James Mallan (25 January 1924 – 27 May 1969) 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 for

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

and St Mirren as a defender.

Career

Having joined

as a teenager, his time at the club coincided with one of the poorest eras in their history in terms of performances and trophies. He did win the

Glasgow Cup The Glasgow Cup is a football tournament open to teams from Glasgow, Scotland. Operated by the Glasgow Football Association, it was competed for annually by senior Glasgow clubs from 1887 until 1989. It is now (since the 2019–20 amended rules ...

in 1948–49, and had also featured regularly for four seasons during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

which are not counted as official matches. At the end of that period he was sent off in a controversial

1946 Victory Cup The Victory Cup was a one-off Scottish football competition held in 1946 to celebrate the end of World War II. It is an unofficial competition in statistical terms, taking place at the end of the 1945–46 season just before official competitions ...

match against

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

which led to a lengthy suspension from the

Scottish Football Association The Scottish Football Association (also known as the SFA and the Scottish FA; sco, Scots Fitba Association; Scottish Gaelic: ''Comann Ball-coise na h-Alba'') is the Sport governing body, governing body of association football, football in Scot ...

, so he was not able to make his

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

debut until December 1946. He was selected for the Scottish League XI once, in 1949, but was criticised for his performance in a 3–0 defeat to the

Football League XI The English Football League XI was a representative side of the Football League. The team regularly played against the Scottish Football League XI and other national league select teams between 1891 and 1976. For a long period the annual fixture b ...

, which he felt was unjust.Tales of Jimmy Mallan
Charles Buchan’s Football Weekly, September 1955, via Not The View, January 2019 At St Mirren, he was responsible for scoring an own goal in the 1955 Scottish League Cup Final against

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, who went on to win the match 2–1. He retired from playing at the end of the season, and later ran a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

in Paisley. He died in 1969, aged 45.

Personal life

Jimmy was the first of four generations of Mallan men to play football to a high level. His son, also Jimmy, played Junior football as a striker, scoring a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

for

Johnstone Burgh Johnstone Burgh Football Club are a Scottish football club based in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, and play in . History The club were formed in 1956, in response to an article in the "Johnstone & Linwood Gazette" newspaper from a journalist that h ...

in the 1964 Scottish Junior Cup final. His grandson Stevie, a striker born in 1967, played for several

clubs in the 1990s, and after moving to Junior football in his mid-30s, played for several more years and appeared in the 2011 Scottish Junior Cup Final at the age of 44. His great-grandson, also Stevie, born in 1996, made his debut as a midfielder for St Mirren in November 2014 and played 100 games for the club before moving to England, later signing for Hibernian.

References

External links

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Jimmy Mallan
The Celtic Wiki 1924 births 1969 deaths Footballers from Glasgow People educated at Holyrood Secondary School Association football defenders Scottish footballers Celtic F.C. players St Mirren F.C. players Scottish Football League players Scottish Junior Football Association players Scottish Football League representative players Pollok F.C. players Publicans Jim People from Govanhill and Crosshill {{Scotland-footy-defender-1920s-stub