However, on losing work in Glasgow he moved south, to London, where he joined, presumably on its foundation in October 1871, South Norwood F.C. but must in the meantime have made an impression elsewhere on the football field, perhaps at nearby Crystal Palace and also in the committee room. Of the five unofficial international played in London between March 1870 and February 1872 he played in three, the second in November 1870, the third and the fourth a year later and was listed for the fifth, although in the end he did not take part. He also became the liaison between London and Queen's Park and as such should be credited in the effort that turned unofficial games official. 

In the three unofficial games Smith played as a forward and it was as such that he began and ended that first, official international in 1872, although for a period he did swap with captain, Robert Gardiner, in goal. Then aged twenty-four he was described, in contrast to his brother, as a steady, hard-working player, a "grafter" and that seems to have been an strong element in the rest of his life, as England also failed to hold him for long. After also appearing for Scotland in the second, official international in March 1873 in the Autumn of that same year he left Britain essentially for good, emigrating to the "Wild West", to Wyoming in the United States, there to join another of the Fordyce scholars and Queen's Park founders, William Klingner.