War I – he had a short spell back in Scotland with Hamilton Academical.