Trawling the net trying to find some info on ex players i fell upon this interesting website www.neilbrown.newcastlefans.com which some of you might be aware of and gives information on a good number of transfers in/out at most clubs over the past 45 years.
And yes it has info on Thirds which certainly brought back some memories of players that have slipped from the mind.The site also allows you to track the movement of the players by visiting other clubs for the info.A couple of old favourite players i chased were:
Joe Davis full back partner of Junior McGillivray who played 59 times for the hi hi and was transferred to Hibs in 1965 where he scored 34 goals mainly penalties.I had a look on the Hibs site and discovered some info that Joe would probably want to forget, namely, in the Hibs v Hearts derby of 1967 Joe contrived to miss 3 penalties in a 0-0 draw but hey he made up for it later in the season by scoring the only goal (probably a penalty) in a 1-0 win over the Jambos .
Jimmy McMorran inside forward signed form Aston Villa in 1962 where he played only 11 games scoring one goal but what i remember of Jimmy then was that there was a picture of him in the 'Allstars Football Annual' (which was similar to the 'Topical Times' football book) playing against Charlton.Looking back he did well to get into that book while playing so few games.Favourite memory of Jimmy was scoring all Thirds goals in a 4-2 mid week win over St Mirren made even better as my brother who was with me was a Saints supporter .
John McCormack a centre half who had a terrific career at several clubs.At Cathkin from 59 till 64 then Aberdeen till 66 then to Crystal Palace 66-73.I had a look at the Palace site which reminded me that there was quite a colony of Scottish players at the club (bit like Accrington Stanley in the 50s) which enjoyed 1st Division status at this time.Scottish players there were Charlie Cooke,Roger Hynd,Yogi Hughes and Gerry Queen (ex killie) and of course Big John. The fact that he played 159 games in such a competitive league is an indicator of the quality of player he was and who nowadays would have walked into the Scottish team,unfortunately, back then there was a queue for the position ie Ronnie McKinnon,Billy McNeill,Ian Ure etc although i'm sure some of them got in because of where they were played...!!!
The Neil Brown website has Bill Clarkson playing one game for the Hi-Hi in 1961-62. I was a season ticket holder in that season and cannot remember him, though I subsequently saw him play several times for Wisbech Town in the Southern League. Does anybody know which game he played in?