Nicol Smith (25 December 1873 – 6 January 1905) was a
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...
who played for
Rangers
A ranger is typically someone in a law enforcement or military/paramilitary role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called "ranging" or "scouting". The term most often refers to:
* Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with prot ...
.
Biography
Born in
Darvel
Darvel
(, ) is a town in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It is at the eastern end of the Loudoun, Irvine Valley and is sometimes referred to as "The Lang Toon" ().
The town's Latin motto, , means "Not for ourselves, but for others".
History Prehis ...
,
Ayrshire
Ayrshire (, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county, in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. The lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Ayrshire and Arran covers the entirety ...
Darvel
Darvel
(, ) is a town in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It is at the eastern end of the Loudoun, Irvine Valley and is sometimes referred to as "The Lang Toon" ().
The town's Latin motto, , means "Not for ourselves, but for others".
History Prehis ...
, earning junior international selection, before joining Rangers in 1893. He made only two league appearances in his first season at the club, but by 1893–94, he had established himself in the Rangers team, missing just one of the 18 league fixtures. During that season he was also responsible for bringing
Alex Smith
Alexander Douglas Smith (born May 7, 1984) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons. He played college football for the Utah Utes, earning first-team All-American ho ...
(who came from the same village but was not a relation) to the club, and the winger went on to become an important member of the side for the next 20 years.
Smith was part of Rangers' first ever
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,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 ...
. He formed an effective partnership in the defence alongside Jock Drummond for over a decade, and made over 300 competitive appearances.
Smith was also
capped
In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the e ...
at international level, making 12 appearances for
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 ...
, two as
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
. He also represented the
Scottish League XI
The Scottish League XI was a representative side of the Scottish Football League. The team regularly played against the (English) Football League and other national league select teams between 1892 and 1980. For a long period the annual fixture be ...
nine times.
In January 1905, aged 31, Smith died from
enteric fever
Enteric fever is a medical term encompassing two types of salmonellosis, which, specifically, are typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever. Enteric fever is a potentially life-threatening acute febrile systemic infection and is diagnosed by isolating ...
, an illness which also caused his wife's simultaneous death.
His son
Jimmy
Jimmy may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Jimmy'' (2008 film), a 2008 Hindi thriller directed by Raj N. Sippy
* ''Jimmy'' (1979 film), a 1979 Indian Malayalam film directed by Melattoor Ravi Varma
* ''Jimmy'' (2013 f ...
was also a footballer who played as a winger, also for Rangers but primarily for
Aberdeen
Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
Scottish League
The Scottish Football League (SFL) is a defunct league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 k ...
List of Scotland national football team captains
This article lists all the captain (association football), captains of the men's Scotland national football team. As of 9 June 2025, Scotland have played 842 officially recognised international matches and have had 156 different team captains. An ...
*
List of Scottish football families
This is a list of Scottish football (soccer) families.
;Families included on the list must have:
# at least, one member of the family is capped by a national team on the senior level or an important person in the game of football (e.g., notable ...