Stan Wardlaw
Stan Wardlaw
Stan Wardlaw
● Stan Wardlaw, 1960 (HA)

born in Scotland

Stanley Pollock Wardlaw was born in 1937, in East Calder, West Lothian.

The forward signed for Willie Thornton's Thistle in August, 1960, having most recently been with Eaglesham Amateurs.

Aged 22 or 23, he made his debut appearance on Saturday, 13th August, 1960, in a 3-1 defeat away to Rangers in the League Cup.

There were no goals for Stan during his spell with Thistle.

He played his second and last game for the club on Saturday, 3rd September, 1960, in a 4-0 defeat at home to Third Lanark in the League Cup.

Stan's club-list included Eaglesham Amateurs and Partick Thistle.

Stan died on Saturday, 6th July, 2013, in Greenock, Renfrewshire, aged 75.

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Bio Extra

After reportedly scoring nine goals in five practice matches at Torrance, this young forward signed his first professional contract with Thistle in August 1960. There was a considerable buzz of expectation that he might lead the forward line, and the Evening Times captured the mood in their gambit for the opening game of the season, a league cup tie at Ibrox, which highlighted two debutants: “The twin magnets - Jimmy Baxter in a light blue jersey and Stan Wardlaw in red and yellow- pulled a huge crowd into Ibrox for football's 'grand re-opening'. At 2.55 when the teams came out onto a pitch which looked like a well kept bowling green, the attendance figure looked well over the 50,000 - and the fans kept pouring in”. Thistle lost the game by 3 goals to 1 and, although, he didn't do much wrong, Stan had a quiet match.

3 weeks later, in early September, Stan got a second chance on match day six of the league cup group stage, a home tie with Third Lanark. With Rangers and Celtic in the section, Thistle were dead and buried already so it was the proverbial “dead rubber” but the 0-4 loss was alarming to the Firhill faithful all the same. Although it may been meaningless in terms of the competition, it probably scuppered Stan's aspirations of being a first-teamer, and all that pre-season hype was quickly blown. From thereon, Stan never got out of the reserves, and was freed in April 1961. His footballing activity afterwards is unknown, but he didn't feature again at senior level.

In his personal life, Stan was married to Mary and they had three children together - Ann, Brian and Carole. He was known as 'Papa' to Demi, Morven, Sol and Kyle. We get this measure of Stan's personal life by the funeral notice which was posted in the Greenock Telegraph on 9th July 2013. By that stage, he was resident at Kincaid House care home, where he died peacefully, aged 75. His funeral service took place at Greenock Crematorium, on Friday, 12th July, 2013 at 12 noon.

(WS/JK)



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