Shaw Jock Image 6 Glasgow Rangers 1948

Description

Annathill, Lanarkshire born left back John “Jock” Shaw began his football career with Benburb, from where he joined Airdrieonians in 1933 and soon made a significant impact at Broomfield Park forming a noted full back pairing with Peter Devine, such that by October 1936 he had been selected to play for The Scottish League, playing in a 2-0 defeat to The Football League at Goodison Park. Glasgow Rangers signed Shaw for £2,000 in July 1938 after 5 goals in 174 appearances for The Diamonds and despite the interruption of the Second World War, he went on make some 600 appearances in all competitions for Rangers (including wartime appearances).

Nicknamed “The Tiger” and powerfully built, he was noted as “about the longest kicker of a ball in Scotland”. Of his appearances for Rangers 251 were in peacetime competitions between August 1938, when he made his debut in a Scottish League match at St Johnstone that finished a 3-3 draw, and October 1952, when he played his last match in a 3-2 defeat at East Fife, before he retired from playing already aged 40. His roll of honours include winning four Scottish League Championships, three Scottish Cups and two League Cups. Shaw holds the dinstinction of being the captain of the first Scottish club to lift “the treble” of League, League Cup and Scottish Cup, achieved in 1948-49.

He played once more for The Scottish League in April 1947 in a 4-2 defeat to The Irish League at Windsor Park, Belfast, and won 6 caps for Scotland in the immediate post Second World War period, making his debut in a 2-2 draw against Belgium at Hampden Park in January 1946 and winning 5 more Scotland caps through to October 1947, captaining his country on several occasions. He also played for Scotland in 6 wartime internationals between 1941 and 1946. After retirement in 1953 he remained associated with Rangers as third-team trainer and later as their groundsman.

His younger brother Davie was also a Scottish international, who played for Hibernian and Aberdeen, and the brothers played together for Scotland in a match against Switzerland in front of 113,000 spectators at Hampden Park in May 1946. This didn’t happen again until Gary and Steven Caldwell played together for the first time in a Scotland side in 2005.