Who's Who in the England Team
George McNeil—Captain. Has also led the Yorkshire and Leeds teams this year. Catcher and Pitcher. Plays ice hockey for London club. Quiet, unassuming personality; a born leader who knows how to get "the last ounce" from his team.
George Patrick ‘Chummie’ McNeil (1914–1997) was a red-headed Nova Scotian of Scots descent who, like many of the players in the NBA leagues, had come to England to play ice hockey, not baseball.[i] The dramatic mid-1930s rise in interest in ice hockey in Britain, which was fueled by the transfer of control of the sport from the genteel British Ice Hockey Association (BIHA) to commercially minded ice-rink owners, brought a great number of Canadian skaters to Britain.[ii] As back in Canada, many of these men had played senior amateur baseball in the summer, this provided John Moores with a pool of players to draw upon to grow and sustain his professional American baseball leagues.
McNeil started his ice hockey career playing for the Stellarton Snowbirds in their 1930 Pictou County Intermediate Championship-winning season. The following season, he transferred to the senior amateur team, the New Glasgow Tigers of the New Eastern Hockey League, where he remained for the next three seasons. In the summer of 1936, he was one of a raft of Canadian players recruited to cross the pond and join the Richmond Hawks ice hockey team for what would prove to be the latter team’s final season in the English National League, arriving in October 1936.[iii]
After the Richmond team folded, McNeil moved to the Earl Court Rangers in London. By this date, several of the Rangers’ players had already played in the inaugural season of the London Major Baseball League (LMBL).[iv] McNeil was one of an even large number of ice hockey players who signed up for the 1937 NBA season, which was to represent the peak of the John Moores effort to introduce professional American baseball into Enland, with pro leagues running in Lancashire (the North of England League), Yorkshire (Yorkshire League), and London (London Major League). McNeil signed as catcher for the Scarborough Seagulls in the Yorkshire League, only for the team to fold before the end of the season with a record of four wins and eight losses. McNeil found a berth in the strong Hull team for the remainder of the season. He also turned out for Yorkshire in inter-county games, something that would be a feature of the next few years.[v]
McNeil’s time at Hull was brief, and for the 1938 season, he served as player–coach for the Leeds Oaks team in the new, semi-pro combined Yorkshire–Lancashire League, leading the team to a mid-table finish. As well as captaining Leeds Oaks and England, he also captained a Yorkshire county side that took on the American tourists (the tourists won), all at the age of 24.[vi]
For the 1938–1939 ice hockey season, McNeil moved north of the border to play for the Dundee Tigers. Scotland would remain his home for the next fifteen years, first as a player, then a coach, and finally as the manager of Falkirk Ice Rink. He would also find time to marry a local woman, Evaline Jane Smith, and start a family.[vii]
He spent the last baseball season before the war captaining the all-conquering Halifax, leading them to the triple, winning the Yorkshire–Lancashire League, NBA Challenge Cup, and Yorkshire Cup titles. The team included two other 1938 England team players in its 1939 season: Sam Hanna and Larry Marsh.[viii]
McNeil was inducted into the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 1951. He and his family moved to the US in 1956. He died there in 1997.[ix]
Throughout his baseball career, McNeil played the captain’s part, focusing on strategy and tactics and getting the best out of his players. He could, and did, play most any position on the field. A big personality but an unflashy player, he was a smart choice for the man to lead England in 1938, despite his youth.
[i] Biographical information for George MacNeil is provided in his entry at the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame: https://icehockeyuk.co.uk/hall-of-fames/george-mcneil/, accessed 31 July 2025; it can be also be divined from his entry in the passengers lists for the SS Empress of Britain, departing UK on 22 June 1956, which includes his middle initial, full date of birth (26/07/1914), his address in Falkirk, the fact that he was Canadian, and that his occupation was ‘manager’—‘our’ George McNeil was the manager of Falkirk Ice Rink in this period, UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. Operations, accessed 29 July 2025.; red headed: Richmond Herald, 27 March 1937.
[ii] Daryl Leeworthy, ‘Skating on the Border: Hockey, Class, and Commercialism in Interwar Britain’, Histoire sociale / Social History, 2015, 48, no. 96, 193–213.
[iii] NcNeil’s Canadian ice hockey career: ‘New Glasgow Falls Before Ottawa, Five to One’, Hamilton Mail, 21 December 1931. Move to England: Canadian Players Leave for England’, Ottawa Citizen, 26 September 1936.
[iv] Al Male, ‘Gee! They’re Going to Put Baseball Over Big’, Daily Mirror, 30 April 1936.
[v] McNeil joins Scarborough: ‘“Happy” Kasnoff to Fore’, Star Green ‘un, 8 May 1937; ‘Scarborough Club Disbanded’, Hull Daily Mail, 9 August 1937; McNeil transfers to Hull: ‘Baseball Notes’, Hull Daily Mail, 7 August 1937. In Yorkshire team: ‘Max Wilson in County Team’, Hull Daily Mail, 10 May 1937.
[vi] Joins Leeds: ‘“Derby” Start to Baseball’, Leeds Mercury, 7 May 1938; mid-table: ‘League Leaders Meet’, Halifax Evening Courier, 12 August 1938.
[vii] Note 12 above, first reference.
[viii] McNeil joins Halifax: ‘Baseball’s Opening: England Captain at Wavertree’, Liverpool Evening Express, 5 May 1939; triple winning season: ‘Halifax Baseball Champions’, Bradford Observer, 8 August 1938. Marsh and Hanna in Halifax team: ‘Baseball: Halifax Team For Hull’, Halifax Evening Courier, 2 August 1939.
[ix] McNeil later movements, entry in the British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame: Note 12 above, first reference.