The Restoration of Rangers Graves Project. John ‘Jock’ Drummond (1870 – 1935).

The Restoration of Rangers Graves Project. John ‘Jock’ Drummond (1870 – 1935).

A fellow supporter Joel Leslie recently informed us that Rangers Hall of Fame inductee John Drummond was buried in Camelon Cemetery.

Mr. Drummond’s stone was cleaned and re-lettered on Saturday.

John Drummond, more commonly referred to as ‘Jock’, was born on 13th April 1870 in Alva, a small town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. His parents moved to Falkirk when he was a boy and sent their son to be educated at the local Liddle’s School (now Reddingmuirhead Community Hall). Upon leaving school, Drummond took up an apprenticeship in the Falkirk branch of the National Bank. A keen footballer from a young age, he began his career in the reserves of Falkirk F.C., where his conspicuous ability in the position of full back (similar to a modern centre half) soon led to his promotion to Falkirk’s starting eleven. It was as a Falkirk player that he gained his first international cap in 1892 against Ireland in Belfast.

In March 1892, not long after his successful international debut, Drummond signed for Rangers, where he would achieve his greatest footballing successes and enduring fame as one half of the famous Drummond-Nick Smith defensive partnership. A journalist writing in 1935 noted that ‘the two are often referred to as having constituted the finest defence that ever served the Rangers’, and that their ‘combination in defence…made both men more famous together than they would ever have been apart’. A fearsome tackler and powerful striker of the ball, Drummond was an integral member of the great Rangers teams who won four successive Scottish League titles, four Scottish Cups, seven Glasgow Cups and four Charity Cups. Although he was known for his strength and burly physique, he moved swiftly across the field of play and, as one of the last players to wear a bunnet during matches, he was easily recognised by the football crowds of the day. His performances for Rangers also ensured that he was a first-choice international and, over the course of his career, he won fourteen international caps, with his final appearance coming against Ireland in 1903.

After twelve successful years at Ibrox, Drummond left Rangers in the summer of 1904 and transferred back to Falkirk, for whom he played one more season. After his retirement from the game in 1905, he assumed a new role as a director of Falkirk. He never lost his interest, however, in the fortunes of the club to whom he had given so much and was a notable attendee at Rangers’ jubilee dinner in 1923.

Away from football, Drummond was a talented bowler and one of the oldest members of Falkirk Adrian Bowling Club, regularly winning prizes in important tournaments. He enjoyed holidaying in Millport and was a keen gardener with a penchant for growing potatoes. For the last twenty years of his life, Drummond worked as a janitor at Falkirk Science and Art School. After a period of failing health, he died aged 65 in Falkirk on 23rd January 1935 and was survived by his widow Janet and daughter Catherine.