However, he must soon have been on other's radar because at nineteen he was first recruited across the country to Hibernian and then at twenty to Glasgow as Celtic was founded and formed. And there he was a considerable, initial success winning not just the Glasgow Cup but a first cap in 1889 and a second in 1890. But this was an era of great contractual fluidity. Players followed the money and, even as the Scottish League was formed, he, dissatisfied with what he was being paid at Parkhead, took himself South to Blackburn.  

It was to prove a mistake for both parties, although he is said to have played well. Blackburn dipped from sixth to ninth in the League and he was because of off-field behaviour released at the end of the season and not signed by any club long-term on either side of the border. Nevertheless his talent still allowed him for the next season to turn out on a game-by-game basis for Glasgow-team, Cowlairs, for Perth team, Fair City, even to be selected for Perthshire, then for Motherwell and finally Victoria United in Aberdeen. 

And it seems to have been in the Granite City that he was jailed briefly for a first time, before playing a few games for Morton in September 1893 and then nothing, which prompted him to join the army. It didn't help. Within a year he was discharged and looks via Hamilton to have returned to the family now staying in Cronberry directly by Lugar, where, after another prison term, this time in Ayr he may well have re-found some stability, enough to re-join Boswell for a season, still only twenty-seven, and even have at least a trial back at Easter Road.