| John Simpson |
 John Simpson was born on Sunday, 2nd February, 1908, in Glasgow. The 5' 8½ (11st 10lbs) forward signed for George Easton's Thistle on Wednesday, 15th June, 1927, having most recently been with Queen's Park. Aged 20, he made his debut appearance on Tuesday, 1st May, 1928, in a 2-1 defeat at home to Queen's Park in the Glasgow Charity Cup. John scored his first goal for Thistle on Tuesday, 6th November, 1928, in a 1-0 win at home to Third Lanark in the Glasgow Dental Cup. He scored the last of his 95 goals on Wednesday, 20th April, 1932, in a 1-0 friendly win away to Torquay United. He played his last game for the club on Tuesday, 3rd May, 1932, in a 2-1 defeat at home to Celtic in the Glasgow Charity Cup, having clocked up 105 appearances as a Jag. His club-list included Maryhill, Queen's Park, Partick Thistle, Plymouth Argyle, Stranraer and Sligo Rovers. John died on Thursday, 13th May, 1999, in Glasgow, aged 91. |
 Forward John came to the club in June 1927, after spells with Maryhill and Queen’s Park. His first team debut was on 1st May 1928 against his former club Queen’s Park, Thistle losing 2-1 at home in the Charity Cup contest at the tail end of the 1927/28 season. He did play and score in the opening match in the successful Dental Cup campaign in the 1928/29 season, though he didn’t take part in any of the subsequent rounds of the competition. He scored 6 competitive goals in the 1928/29 season. The late 20s and early 30s was a period when Thistle hovered around 6th place in the SFL First Division. He scored a hat-trick against Ayr United in a 4-2 league victory at Somerset Park in August 1929, the start of a period of prolific scoring on his part. He scored 24 competitive goals in the 1929-30 season, only bettered by John Torbet on 26. At the end of the 1929-30 season Thistle embarked on a 6 match tour of Norway. They only lost once, and John scored 4 in the 6-1 victory over Frigg, and 5 against Drammens BK in the next fixture. In August 1930 he scored 3 in the SFL First Division fixture against East Fife, following this up in October by scoring 4 in a 5-1 League fixture against Queen’s Park. His pièce de résistance was an amazing 9 goals in Thistle’s 16-0 1st Round Scottish Cup victory over Royal Albert at Firhill in January 1931. A story told is of a fan on his way home down Maryhill Road being asked the score. On the reply “16-0”, he was asked “To whom?” We trust that query was tongue in cheek! No surprise that John was top scorer that season. He didn’t play so frequently in 1931-32, and left the club in April 1932 for Plymouth Argyle, along with Jimmy Rae. John scored the 1,000th League goal for Argyle, when he scored the only goal of a contest at Home Park between Argyle and Stoke City. He suffered a serious knee injury, and didn’t get much game time at the “Theatre of Greens”, and came back to Scotland to play for Stranraer as player-manager. His knee trouble persisted, and he joined Sligo Rovers, claiming that “you only needed one leg to play in the League of Ireland”. He quickly returned to Stranraer, where he ended his playing career. He passed away in Glasgow in May 1999. |
| (DMAC) |
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