Jock Stirling: The untimely passing of Alloa's old fox

A hush fell over the Recs as the Tullibody Pipe Band began to play the Flowers of the Forest. Lined up in front of the stand were the players of Alloa and Stenhousemuir, the home team wearing black armbands in tribute to a fallen comrade. With the club flag at half-mast, fans bowed their heads as the old lament played. Stalwart Alloa winger Jock Stirling had played in the previous home game, bringing his usual bag of tricks to torment the King’s Park defence in a hard fought local derby. Just two weeks later Stirling was gone. He had been buried in Alva Cemetery on the morning of the match, two days after his death in the Western Infirmary in Glasgow. Alloa players and directors formed part of the funeral cortege on that March 1924 morning, with wreaths coming from Middlesbrough and other clubs that Stirling had served. He had played at the highest level in Scotland and England before coming to Alloa in the autumn of his career and helping to inspire the Wasps to a golden era. The crowd gathered in the cemetery reflected Jock Stirling’s standing in the Wee County, where he had put down roots even before signing for Alloa.

Jock Stirling in action for Clyde.

John Campbell Stirling had been born in Milton of Campsie in 1886 to Robert, an engineer from Glasgow, and Ann, a Gaelic speaking Fraser from Invernesshire who had gone south to work as a domestic servant. Having often referred to Jock as Alloa's old fox in articles in the match programme, this link to the Frasers of Lovat and the original Old Fox was an unexpected quirk.  Jock had grown up in Old Kilpatrick where he found employment as a teenager as  a boilermaker’s helper. The youngster was already making a name for himself in the local football scene too. His form for Clydebank Juniors didn’t go unnoticed with Stirling playing a trial for Rangers before getting his big break with Clyde in 1908, the Daily Record reporting that: “Last night Mr A.S. Maley, the Shawfield manager, visited Clydebank and secured the signature of John Stirling of the local junior club. He is a reputed first-class shot for goal and was wanted by several clubs”. Stirling wasn’t daunted by the step up and was soon tipped for a Scotland call up. He ended the 1909/10 season by playing in an epic Scottish Cup Final between Clyde and Dundee. Black and white ribbons were being tied to the trophy in the closing minutes with the Bully Wee 2-0 up when Dundee staged a remarkable comeback, the cup ultimately going back to Dens after a second replay.

Jock Stirling (far left) in the 1910 Scottish Cup Final.

A year later Jock was on the move to Middlesbrough, the English First Division club paying a ‘substantial fee’ to take him south. But that wasn’t the only significant event in Stirling’s life that summer. On the 11th July 1911 he married Elizabeth Thomson in her home town of Alva. The couple would eventually settle in the Wee County but first to Teeside where Jock was soon a key player. Elizabeth didn’t settle so quickly, a report during that first season noting that she had “not taken kindly to the climate in the North of England and has been forced to return to Scotland to recuperate”. Stirling himself was flying, his form earning a place in the Anglo-Scots team for the international trial, with reports suggested that he would have been called up for Scotland but for an injury sustained in the match. His bad luck continued when he was forced to withdraw from the Anglos squad after being selected again in 1913, and although he played in the 1914 match in a 2-2 draw, a Scotland cap would continue to elude him.

Jock’s form in a Middlesbrough side which finished third in the league in 1913/14 would attract a bid from Manchester City. While Boro were able to hold onto their flying Scotsman on this occasion, Stirling was on his way in the summer of 1914 with a £2000 move to newly promoted Bradford Park Avenue. The transfer was said to have come like “a bolt from the blue” for disappointed Middlesbrough supporters, but Bradford were aiming high on their elevation to the top flight and there was a further attraction for Jock in the shape of their Scottish manager Tom Maley. Tom was part of a footballing dynasty: a brother of Alex, the man who had taken Jock from Clydebank Juniors to Clyde, and of the famous Celtic manager Willie. There was a strong Scottish influence at BPA where Maley had even changed the club’s shirt to green and white hoops, and among Jock’s new teammates was the Sauchie born former Alloa striker Jimmy Bauchop. While Stirling would do well for Park Avenue – a winner at Stamford Bridge among his highlights – wider world events were overtaking him. On the same newspaper pages as reports of his transfer were headlines about ‘British soldiers on the move’. Jock would manage one full season before the English League went into cold storage in 1915 as war raged in Europe. Stirling returned home to work in Scotland and found time to turn out for Clydebank and Third Lanark.

Jock in his Alloa days: "Although shorn of some locks, Stirling is still a very useful winger”

The war deprived Jock of four seasons when he might well have been at his prime. He returned to England on the resumption of competitive football in 1919, first with Stoke before switching mid-campaign to Coventry City, where the local paper proclaimed his acquisition as being “among the most important of the season”. Instead Jock was soon on the transfer list. Some sources suggest he played for Dunfermline at this time. If he did indeed make an appearance at East End Park, it can only have been an extremely fleeting one. Regardless, in the summer of 1920 he had indeed returned north to sign for Central League Alloa, the press reporting that he was “currently residing in the Alloa district”. He had actually been based in Clackmannanshire for some time and Elizabeth had given birth to their daughter Mary in Alva in 1918. Perhaps that was the real reason for Jock’s short spells at Stoke and Coventry: his heart was really back in the Wee County. Signing for the Wasps meant his days as a full-time footballer were over and the 1921 census lists him working at Alloa docks as a motor attendant for the Forth Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. From a position of great strength at the beginning of the decade, this company would soon disappear in the looming economic crisis.

The bustling Alloa docks where Jock Stirling worked in the early 20s. Picture from Down by the Riverside by D.C. Jeffrey and Robert Jeffrey.

Jock Stirling still had plenty to offer on the park and he had arrived at Alloa at the dawn of a golden era for the Wasps. The team would embark on an epic Scottish Cup run in 1920/21, defeating First Divison Falkirk and Clydebank over seven ties. They weren’t finished there, giving Rangers an almighty fright in a 0-0 draw at Ibrox where Jock “showed that he was far from done”. The adventure came to an end in the replay but “wonderful Alloa” had caught the attention of the football world. Come the end of the season the club were elected to the Scottish League where they would go on to make history by claiming the title at the first attempt. Willie Crilley grabbed all the headlines with his 48 league goals but the experience of old heads like Bobby Orrock and Jock Stirling were crucial ingredients in Alloa’s success. And so it was that Jock, on the cusp of his 36th birthday, made an unexpected return to Scotland’s top flight. He still had it, setting up the goal which clinched Alloa's first top flight win and on the scoresheet himself in two subsequent victories, the team eventually falling just short in their attempt to retain First Divison status.

The papers said it was "Giants against pygmies" when Alloa went to Ibrox in 1921, but Jock Stirling and co almost pulled off a cup sensation.

Jock was one of the few remaining links to the great Alloa teams of the early 20s in the much changed side of 1923/24. His form helped the floundering Wasps just about keep their heads above water. He was on target in a pre Christmas clash with eventual champions St Johnstone, the Perthshire Advertiser noting that he had outshone young Saints attacker Jimmy Fleming, the darling of the home crowd and future Scotland international: “The dangerous man in attack was Jock Stirling, who must have been playing football at a time when Fleming was a tiny toddler. Although shorn of some locks, Stirling is still a very useful winger”. His final appearance came on March 1st 1924, creating a guilt edged chance in the derby against King’s Park with “a beauty of a cross”. He was named to face Cowdenbeath the following week but rather than entertaining the crowd at Central Park, Jock Stirling was undergoing surgery at the Western Infirmary. He died on Thursday March 13th 1924. While some reports would suggest a link with an injury sustained against King’s Park, the death certificate confirms he died from tuberculosis. “Footballers everywhere will regret to learn that John Stirling, the Alloa forward, died at an early hour this morning….he had an honourable career as a player”, said the press. Just two days later the Alloa players gathered in Alva Cemetery to say their final goodbyes, before the Wasps took to the field at the Recs that afternoon and honoured their departed friend by putting some recent wretched form behind them to defeat high flying Stenhousemuir 2-1.

I paid a visit to Alva on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Jock Stirling’s death, passing his old home on Stirling Street before laying flowers at his grave at the foot of Ben Cleuch. I followed in his footsteps by walking to the site of the old shipyards at the Alloa docks, then down Clackmannan Road to where he entertained the football fans of the Wee County. Jock would scarcely recognise the Alloa shore and Recs of 2024, but on a cold March afternoon the Wasps of the present day turned on a thrilling display of attacking football. Kelty Hearts had no answer to the pace and trickery of Taylor Steven, Quinn Coulson, Ethan Sutherland and Steven Buchanan as they tortured the Fifers on the flanks. Alloa's old fox would surely have approved.

 With thanks to:

British Newspaper Archive

Scotland's People

Down by the Riverside. D.C. Jeffrey and Robert Jeffrey

Alloa, The Port, Ships and Shipbuilding. Jannette Archibald, Alloa Museum

Alloa in the 1920s. W.Scott

Dr John Wallace