Ian James Muir (born 5 May 1963) is an English former professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

who scored 146 goals from 330 appearances 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 ...

playing for

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

Swindon Town Swindon Town Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at ...

Tranmere Rovers Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they adop ...

and

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

. He also played in the

Hong Kong First Division League The Hong Kong First Division League () is the second-highest division in the Hong Kong football league system. Established in 1908, it is the third oldest in Asia. The league was formerly the highest division in Hong Kong until the formation o ...

for Sing Tao and Happy Valley, before returning to

non-league football Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...

in England with

Nuneaton Borough Nuneaton Borough Football Club is an English football club that is based in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The men's 1st team competes in the , the seventh tier of English football. In 1889, Nuneaton St. Nicholas FC was the first team in Nuneaton t ...

and Stratford Town. He is Tranmere's all-time record goalscorer, with 180 goals in all competitions.

Tranmere Rovers

Muir was signed to Tranmere Rovers by player-manager,

Frank Worthington Frank Stewart Worthington (23 November 1948 – 22 March 2021) was an English footballer who played as a forward. Worthington was born into a footballing family in Shelf, near Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire. Both of his parents had played ...

, who was his striking partner in his first season at the club. Despite his evident promise, he spent his early career at Rovers immersed in struggle, as the club languished in the basement of the league and Muir was part of the side that beat Exeter City 1–0 to save Rovers from automatic relegation from Division Four in 1987. He set up the crucial goal, headed in by Gary Williams in the 77th minute of the last game of that season. Muir prospered when new manager, John King, signed a big target-man, Jim Steel, as his strike partner in late 1987. Within four years, Rovers had been promoted twice and appeared at Wembley five times, with Muir scoring in the FA's centenary celebrations in 1988 and in Tranmere's Leyland DAF Trophy victory over Bristol Rovers in 1990. Injury prevented Muir partaking in the final strait of Rovers' promotion run in 1991 when they reached the second tier of English football for only the second time in their history. That summer, the signing of John Aldridge at Tranmere led to the marginalisation of Ian Muir, who remained a regular goalscorer when called upon for the remainder of his Tranmere career. To a generation of Tranmere Rovers fans, Ian Muir is remembered as a legendary player, who played the starring role in the greatest period of the club's history and also the finest centre forward not to have played in the top tier of English football.

Honours

Individual *

PFA Team of the Year The Professional Footballers' Association Team of the Year (often called the PFA Team of the Year, or simply the Team of the Year) is an annual award given to a set of 55 footballers across the top four tiers of men's English football; the Premie ...

: 1988–89 Fourth Division, 1989–90 Third Division

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Muir, Ian Sing Tao SC players 1963 births Living people Footballers from Coventry English men's footballers Men's association football forwards Queens Park Rangers F.C. players Burnley F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Swindon Town F.C. players Tranmere Rovers F.C. players Darlington F.C. players Happy Valley AA players Nuneaton Borough F.C. players Stratford Town F.C. players English Football League players Hong Kong First Division League players Expatriate men's footballers in Hong Kong English expatriate sportspeople in Hong Kong English expatriate men's footballers