George Ross (15 April 1943 – 7 May 2016) 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 ...

who played as a full-back in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably with

Preston North End Preston North End Football Club, commonly referred to as Preston, North End or PNE, is a professional football club in Preston, Lancashire, England, who currently play in the EFL Championship, the second tier of the English football league syste ...

. Surprisingly, Ross never started his senior professional football career with any of the three Highland Football League Clubs in Inverness at that time, and went south to Preston as a schoolboy. He started with Preston as a junior and after making his debut for them in the early 1960s, he went on to play 386 league games for them. This included a place in the

1964 FA Cup Final The 1964 FA Cup Final was the 83rd final of the FA Cup. It took place on 2 May 1964 at Wembley Stadium and was contested between West Ham United and Preston North End. West Ham, captained by Bobby Moore and managed by Ron Greenwood, won the mat ...

team. In the early 1970s, he left to join

Southport Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England. Southport lies on the Irish ...

and played 31 league games for them in

Football League Division Four The Football League Fourth Division was the fourth-highest division in the English football league system from the 1958–59 season until the creation of the Premier League prior to the 1992–93 season. Whilst the division disappeared in name ...

. In April 2009, he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award by Preston, and he worked for them in the commercial department on matchdays. Ross died on 7 May 2016, aged 73.

References

1943 births 2016 deaths Scottish men's footballers English Football League players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Preston North End F.C. players Southport F.C. players Washington Diplomats (NASL) players Morecambe F.C. players Men's association football fullbacks Footballers from Inverness Scottish football managers Southport F.C. managers Scottish expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States Scottish expatriate men's footballers {{Scotland-footy-defender-1940s-stub