John Galt
John Galt
see also: John Galt (match official) →
A. Player

born in Scotland

John Galt was born on Monday, 18th August, 1862, in Irvine, North Ayrshire.

The forward first appeared for Thistle in December, 1887.

Aged 25, he made his first known appearance on Saturday, 24th December, 1887, in a 4-0 friendly win at home to St Bernard's.

That day, John became a member of our scoring debutant's club.

He scored his second (and final known) goal for us on Saturday, 26th January, 1889, in a 7-6 friendly win at home to Albion Rovers.

That turned out to be his last known game for the club, having appeared for the Thistle on at least 4 occasions.

His known club-list included only Partick Thistle.

John died on Wednesday, 29th March, 1950, in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, aged 87.

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Bio Extra

The son of John Galt (draper) and Mary Galt (née Higgins). He had one older sister, Janet. After his Dad died, his Mum remarried to John Rankeillor.

John was a fringe/stand in player of Thistle for a couple of seasons at the end of 1880s, and also served on the committee. As with many such club members of the day, he could also double up as a match official. John could play across the forward line, on either flank. His first quoted appearance in the first team came on Christmas Eve, 1887, St Bernard's making the trip through to Whiteinch. Only 250 souls were there to see it. On an ice-covered pitch there were chances at both ends and falls galore. Thistle had the bulk of the play and scored 4 second half goals without reply through Buchanan, Galt and Johnston (2). “The Partick Thistle were in form…and did not experience much difficulty in overthrowing St Bernard's” said the Herald. The selection committee were impressed enough to give him another couple of outings in January, a 4-2 win at Sunderland on New Years Day, followed by an impressive 1-0 win at Third Lanark a few weeks later, the great Willie Paul doing the needful. Conceding 6 goals and winning is a joint club-record which stands today, and John played (and scored) in the first such occasion, a 7-6 win at home to Albion Rovers in January 1889! 500 were at Inchview to witness history in the making.

At the AGM in the springtime of 1889, John was elected as the honorary club secretary, and his name and address duly appeared in the SFA annual at the beginning of the season which followed. In his personal life, John married a lass from Pollok, Maggie Walker. He was employed as a templatemaker all of his working days and lived to the grand old age of 87, by which time he was a widower living in Motherwell when cerebral thrombosis led to cardiac failure.

(WS/AFK)



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