But the begining of life had not been easy. The boys had lost his mother in childbirth when Jock was aged four and William just two. Their father then seems to have brought up five children alone, John finding work, still in Wishaw, as a Vertical Machine Minder, whilst already turning out at the first Cathkin Park from aged seventeen. In the end, however, he did move to Glasgow, there in 1906 marrying Annie Megahy from Carluke, he recorded as a steelworker, they to have six children and settling in Govanhill close to what was now the second and current Cathkin.    

However, on leaving Third Lanark, the Crosses were to return Wishey, and whilst in The Great War in 1915 he joined the Sportsman's Battalion and was wounded in action, it was to there he would return on demobilisation, to work in a local factory, coaching the Juniors team from neighbouring Overtown and being a member of the Salvation Army. That is until 1955 when Annie passed away at the age of seventy and he followed her just two weeks later at seventy-four to be buried in Cambusnethan Cemetery, William also having died locally in 1949.