Robert Joseph Finan (1 March 1912 – 25 July 1983) was a Scottish professional

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 ...

. He played as a forward.

Club career

Finan was born in

Old Kilpatrick Old Kilpatrick ( sco, Auld Kilpaitrick, gd, Cille Phàdraig meaning "Patrick's church"), is a village in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It has an estimated population of 4,820. It belonged to the parish of Old Kilpatrick which itself was only a f ...

West Dunbartonshire West Dunbartonshire ( sco, Wast Dunbairtonshire; gd, Siorrachd Dhùn Breatann an Iar, ) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. The area lies to the west of the City of Glasgow and contains many of Glasgow's commuter to ...

. He started his career at Scottish

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club Yoker Athletic before signing for Blackpool, managed by fellow Scot Sandy MacFarlane, in 1933. He made his debut for the club in the penultimate league game of the 1933–34 season, a 7–0 defeat at

Grimsby Town Grimsby Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England, that in the 2022–23 season will compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system, following the victory in t ...

on 28 April 1934. He went on to score three more goals during that league campaign. Finan scored his first professional goal in the opening game of the following 1934–35 campaign, a 5–1 victory at Bury on 25 August 1934. In 1935–36, with Jimmy Hampson injured, Finan deputised at centre-forward and ended the season as the Second Division's joint-top scorer with 34 goals. He scored two

hat-tricks 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 wi ...

: the first in a 6–2 win against

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...

Bloomfield Road Bloomfield Road is a single-tier football stadium in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901. It is the third stadium in the club's existence, the previous two being Raikes Hall Gardens and the At ...

on 22 February 1936, and the second in a 6–0 whitewash of Newcastle United at home on 22 April. The following campaign, 1936–37, Finan (28) and Hampson (16) scored 44 league goals between them, as Blackpool finished the season as runners-up in the

Football League Second Division The Football League Second Division was the second level division in the English football league system between 1892 and 1992. Following the foundation of the FA Premier League, the Football League divisions were renumbered and the third t ...

and were promoted to the Football League First Division. As he grew older, his speed began to wane, and he was moved to outside-left, where he laid on goals for Willie Buchan and, later, Jock Dodds. Finan scored 85 league goals for Blackpool before finally leaving the club in 1947, when he signed for

Crewe Alexandra Crewe Alexandra Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Crewe, Cheshire, that competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Railwaymen' because of ...

, scoring 14 goals in 59 games. In 1949 he moved to non-League football with

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

, with whom he finished his career in 1950 having scored 12 goals in 31 games in the

Lancashire Combination The Lancashire Combination was a football league founded in the North West of England in 1891–92. It absorbed the Lancashire League in 1903. In 1968 the Combination lost five of its clubs to the newly formed Northern Premier League. In 1982 it ...

. After his playing career ended, Finan returned to Blackpool as chief scout.

International career

Finan won one cap for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

in a wartime international, during the early stages of

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 opposing ...

. As the conflict progressed, he went on to serve in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

and was a regular in the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

(

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

) side, once severely injuring his knee in a Cairo Canal-area match at El Alamein.

References

External links

Bobby Finan stats at Crewe Alexandra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finan, Bobby 1912 births 1983 deaths Scottish men's footballers Men's association football forwards Blackpool F.C. players English Football League players Wigan Athletic F.C. players Crewe Alexandra F.C. players Yoker Athletic F.C. players Scotland men's wartime international footballers Footballers from West Dunbartonshire Scottish Junior Football Association players Royal Air Force personnel of World War II

Club career

International career

References

Further reading

External links