Dundonian Marsh Key is widely regarded as one of the outstanding ice hockey talents produced in the British Isles. Respected hockey journalist Tony Allen first saw centreman Marshall Key play over 50 years ago at North London’s now-demolished Harringay Arena, and he has seen every top player to have graced British ice in the intervening period. Tony has no doubts as to Key’s place in the ranks of British-born forwards, as he explains: “I have a smile to myself every time I hear or read somebody describe Tony Hand as the best British player ever. They obviously never saw Marsh Key.”
Marshall Whitton Key was born in Dundee, Scotland on 18th June 1932. Brought up just 600 yards from the city’s old Kingsway rink, he was educated locally at Morgan Academy.
With an elder sister who was to become a professional figure skater, the 13 year-old Marshall learned to skate at his local rink when somewhat reluctantly accompanying his sister and mother to the public skating, as he recalls: “I was dragged off to the ice rink with them. I had to go as it was a night that my Dad went to the pub!”
Marshall was spotted by Dundee coach George McNeil at a skating session and invited to attend a hockey practice. Canadian McNeil, who had been a member of the original Dundee Tigers in 1938-39, had remained in Dundee during the war to work in a local shipyard. McNeil kept hockey going in Dundee during the war and was to establish a reputation as a champion of local talent when he moved later to Falkirk. But perhaps his finest discovery was the fledgling Marshall Key in wartime Dundee.
Marshall remembers the re-start of professional hockey in 1946: “I was just agog at these Canadians like Norm Gustavsen and Bobby Burns that came to play in Dundee. I made up my mind then that playing hockey was what I wanted.”
A left-hand shot, and modelling himself on Farrell Gallagher, a Canadian centre with Dundee, Marsh progressed from the pee wee Tiger Cubs to the junior Rockets in 1947. He made his debut for the senior Dundee Tigers, aged just 16, during season ’48-’49, when Canadian coach Laurie Marchant gave him a brief introduction to professional hockey. The following season another Canadian coach, Walt Macdonald, recognised Key’s abilities and utilised him on the second line on a regular basis, and he was to remain a mainstay of the Dundee offence until pro hockey at the Kingsway folded in 1955.
After a season playing with Perth in the ill-fated Scottish Amateur League in 1955-56, Marshall had a spell the following winter as player-coach with Swiss outfit Crans-sur-Sierre. He combined the short Swiss season with 51 games for Harringay Racers in the British League. Fellow Scot, and Hall of Famer, Johnny Carlyle was a team-mate on the North London outfit. Johnny recalls that Marshall centred the Racers’ first line over two seasons alongside Canadian player-coach Bill Glennie and French-Canadian Ray Maisoneuve. As Johnny says: “With Bill Glennie, you didn’t play on his line a second year unless you were good.”
In 1957-58 Key led the Racers scoring, with 33 goals and 53 assists from 56 games, and finished above such legendary names as Strongman and Anning in the national scoring. Key scored the winning goal for Racers in the Ahearne Cup Final in front of 14,000 fans in Stockholm that season. Ice Hockey World readers voted 25 year-old Marsh the Best British Player of the Season, beating runner-up Roy Shepherd by a very wide margin.
Sadly, Harringay Arena closed in the summer of 1958, and Key and Carlyle returned to Scotland and a berth on the newly reformed Edinburgh Royals. Although Marsh finished fourth in the overall Autumn Cup scoring (20 goals and 31 assists from 25 games) the Murrayfield management pulled the plug on the Royals before the League programme commenced.
Newly-married to fellow Dundonian Doreen, Marshall was asked to join Nottingham Panthers, but was reluctant to relocate again. An offer from Paisley Manager Bill Creasey saw Marshall play the last two seasons of the British League with the Pirates.
In total, Marsh played in 506 pro games for Dundee Tigers, Harringay Racers, Edinburgh Royals and Paisley Pirates in the Canadian-dominated seasons from 1948 to 1960. He scored 217 goals, recorded 332 assists, for 549 points, being assessed 167 minutes in penalties.
Having worked in the newspaper circulation business with the Daily Mail on leaving school, Marsh had been a full-time hockey player since completing two years National Service in the RAF in 1952.
Marsh then took over the running of his father Harry’s newsagent and tobacconist shop in Dundee city centre, expanding the business to incorporate a snack bar and public house.
He continued to play in the post-1960 ‘amateur’ set-up in British hockey, assisting the Johnny Carlyle-coached Murrayfield Royals to the British Championship in 1960-61. A serious back injury in a match at Brighton during January 1961 was to put Marshall out of hockey for over two years, following spinal fusion surgery. He returned to the ice during 1963-64, assisting Perth Black Hawks in 6 games (5 goals, 2 assists and 26 penalty minutes), before retiring after a season back at Murrayfield in ’64-’65 (when he had 22 goals and 18 assists from 16 games, with 22 penalty minutes.)
1965 saw Marshall receive belated international recognition, at the age of 32, when he represented Great Britain at the Pool ‘B’ World Championships in Finland, netting 2 goals and adding 4 assists in 6 games. Such was the regard in which he was held by his team-mates that he was made captain.
He had been first capped for Scotland back in 1950, scoring a goal and three assists for the Scots in a 12-1 rout of England at Falkirk. Despite this, he was the only one of the 12 Scots who didn't make the GB team for that year’s World championship (at 17 it was felt he was too young.)
In 1951 he was selected for the GB team, which took part in the Paris tournament, but was doing national service in the RAF and his Commanding Officer refused to give him leave to play! In 1953 the Dundee directors would not release him to travel to Switzerland with GB, as they didn't want him missing vital club games at a crucial stage in the season (a decision that applied to all the senior Scots players, like the Symes, Johnny Carlyle, Lawson Neil etc.)
Between 1954 and1960 the BIHA didn't enter a team in World tournaments (which is a real disappointment retrospectively to Marshall, as these were the peak years of his career, aged 22 to 28, when he was a leading player in the Canadian-dominated pro British League).
With the British returning to the fold in 1961 he was an automatic choice for the GB team that was to win a silver medal at Pool B that year in Geneva. However, his serious back injury five weeks before the tournament forced him to withdraw. Sadly, the injury saw Marshall miss the Pool A tournament in the USA in 1962 and Pool B in Sweden in 1963.
Marshall came out of retirement in 1969, aged 37, when he was asked to coach and play for the re-formed Dundee Rockets, and earned the honour of All-Star ‘A’ Team Coach for 1969-70.
A great believer in developing local talent, he formed a ‘Kids School’ at Dundee in 1969 and is extremely proud that three of the youngsters he started off – Jimmy Pennycook, Mike Ward and Charlie Kinmond – went on to represent Scotland and Great Britain at senior level.
Marshall finally retired from hockey in 1971, aged 38, and concentrated on his other great sporting love, golf. A member of the famous Carnoustie club, he at one time played off a 3 handicap.
He still retains a keen interest in hockey, however, and is a well-respected figure in the game. He was proud to perform the opening ceremony at the new Dundee Ice Arena in 2000, and one of the function suites in the arena is named in his honour.
He and wife Doreen live in retirement in the Perthshire village of Invergowrie, just outside Dundee. Marshall was one-time mine-host of the Invergowrie Inn, which is now run by his son Gary. Marshall and Doreen also have a daughter, Susan, who owns a Dundee boutique, and they have one granddaughter, Rachel.
Now aged 74, Marshall enjoys regular winter golfing breaks to his Florida villa and still golfs regularly with two of his former hockey colleagues, Joe McIntosh and Sammy Macdonald.
Compiled with research, provided by David Gordon April 2007.
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