Ronnie Simpson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personal information
Ronnie Simpson
Full name	Ronald Campbell Simpson
Date of birth	October 11, 1930(1930-10-11)
Place of birth	Glasgow, Scotland
Date of death	April 19, 2004 (aged 73)
Place of death	Glasgow, Scotland
Playing position	Goalkeeper (Retired)
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1946–50 1950–51 1951–60 1960–64 1964–70	Queens Park Third Lanark Newcastle United Hibernian Celtic Total	078 (0) 021 (0) 262 (0) 123 (0) 118 (0) 602 (0)
National team
1967–1968	Scotland	005 (0)
Teams managed
1971–72	Hamilton Academical
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Ronald "Ronnie" Campbell Simpson (October 11, 1930 - April 19, 2004) was a Scottish football (soccer) goalkeeper.

He is mainly remembered for his time with Celtic, where he was one of the Lisbon Lions, the first British team to win the European Cup in 1967. Although having little to do during the match, his fancy footwork when dealing with a backpass was one of the highlights of the match.In 2002 he was in Celtics Greatest ever team and beat Patrick Bonner to the best Celtic Goalkeeper ever.

Before this, he played for Queen's Park, Third Lanark, Newcastle United (where he won the FA Cup twice after taking over as Newcastle's regular goalkeeper from Jack Fairbrother) and Hibernian. Thought to be in the last throes of his career, he was transferred to Celtic in 1965 as cover for John Fallon. Simpson's anticipation, handling and maintaining his concentration during long periods of inactivity, made him an ideal goalkeeper for the attack-minded Celtic; and he soon won the Celtic number one place from Fallon.

He also played for the Scotland national football team, in particular when they beat England 3-2 in 1967, which was Simpson's international debut at the age of 36.

Simpson's father Jimmy Simpson also played for Scotland, and enjoyed notable success as a centre-half for Rangers and Dundee United in the 1930s.

After he retired as a player, he was manager of Hamilton Academical for a year. He also served on the pools panel, which guessed results of postponed matches in periods of exceptionally bad weather.

He died on 19 April 2004, from a heart attack.

[edit] Honours

[edit] As a player

Newcastle United

FA Cup winner: 1952, 1955

Awards
Preceded by John Greig	Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year 1967	Succeeded by Gordon Wallace

v • d • e

Hamilton Academical F.C. – Managers

Raisbeck (1914–22) • Buchanon (1922–23) • Duncan (1923–25) • McAndrew (1925–46) • McStay (1946–51) • Wylie (1951–53) • Cox (1953–56) • Lowe (1956–59) • Paton (1959–68) • Crines (1968–69) • Lamont (1969) • Ewing (1969–70) • Shearer (1970–71) • Simpson (1971–72) • Lamont (1972) • Smith (1972–78) • McParland (1978–82) • Blackley (1982–83) • Auld (1983–84) • Lambie (1984–88) • Dempsey (1988–89) • G. Miller (1989) • Lambie (1989–90) • G. Miller (1990) • McLaren (1990–92) • Munro (1992–96) • Clark (1996–98) • C. Miller (1998–99) • Dawson (1999–02) • Hillcoat (2002–03) • Maitland (2003–05) • Reid (2005–-) •