 He won the Scottish Football League championship with Rangers in 1912–13 and a Glasgow Cup the following season and played regularly until graduating in 1916.With World War I in full effect, he joined the London Scottish Regiment and served as a medical officer, winning the Military Cross for his bravery in action in France in 1917.After the war ended, Paterson was posted to a Scottish hospital and played one further season with Rangers in 1919–20 (making a surprise but successful return despite being overweight and untrained), winning the championship for a second time.