And that is where they stayed until by 1881 the father had changed work, becoming a Ships' Carpenter, and they had all moved into Dumbarton or rather the other side of the Leven to the town, Peter already a twenty-three year old Iron Shipbuilder. By then he was also playing football, and had been been doing so in the Dumbarton First Team as a half-back from the age nineteen in 1877. He was also called up for international trials but a cap did not come until 1882, a 5-1 win over England, with two more following the next season. He was also to play in the lost Scottish Cup Finals of 1881 and 1882 before captaining the side to victory in 1883. That was until he then seemed to step away from the game. In 1883-4 he made only one appearance for his home-town club, but that may well have been because he was courting, and in 1884-5 just two, whilst also turning out at least four times for Partick, again explicable by the fact that in September 1884 in Helensburgh he married a Glasgow-girl, Agnes McIntyre. 

However, 1886-7 saw a return to the Dumbarton-fold if not to the town itself as another Scottish Cup Final was reached and lost and over six years perhaps four children were born, all in Glasgow, of whom two survived. That is before he was on the move once more, this time to England. In 1889 and 1890 first he and then the rest of the family went South to Durham, to West Hartlepool to be precise, he to continue his trade and work as a Ship's Plater but also to play semi-pro football. By then coming up to thirty-two he for two years joined and captained the works team of West Hartlepool and North-Eastern Railway Company. Whilst not itself in the newly-formed Northern League it was playing teams from it such as Newcastle East End, one half of the future Newcastle Utd.. 

And it was there too in Hartlepool that Miller was to live out the rest of his life except for the last act. Agnes Miller' passing would be in West Hartlepool in 1943 but Peter, aged only fifty-six, would predecease her by almost thirty years, dying in hospital in Glasgow, having returned there for medical treatment. His passing was in 1914, just long enough to see the formation of another United, Hartlepool in 1908. He is buried in Dumbarton, probably in the town's cemetery.