James Graham was born in Lochgelly, Scotland. He arrived in Adelaide in 1912 and immediately became captain of the South Adelaide club. South were not amongst Adelaide’s leading clubs, never winning the league or the cup and finishing bottom three times in the ten seasons they played prior to World War I. They were probably the most visible club to the average Adelaide resident, playing as they did in the south parklands between the city and the long established suburbs just south of the parklands. Adelaide born club secretary Harold Pearce, who had learnt to play soccer at school in Western Australia, was determined to promote the game and keep a reserve team going. He gave appearances to a large number of casuals and rookies – but there was always a core of good players.
Prematurely balding Scot Jim Graham was one of them. His rock-like performances in defence and last-ditch goal line clearances were often noted in match reports, and he was rewarded with a single appearance for the State team in one of the two games against Broken Hill at Easter 1914.
Graham did not play in 1915 and enlisted in the AIF on February 14th 1916 aged 28. His occupation was “printer” and next of kin was his mother in Dunfermline. He went to France with the 52nd Battalion, suffering from trench fever in 1917 and placed on charges for visiting a town without a pass and abusing MPs in London. At the Battle of Villers Brettoneux on April 24th 1918 he was shot in the face, a wound that resulted in the loss of his left eye. Even whilst recuperating in England he managed to earn a “drunk and disorderly” charge.
He was returned to Adelaide and discharged in May 1919. James Graham married Mary Mauger in 1930, and he died in Adelaide in 1973.