The bizzare thing about the History of Football is that often it is better to read history backwards than forwards, for example after a club, such as Falkirk, sign a Junior player, you can only find out certain things about that player by going back and checking the reports of his junior games than going forward and checking his later career.
For example: often that player played with a brother at the junior level, the other player not making it to senior, which gives you a clue to finding him in the census, so you need to look up stuff of his exploits in the Falkirk & District Junior League.
Another problem is, of course: Births, Deaths and Marriages, I often find players in this section from when they became benedicks before they became Falkirk FC players, deaths is not so usefull for later players, but if they were from well enough to do families the births can help. Of course, the previous junior club can help in where to look, a player with Falkirk Excelsior [d'oh], but with players from outwith Falkirk District, and there are loads, well the Junior Club tells us where to look.
Sometimes it takes us a long time to research stuff. But I tell it here.