And it was two of these clubs that are said to and are known also to have played an important part in the future of young Bernie cum Tommy. He would briefly play for Croy, then spend two seasons from eighteen at St. Anthony's in Govan, receiving a junior cap, before being signed, as an inside-forward, to Parkhead, where he was a sensation; a hat-trick in his first senior appearance, fifteen goals in his first nine games, top-scorer in his first and second seasons.  

In fact he was regarded as something of a footballing genius, an expert taker of corners, with ball-control and vision and a telling-passer but he was also temperamental, prone to inconsistency, and had a temper on him. It led him within three seasons first to being dropped and then in 1922 transferred to Third Lanark. But there in three years the same pattern of first success and then problems re-emerged and that might have been it but Celtic needed a goal-scorer and decided not just to take him back into the fold but also make him captain. He rewarded them with the League Championship that season and the Cup the next, with in between for him two caps. 

However, for the third time the same indisciplines reared their head and after Celtic had been beaten 4-0 by Rangers in the 1928 Cup Final he was once more on his way, although in this case any element of scapegoating seems unfair. The game was played in a gale, Celtic had the wind at their backs in the first half, 0-0 at half-time, and no less than The Times of London reported "McInally alone revealed the necessary resource to control the ball either against or with the wind".