Torrance Gillick (19 May 1915 – 16 December 1971) was a Scottish
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 le ...
Rangers
A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to:
* Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...
Partick Thistle
Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional association football, football club from Glasgow, Scotland. Despite their name, the club are based at Firhill Stadium in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not played in Partick since 1908. ...
Rangers
A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to:
* Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...
in 1933, aged 18, by manager
Bill Struth
William Struth (16 June 1875 – 21 September 1956) was a Scottish football manager. He was the second manager of Rangers Football Club, leading the club for 34 years between 1920 and 1954, as well as being the holder of a number of other positi ...
, after playing for prominent
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1934–35, and that summer was sold to Everton for a then record fee for the club, £8,000.
He stayed on
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...
until the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and during that time won a
Football League championship
The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the En ...
medal in
1939
This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history.
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1
** Third Reich
*** Jews are forbidden to ...
.
During World War II, Gillick "guested" for home-town
Airdrieonians
Airdrieonians Football Club is a Scottish professional football team in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, who are members of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) and play in Scottish League One. They were formed in 2002 as Airdrie United ...
and Rangers.Rangers player Gillick, Torry FitbaStats At the end of the war in 1945, Struth brought him back to Ibrox. He developed into a forward with excellent ball control and vision and became a feature in the famous post-war Rangers side, forming a partnership on the right wing with
Willie Waddell
William Waddell (7 March 1921 – 14 October 1992) was a professional football player and manager. His only club in a 16-year career as a player in the outside right position (interrupted by World War II) was Rangers which yielded six major w ...
.Hall of Fame: Torry Gillick Rangers FC In his second spell at Rangers, he won one League Championship medal ( 1946–47), a Scottish Cup in 1947–48 and two League Cup medals ( 1946–47, 1948–49) in addition to several wartime competitions. By coincidence, the last trophy he lifted was the
Glasgow Cup
The Glasgow Cup is a football tournament open to teams from Glasgow, Scotland. Operated by the Glasgow Football Association, it was competed for annually by senior Glasgow clubs from 1887 until 1989. It is now (since the 2019–20 amended rules ...
with a win over Clyde in October 1949, the same tournament and opponent the first cup he won with Rangers 16 years earlier.
Gillick left Rangers in 1950 but made a comeback
Partick Thistle
Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional association football, football club from Glasgow, Scotland. Despite their name, the club are based at Firhill Stadium in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not played in Partick since 1908. ...
in August 1951. He played one season with the ''Jags'' (managed at that time by his former Rangers teammate
Davie Meiklejohn
David Ditchburn Meiklejohn (; 12 December 1900 – 22 August 1959) was a Scottish professional footballer, who played for Rangers and Scotland during the 1920s and 1930s. He later managed Partick Thistle for 12 years.
Career
Born in Govan, Gla ...
) before retiring to oversee his business interest, a
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland.
Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotlan ...
scrap metal firm. He died on 12 December 1971, aged 56, from undisclosed causes, on the same day as
Alan Morton
Alan Lauder Morton (24 April 1893 – 12 December 1971) was a Scottish footballer who played as a outside left for Queen's Park, Rangers and Scotland.
Playing career Club
Morton was born in the Jordanhill district of Glasgow. He grew up in A ...
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...