And it may well have been their early passings that caused him to move away young on the back of establishing a first reputation by, as otherwise an Apprentice Lather, at seventeen winning the Ayr Junior with local team, Elmbank, then moving up to Ayr Thistle and a season (with John Cameron) at Ayr Parkhouse, one half of what would become Ayr United. But once away he came back to Scotland only briefly and in the meantime became the fulcrum until 1906 of the first great St. James' team of the 1910s, Aberdeen's Wilfy Low would be that of the second, before following in Cameron's footsteps as a pioneer at Middlesbrough from 1906 to 1909 and then Leicester (1909-11) of the player-manager. At the first he would win eight caps, at the last two six more, including captaining twice.

Meantime still on the field he would make well over three hundred appearances for The Toon, including the Football League in 1905 plus losing in the FA Cup Final twice, close to a hundred for Boro', taking it from the brink of relegation to as high as sixth in the First Division, and well over fifty for the relegated Foxes, although without bounce-back. He was by then about to turn thirty-six but before retirement still managed two seasons more, at Dundee and Killy, to where he had gone brief loan over a decade earlier. 

And off the field he had as early as 1898 met and married a girl from Manchester, Florence Hoey, although the wedding took place in Birkenhead. They were to have two children. He was to enter the drinks trade, moving around somewhat - running a pub in Newcastle, then Galashiels, becoming Honorary President of Fairydean, then working in the 1930s in Manchester as a trainer for United and as a scout for Arsenal before it was back Tyneside ultimately to Wallsend and running another pub cum hotel. And it would be there in Newcastle that first Florence would die in 1943 at the age of sixty-nine survived by Andy for a dozen years, he passing away in 1955 in Ponteland Hospital aged seventy-nine to be buried at the city's All Saints Cemetery.