| Harry Gibson |
 Henry Gibson was born on Friday, 11th January, 1907, in Paisley, Renfrewshire. The 5' 8 (11st 2lbs) forward signed for George Easton's Thistle on Thursday, 10th June, 1926, having most recently been with Port Glasgow Athletic Juniors. Aged 20, he made his debut appearance on Saturday, 3rd September, 1927, in a 4-2 defeat away to Dundee in the SFL First Division. Harry scored his first goal for Thistle on Saturday, 17th September, 1927, in a 4-2 defeat away to Raith Rovers in the SFL First Division. He scored the last of his 41 goals on Saturday, 2nd March, 1929, in a 5-2 win at home to Falkirk in the SFL First Division. He played his last game for the club on Saturday, 6th April, 1929, in a 3-0 defeat away to St Mirren in the SFL First Division, having appeared as a Jag on 55 occasions. His club-list included Port Glasgow Athletic Juniors, Partick Thistle and Third Lanark. We don't know when Harry died, but it was probably in the United States of America. *
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 As with many natural-born Henry's he was known as and signed himself as Harry. He played with his hometown team in his late teens and his form attracted attention from a few top tier clubs, but it was George Easton who won his signature in the summer of 1926. Such was the form of Sandy Hair at centre forward that Harry found it impossible to get a start at Firhill and, in October, he was allowed to move to Third Lanark for the remainder of the season to develop his craft at the top level. Harry did fairly well there, scoring 9 League goals in 28 games, switching between outside left and centre forward positions. He returned to Firhill a hungry man in the summer of 1927 - and proceeded to take the League by storm! Harry netted 3 hat-tricks that season and scored against both halves of the Old Firm as Thistle finished strongly in the Top 6 of Scottish football. When all was tallied up, Harry finished as top scorer with a massive 28 goals in all competitions. Harry bagged another hat-trick in the opening League game of season 1928-29, in a 4-2 win at home to Raith Rovers, and hopes were high that he could be on for a repeat showing. The goals were shared more evenly this time around though, Harry's tally of 13 landing him behind John Torbet (19) and Davie Ness (18) in the competitive Top 3. Once again, Thistle finished loftily, making the Top 6. For some unbeknown reason to us, Harry didn't feature in any of the last 5 games of the season and, somewhat abruptly, that was that. It was a bad knee injury which put him out of the game; there are no further traces of his footballing career which, considering he was only 22 years old at that time, seems tragic. Having been placed on the 'open to transfer' list for 1929-30, it seems he hankered after a new adventure, a new challenge. In April 1930, Harry left his Paisley home and set sail from Glasgow, bound for the U.S.A. He stayed with his sister and brother-in-law in New York. Perhaps he played football there? There certainly was a trend at the time for such transatlantic moves. The 38-year-old Harry applied to be an American citizen in 1945, at which time he was unmarried with no children, and was working as a Hospital Porter. There's probably more to come on Harry's story; time will tell! |
| (WS/JK) |
