As a result he was dropped and went, transferred or lent is unclear, to Everton for season. But it was not before still in Bridgeton he married Ellen Connor, she soon pregnant and probably remaining in Glasgow. Moreover, Everton was to be a little like from the frying-pan into the fire. Some of its players, a number of Scot prominent amongst them, were at the forefront of forming their first union, the AFU, and by the summer of 1898 most had left the club. There is no indication that Divers was amongst the players most involved but for the 1898-9 season Jack Bell, the AFU President and formally of Celtic was back there, so was our man with him joining the Scottish Players Union, the equivalent of the AFU north of the border. 

In fact Everton's troubles and Divers return to Celtic worked out well for both him and club. Over the next three seasons he got a good run in the team, which in 1899 and 1900, he at centre-forward and Jack Bell on the left-wing, won the Cup then in 1901 reached the final once more but lost  4:3 to Hearts. That was before in 1901 at the age of still only twenty-seven he would switch cities to Edinburgh for three seasons at Hibernian and another Cup medal in 1902. 

John Divers was to retire from playing at thirty in 1904 but he did so as he also accepted the role of trainer to the Dublin-club, Bohemians, where was to stay very successfully for two seasons. But in 1906 he and Ellen returned to Glasgow and probably for personal reasons. In 1897 Ellen had given birth to a daughter but the wee one had not survived. And the same thing would happen again but not until 1913 but in the meantime they adopted a little girl, who they did raise as they settled back into living on Baltic St. in Dalmarnock, John returning to what he knew outwith the game, labouring in a steel-mill, until his death in 1942. aged sixty-eight. He would be buried in St. Peter's Cemetery, Dalbeth, survived by Ellen whose passing would be at seventy-eight still in Glasgow in 1954.