Sammy Baird

Sammy Baird
Personnel
Surname	Samuel Baird
birthday	May 13, 1930
place of birth	Denny ,  Scotland
date of death	April 21, 2010
Place of death	Bangor ,  Northern Ireland
position	Half- forward , outside runner (left)
Juniors
Years	station
	Rutherglen Glencairn
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1949-1954	Clyde FC	90 (25)
1954-1955	Preston North End	15 0(2)
1955-1960	Glasgow Rangers	122 (39)
1960–1962	Hibernian Edinburgh	39 0(5)
1962-1963	Third Lanark	24 0(1)
1963-1964	Stirling Albion	12 0(1)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1956-1958	Scotland	7 0(2)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1963-1968	Stirling Albion
1 Only league games are given.

Samuel "Sammy" Baird (born May 13, 1930 in Denny , Scotland , † April 21, 2010 in Bangor , Northern Ireland ) was a Scottish football player and coach. The mostly on the left side on the position of the half-striker or external rotor used three times Scottish champions with the Glasgow Rangers denied seven caps for the " Bravehearts " and participated in the Swedish World Cup 1958 in part.

Athletic career

Club career

Baird began his adult career in 1949 with FC Clyde , with whom he returned as a second division champion in the top Scottish league in 1952 and there occupied a safe midfield rank in the two following years. Like many other talents before, he was drawn to the northern English club Preston North End in 1954 . "PNE" had paid £ 12,000 for the transfer, but after only one season in the English First Division and only 15 league appearances, he returned to the Glasgow Rangers in Scotland for £ 10,000 .

In the derby against Celtic , Baird played his way straight to the hearts of Rangers supporters with two goals to win the 4-0 league cup and together with players like Billy Simpson , Max Murray , Alex Scot and Johnny Hubbard , as well as Ian McColl , Harold Davis , Eric Caldow and Bobby Shearer , the team coached by Scot Symon achieved serial successes in the second half of the 1950s. Baird won the Scottish Championship in his first season with the "Gers" and contributed 14 goals. In the following year he defended the title with the team and remained undefeated in 16 games in a row. He played the first Rangers European Cup games in the national championship competition in the 1956/57 season and failed there after three contested matches in round 1 at the French representative OGC Nice . At the end of the decade, Baird won his third Scottish Championship in 1959 and the National Cup the following year . The 1959/60 season was the last in his Rangers time and this was crowned with the semi-finals in the national championship cup . Although this was the end of the line after the 1-6 and 3-6 defeats against Eintracht Frankfurt , he had previously delivered the most sensational performance of his career in the quarter-finals at 3-2 in the decider against Sparta Rotterdam .

In 1960 he moved to Hibernian Edinburgh for 5,000 pounds and also with the "Hibs" he moved into a European Cup semi-final. In the trade fair cup, which was held for the first time in just one season, he was defeated by AS Roma , but here too the “highlight” was already set in the quarter-finals with a win against the renowned CF Barcelona . Baird stayed in the Scottish capital for another year before moving back to Third Lanark in Glasgow in 1962 . Here he let his career end and switched to coaching in 1963. For the second division Stirling Albion he was initially on the pitch until 1964 and rose to the first division in 1965. Three years of constant struggle for relegation ended in 1968 with relegation and Baird's departure from active football.

Scottish national team

Baird was first appointed to the Scottish selection in 1956 . In his debut against Yugoslavia in his home country Hampden Park (2-0) he scored a goal and in qualifying for the 1958 World Cup he gradually gained a regular place. In the finals in Sweden, however, he did not play in the first two group matches against Yugoslavia (1: 1) and Paraguay (2: 3). He was only there in the last preliminary round game against France , but it was not enough for more than his connecting goal from the corner of the penalty area to the final 2-1 defeat. The Scottish team was eliminated from the tournament and found themselves heavily criticized at home for allegedly poor physical condition. Baird was one of the many Scottish players who were no longer to play an international match.

After football

Baird ran a restaurant in the coastal town of Bo'ness after his sports career . Baird's Bar was a popular meeting place for supporters of the Glasgow Rangers for many years. He spent his retirement in Bangor , Northern Ireland , where he died in April 2010 shortly before his 80th birthday.

successes

• Scottish champion : 1956 , 1957 , 1959
• Scottish FA Cup : 1960

Web links

• Obituary on Sportsman.com
• Statistics in the "Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Database"
• Stuart Baird in Fussballdaten.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} rangers.co.uk: "Rangers saddened by Baird Loss" ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} "Sammy Baird: Footballer who won three League titles with Rangers and played in the 1958 World Cup" (The Independent)