Hughie was clearly a boy with footballing talent from early-on. His start in organised football came at fifteen with Tannochside Athletic and at sixteen Hattonrigg Thistle, both colliery teams, before at seventeen joining junior Bellshill Athletic, having previously been rejected again as too small. And it was whilst there that he, a Protestant, married, his bride eighteen year-old local, Catholic girl, Annie McIlvaney, who was pregnant, their son, also Hugh, born in January 1921, the same month Hughie was signed by Dumfries's newly-formed Queen of the South. 

However, young Hugh died that same March and, despite a daughter, Catherine, being born in 1922, the marriage did not work. By 1923, if not earlier, the couple had separated. But meantime from mid-1921 the Gallacher senior football career had taken off. That summer he had signed for mid-table, First Division Airdrieonians, taking them on-field to the runner-up position twice over and to the 1924 Scottish Cup, whilst off-field there was the possibility that in 1924 there followed by Margarate (sic) Armstrong, an Airdrie-girl, a second son, John "Jackie", who would be adopted, by whom is not clear but with indications it was Hughie's own parents. Jackie would go on to play during and post-WWII for Celtic but on his marriage in 1944 in Bellshill give his parents as Matthew and Margaret Gallacher, Hughie's parents, with Margaret as a witness, and on death in 1995 have his mother's name recorded as Kilpatrick, Hughie's mother's maiden and his middle name.   

But back with Hughie and football success with Airdrieonians brought interest from south of the border, he in 1925 joining Newcastle, with which in 1927 the League title would be won. Moreover, by then he, still only twenty-four, had already won eleven caps, the first in 1925. His final total would be twenty at more than a goal a game. However, in his still more than messy personal life there had not yet been a divorce and he had fallen in love with a Tyneside girl, Hannah Anderson from Gateshead. Furthermore, on-field he had developed a reputation for clashes with the officials, said by 1930 to have been enough for the St. James' club to accept a bid from Chelsea for his services, with he having no alternative but to comply.

He had by then won a further eight international honours with one one of the half dozen of Scotland's greatest games. It was, of course, the 1-5 defeat on England in 1928 by what would be dubbed The Wembley Wizards. In fact on the day he did not himself net but, perhaps being brought back from injury faster than might have been expected, he was pivotal, pulling the English defence this way and that to create the gaps for the goals, three for Alex Jackson and for his childhood pal, Alex James, a brace.    

Yet the 1930 move to London could not have been easy, not helped, whilst he continued to score, by it being in a team that struggled on-field, at a club that was to a degree dysfunctional and in a Home-Nations, international environment that was for a season and bit toxic. From mid-1931 to late 1932 he, with all the other Anglos, could not play for Scotland by which time he was almost thirty, still had on-field disciplinary problems and now money problems. And, whilst his international career had restarted, the combination led to him once more to be moved, this time to Derby.

For Chelsea the transfer was a error of timing. In February 1934 Hughie's divorce finally came through. In July and still in London he finally married Hannah before they moved north, settling together and starting their family. They would have three sons. At Derby, already in third place in the League, he, after a wee dip to sixth place but nevertheless a final cap, in 1936 would be part of a squad that finished as runner-up, at which point he dropped down the league to nearby Notts County, then to save Grimsby from relegation and finally non-League Gateshead back on Tyneside. And there he remained seemingly content for a decade. That is until the last day of 1950 when Hannah passed away at the age of just forty-three. 

Her young death clearly affected Hughie badly. He worked at whatever he could to raise his boys but turned to alcohol and in 1957 was, probably exaggeratedly, charged with assaulting his youngest son and the day before he was due in court committed suicide by throwing himself under a train. He was fifty-four.