Then in October 1926 he was sold to England, moving to Blackburn Rovers for a then record fee. In seven more season he would make almost one hundred and thirty-one appearances, win the FA Cup in 1928 and three more cap, the last that same year. Thus it was that in 1933 his time in the game seemed largely over. He returned to live in Aberdeen and Andy Mitchell states in his very much definitive book "The Men Who Made Scotland" the next fifteen years as follows.

"....he drove a fish lorry (not particularly well, he crashed twice) and in 1939 he joined The Admiralty as a fitter and worked for them until 1948 in many countries." 

However, he had kept his hand somewhat in, travelling to Spain for coaching assignments and then was to re-emerge not in Britain but in Ireland. In 1948 he was appointed manager of Belfast's Linfield, but remained just months before Spanish football drew him back. He then working in England again as a fitter before finally returning to Belfast. And that is where he remained until his death in 1970 at the age of seventy-one to be buried in the city's Dundonald cemetery with his wife, who he had married in Aberdeen in 1924, twin sons who were born to them in the Granite City in 1928, and a sister-in-law. It is another grave in some need of TLC.