Massie was born in
Possilpark, Glasgow, to William Spiers Massie, a weighing clerk, and Violet Shaw Massie. and in 1930 he joined Irish side
Dolphin. Later that year he returned to his native Scotland to join
Heart of Midlothian. His performances at wing-half, and occasionally at inside-forward soon won him international recognition, with his first full
Scotland international cap coming on 19 September 1931 against
Ireland. Massie went on to be capped 18 times for Scotland, with his final game coming on 30 October 1937 against
Wales, which was also the occasion of his only international goal. He also played in an unofficial 'King's Silver Jubilee' international in 1935 and represented the
Scottish League XI. Massie moved to
Aston Villa in December 1935, but was unable to prevent their first ever relegation at the end of the
1935–36 season. He was still with the
Villains when they gained promotion back to the top division two years later. In the summer of 1938 Villa toured
Nazi Germany. The day before their first match, the
England football team bowed to pressure from the British
Foreign Office and performed the
Nazi salute during a
friendly match on 14 May 1938. The atmosphere at Villa's first match against a German Select XI was in marked contrast with continual jeering and whistling. Villa's use of the
offside trap was unfamiliar and frustrating to the German players and fans. When Massie fouled
Camillo Jerusalem, the referee needed to separate the teams. Hostility from the 110,000 crowd intensified when the Villa players left the pitch without the required
Nazi salute and
Joseph Goebbels was called to suppress subsequent hostile German press coverage. ==Managerial career==