John_Mackenzie_(footballer)

Johnny MacKenzie

Johnny MacKenzie

Scottish footballer

John Archie MacKenzie (also spelled McKenzie; 4 September 1925 – 5 July 2017) was a Scottish footballer[4] who spent most of his career with Partick Thistle, where he was known as the "Firhill Flyer".[5]

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Career

Club

An outside right, he joined Partick Thistle from Petershill in 1944 and played most of the next 16 years with the Maryhill club.[6] He played for Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic during the 1947-48 season whilst on military service in Dorset but became a first-team regular upon his return to Partick Thistle.[6] During his career he helped the Jags side to three Scottish League Cup finals in 1953, 1956 and 1958, but they lost on each occasion.

MacKenzie briefly left Partick in March 1958, when he signed for Fulham for £1,000, but he returned three months later.[6] He left the club for good in 1960, going on to play for Dumbarton[7] and Derry City, where he won his only medal in the 1964 Irish Cup. He was briefly a trainer with Third Lanark, joining in January 1967, but the club folded later that year.[6]

International

MacKenzie was capped nine times by the Scotland national team, and was part of the squad which travelled to Switzerland for the 1954 FIFA World Cup. He scored his only international goal in a 1–1 draw with Norway in May 1954. The highlight of his international career was arguably against Hungary – the number one rated team in the world at the time – on 8 December 1954; during the game MacKenzie repeatedly beat his opponent Mihály Lantos, and afterwards Ferenc Puskás complimented him, stating that he had "never seen wing play of such a high standard".[8]

Personal life

MacKenzie is, to date, the only native Gaelic-speaker to have played for Scotland,[9] although others may have had knowledge of the language (Peter Campbell and Moses McNeil, who founded Rangers, and Andy McCombie).[10] MacKenzie also represented the Scottish League.[11]

He died in July 2017, aged 91.[2][12]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Statutory registers - Births - Search results, ScotlandsPeople
  2. [2]
    Statutory registers - Deaths - Search results, ScotlandsPeople
  3. [3]
    Easter Road game should not have been played, Glasgow Herald (page 4), 22 February 1955
  4. [4]
    "Johnny MacKenzie (full name: John Archibald MacKenzie)". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  5. [5]
    "The Firhill Flyer". Scotland.org. Retrieved 18 December 2016. 'Johnny', as he was known in his playing days ... John Archie MacKenzie
  6. [6]
    Lamming, Douglas (1987). A Scottish Soccer Internationalists Who's Who, 1872-1986 (Hardback). Hutton Press. ISBN 0-907033-47-4. ().
  7. [7]
    "Johnny MacKenzie - Player Statistics (The Sons Archive - Dumbarton Football Club History)". sonsarchive.com. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  8. [8]
    "The Knowledge | Putting offshore islands on the map". The Guardian. 29 November 2006. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
  9. [9]
    McEwan, Michael. The Ghosts Of Cathkin Park - The inside story of Third Lanark's demise. Arena Sport. p. 261. ISBN 9781909715981.
  10. [10]
    First Gael, the Firhill Flyer, a Perhaps and a Maybe or Two, Scots Football Worldwide
  11. [11]
    "Johnny McKenzie - Scotland Football League Record from 23 Mar 1949 to 09 Sep 1953 clubs - Partick Thistle". londonhearts.com. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  12. [12]
    "Bàs am "Firhill Flyer"" (in Scottish Gaelic). BBC News. 5 July 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
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