He would spend four seasons at The Well in that time playing almost every match and in 1910 earned his first of four and the club's first overall cap. But he would return to Alva in 1908 to marry Jessie Greig, with whom he would have three children, the first born in Scotland, the second in England and the third in the United States. The explanation for Geordie and Jessie' second child was that after that first international he went South to join Sheffield Wednesday, where he was to spend a decade, make well over one hundred and fifty starts and win his other caps, the last in 1913, alas in away-defeat to England. 

Thus it was in 1919, having worked through the war-years in a munitions factory, that at thirty-four Geordie was to manage one more campaign at Hillsborough before coming back to Scotland for a two season finale to 1922 at East Fife, at which point the family would make a pivotal decision.