Jimmy Speirs

Football career Scotland An inside forward, Speirs moved to Maryhill in the Glasgow Junior League in 1905. Maryhill, whose Lochburn Park ground was five miles north of Speirs' home, were among the top sides in the junior leagues, and lifted 13 trophies in eight seasons at the turn of the 20th century.

At the end of the season, Speirs and junior international John McFie both moved across Glasgow to First Division side Rangers, Speirs scored his first Rangers goal two weeks later during the next league game in a 4–1 win away to Port Glasgow.

In his first season, Speirs scored a hat-trick in a 7–1 Scottish Cup first round victory over Second Division Arthurlie and won the Glasgow Merchants' Charity Cup, However, Rangers could only finish fourth in the league, with Celtic retaining the title. Rangers improved to third place the following season as Speirs finished joint top scorer with 13 goals, but Celtic again were league winners. Speirs won a representative cap 11 days later, when he played and scored for Glasgow during an inter-city fixture with Sheffield. The game finished 2–2.

In the summer of 1908, after three years with Rangers, Speirs moved to another Glasgow-based club, Clyde, which later played in the First Division. Clyde lost to Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final, following a replay. It was Speirs' only season with Clyde, during which he scored a total of 10 goals from 20 appearances. The club reached the FA Cup Final in the same season, with Speirs playing in all but one of the games along the way, scoring in a 2–1 second round victory over Norwich City. Speirs, along with Frank Thompson and George Robinson, was censured by the Football Association following a scramble for the match ball at the end of the semi-final victory against Blackburn Rovers.

Speirs was captain of the side and in the days up to the final he wrote to his opposite number, Colin Veitch.

The final replay was played four days later at Old Trafford, Manchester, with City making one change to the team, bringing in Bob Torrance for fellow Scottish defender Willie Gildea. After 15 minutes, Speirs scored what turned out to be the only goal of the game to win the cup. in December 1912, becoming one of Herbert Chapman's first signings.

In total, Speirs had played 226 league games, a further 30 Scottish and English FA Cup games, and several other appearances in other cup competitions.

First World War

At the end of the 1914–15 season, Speirs returned to his native Glasgow and enlisted in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders on 17 May 1915. Conscription was a year away, from which Speirs would have been exempt because he was married with two young children. Private S/18170 Speirs was posted to the regiment's headquarters in Inverness where he joined the 3rd Battalion, a reserve battalion, for training.

In April 1917, Speirs took part in the Second Battle of Arras,

Personal life and legacy Speirs married Elizabeth Lennox Maben on 24 October 1906 in Glasgow. On 11 December 1907, the couple's first child, James Hamilton Speirs, was born. Speirs, who had still been recorded as a clerk at the time of the wedding, was now listed as a spirit dealer's stocktaker. Their second child, Elizabeth Maben Speirs, known as Betty, was born on 6 August 1912. In 2003, his family auctioned Speirs' 1911 FA Cup winning medal with his Military Medal and service medal. The FA Cup medal was sold for £26,210, a record for a cup medal.

Bradford City fan Mark Lawn bought Speirs' FA Cup winning medal. Lawn later became chairman of the football club and allowed the medal to be shown, alongside that of Frank Thompson, in the club's museum. Speirs' medals formed part of an exhibition to celebrate Bradford City's centenary in 2003 at Bradford Industrial Museum and have also been on show at Imperial War Museum North, in Greater Manchester, as part of an exhibition linking sport and war.

Playing honours Maryhill Glasgow Junior Cup: 1904–05

1913–14

1914–15

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