John Walker (born 1 February 1902) 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 lea ...

who played for

Yoker Athletic Yoker Athletic Football Club are a Scottish football club based in Clydebank near Glasgow. Yoker is an area of Glasgow adjacent to Clydebank, however Yoker's stadium lies just outside the Glasgow boundary. Nicknamed the ''Whe Ho'', the club wer ...

, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy,

Hibernian Hibernian may refer to: * Of Hibernia, Latin name for Ireland; hence ** Irish (disambiguation) Hibernian, Hibernians or The Hibernian may refer to: Sports clubs * Hibernian F.C., a Scottish football club, founded 1875 * Hibernian W.F.C., a Sc ...

Swindon Town Swindon Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team, known as the "Robins", currently compete in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Founded as Swindon A ...

Ebbw Vale Ebbw Vale (; ) is a town at the head of the valley formed by the Ebbw Fawr tributary of the Ebbw River in Wales. It is the largest town and the administrative centre of Blaenau Gwent county borough. The Ebbw Vale and Brynmawr conurbation has a ...

and

Bath City Bath City Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Bath, Somerset, England. The club is affiliated to the Somerset FA and currently competes in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football. Nicknamed the "R ...

. His position was

outside left In the sport of association football, a forward (attacker or striker) is an outfield position which primarily plays further up the pitch than midfielders and defenders. As with any attacking player, the role of the forward relies heavily on be ...

Career

Born in

Dalmuir Dalmuir (; ) is an area northwest of Glasgow, Scotland, on the western side of Clydebank, and part of West Dunbartonshire Council Area. The name is a lowland Scots language, Scots derivation of the Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic meaning Big Field. ...

(now part of

Clydebank Clydebank () is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, it borders the village of Old Kilpatrick (with Bowling, West Dunbartonshire, Bowling and Milton, West Dunbartonshire, Milton beyond) to the w ...

), Walker began his playing career with local

Junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Aircraft * Ekolot JK-05L Junior, a Polish ultralight aircraft * PZL-112 Junior, a Polish training aircraft * SZD-51 Junior, a Polish-made training and club glider Arts and entertainment Characters * Bowser Jr., ...

team

, moving on Kirkintilloch Rob Roy in the same system. He may have been a provisional signing for

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

but did not play a competitive match for the

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

club before he was signed by

in November 1920. He would spend the next seven years at

Easter Road Easter Road is a football stadium located in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland, which is the home ground of Scottish Premiership club Hibernian (Hibs). The stadium currently has an all-seated capacity of , which makes it the fifth-largest ...

, during which the ''Hibees'' built a strong team (mostly brought in by manager Davy Gordon but improved by his successor Alex Maley). He joined the club around the same time as Jimmy Dunn and Johnny Halligan, two other emerging forwards from the Glasgow area, and all three – along with the experienced Jimmy McColl – became important attacking elements of the team which played in two

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1923 In Greece, this year contained only 352 days as 13 days was skipped to achieve the calendrical switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar. It happened there that Wednesday, 15 February ''(Julian Calendar)'' was followed by Thursday, 1 March ' ...

(lost to

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 Foot ...

) and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

(defeated by

Airdrieonians Airdrieonians Football Club is a Scottish professional football team in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, who are members of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) and play in the . They were formed in 2002 as Airdrie United Football Club ...

). He was given the nickname "darkie" due to his black hair. After making 218 appearances for Hibernian in major competitions (46 goals), Walker was allowed to leave the club on a free transfer in summer 1927, joining

of the English

Football League Third Division South The Third Division South of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to ...

for two seasons, where he was not a regular starter. He then had spells in the

Southern Football League The Southern League is a football competition featuring semi-professional clubs from East Anglia, the South and Midlands of England, and South Wales. Together with the Isthmian League and the Northern Premier League it forms levels seven a ...

with

and

before retiring. The closest he came to any representative honours was an appearance in a

Scottish Football League XI The Scottish League XI was a representative side of the Scottish Football League. The team regularly played against the (English) Football League and other national league select teams between 1892 and 1980. For a long period the annual fixture be ...

trial in 1925.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, John 1902 births Year of death missing Scottish men's footballers Footballers from Clydebank Men's association football outside forwards Yoker Athletic F.C. players Kirkintilloch Rob Roy F.C. players Hibernian F.C. players Swindon Town F.C. players Ebbw Vale F.C. players Bath City F.C. players Scottish Junior Football Association players Scottish Football League players English Football League players Southern Football League players