Bobby Shearer (29 December 1931 – 5 November 2006) was a Scottish professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
player and
manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...
. Shearer represented
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
in four full international games.
Playing career
Shearer, a
right-back
In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...
National Service
National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...
in the Army in the early 1950s, at Fort George Barracks just outside
Inverness
Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...
. His combative playing style led to him being nicknamed 'Captain Cutlass'.
He made his full
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
debut on 15 April 1961, in the infamous 9–3 defeat against
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
at
Wembley
Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...
. It was frequently joked afterwards that as an orange football had been used, Shearer and Rangers teammate Eric Caldow had refused to kick it, while
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foot ...
Billy McNeill
William McNeill (2 March 1940 – 22 April 2019) was a Scottish association football, football player and manager (association football), manager. He had a long association with Celtic F.C., Celtic, spanning more than sixty years as a player, m ...
had refused to touch it. Despite this inauspicious start, Shearer won further caps against the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...
(twice) and
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
in
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...
qualifiers the following month, his final game being a 4–0 defeat in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
.
Shearer captained Rangers to their second domestic treble in 1963–64. In all, he won five league championships, three
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Scottish League Cup
The Scottish League Cup, also known as the Premier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League cup in ...
Norrie Martin
Neil "Norrie" Martin (7 May 1939 – 10 October 2013) was a Scottish footballer best known for playing for Rangers.Billy Ritchie in a 3–1 Rangers victory in 1960.Wed 26 Oct 1960, Hearts 1 Rangers 3 London Hearts Supporters Club
Coaching career
After leaving Rangers, Shearer moved to
Dumfries
Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...
Iain McChesney
Iain McChesney (29 July 1944 – 29 March 2024) was a Scottish professional footballer with Scottish Football League club Queen of the South from Dumfries. McChesney is the longest serving player in the club's history, playing with them from 19 ...
and Billy Collings. In January 1967, Shearer was appointed manager of ill-fated Third Lanark, who folded later that year. He moved back to his hometown club Hamilton Academical and served as their manager, amongst other tasks.
Death
He died following a short illness on 5 November 2006, aged 74.