Rugby
One of the earliest Scottish players, he is sometimes considered the first great Scottish rugby fullback. He played in the first six international test matches, all of them against England, between 1871 and 1876, including Scotland's very first match. He was a solid tackler, good kicker and handy dribbler (a tactic of the time). He played club rugby for the Glasgow Academicals, which was the strongest club in Scotland at the time.
In October 1872, Chalmers took part in a trial match for the Scotland team for the first association football international match against England and was named in the list of 17 possible players. Chalmers was praised as "a capital goalkeeper, albeit the rules were new to him." In the event, the entire Scottish team was made up of members of the Queen's Park club.
He was a cousin of the Neilson brothers, who played for Scotland and then became Presidents of the SRU (then the Scottish Football Union) and his nephew John Knox played in the 1903 Triple Crown winning rugby team.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Chalmers (rugby)