THE death of Willie Woodburn has removed another of those legendary players whose careers spanned the Second World War. His background was unusual in that he had attended a rugby-playing school in Edinburgh and such football as he had played had been with Edinburgh Ashton, a juvenile club in the capital. He had played a couple of trials with Queen's Park which neither he nor that club appeared to have taken all that seriously.
When he came to Ibrox in October 1937 he was seen as the long-term successor to Jimmy Simpson, father of Ronnie. Indeed, he forced his way into the first team quite soon, but one or two shaky performances, in particular a bad afternoon against Celtic in a 6-2 defeat at Parkhead, led some senior members of the club to believe that he had perhaps been promoted rather early.
The war brought great changes. Rangers, to their eternal credit, were quite prepared to run two sides, and this alone made the North Eastern League possible and provided a platform for such as Aberdeen, Dundee United, Raith Rovers, East Fife, and Dunfermline for the rest of the war.
It also provided a platform for Woodburn, although that was not the intention. He had by 1942 lost the pivotal first-team berth to George Young, signed from Kirkintilloch Rob Roy, who was initially as awkward-looking as Woodburn was elegant. Elegant is perhaps a strange word to use of a 1930s centre-half, but it is a title Woodburn could justly claim. His hallmark was the short, choppy stride, a gait which always gave the impression that he was operating well within himself, where as Young deluded spectators into believing that he was delivering a last-gasp intervention.
The problem of accommodating both men was solved by switching George Young to right back, and for the next seven or eight years the Rangers defence of Brown; Young, Shaw, McColl, Woodburn, and Cox pretty nearly picked itself since it was composed entirely of internationals. It would become the Iron Curtain.
The shape of the game in those days placed a heavy premium on defenders who could tackle, and Woodburn was a ferocious tackler. It has to be said, though, that almost all of his tackles were models of technique and the trouble he found on the field had rather more to do with getting involved in what essentially were the battles of other people.
He was not the easiest of team-mates. In his book there was no such thing as a non-preventable goal against Rangers. He could be particularly hard on those ex-Queen's Parkers Brown and Cox who had received large sums of money on signing for Rangers from Queen's Park. Woodburn showed his disapproval when they proved themselves mortal by making the odd mistake.
He was a man of contradictions, in trouble with flair ups of temper on occasion while the overall impression he gave was of great coolness. In a modern context his catalogue of misdemeanours seems minor indeed, but of course he was not playing in a modern context. When he started out there were no red and yellow cards to be flaunted like coloured streamers. It was a matter of remark when a caution was administered and the sports papers would gravely announce ''the referee felt compelled to speak very severely to X''!
At the beginning of season 1954-55 he was sent off (only for the third or fourth time in his career) for a particularly bad foul on a young Stirling Albion player called Paterson. In mid September 1954 he was given the ultimate sanction of the day, a sine die suspension, that is a suspension without limit of time. It may be noticed in passing that there would be no chance of such a suspension being upheld in law today, even if the player's number of suspensions
far exceeded that of Woodburn or, for that matter, Willie Kelly of St Mirren and Morton.
His suspension was eventually lifted some two and a half years later, but by that time he was 37-years-old, the legs were rebelling, and perhaps he had lost some of his zest for the game. It was a sad end which should not deflect us from his considerable achievements. He had a distinguished international career and one of his great attributes was a refusal to be overawed by foreign players of international reputation. Any assessment of his career must bear in mind that not only did he lose six seasons to the war, everybody did that, but for four of those six seasons he was effectively a reserve-side player.
On the international front he won 24 caps and was an integral part of the Scotland defence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In his spell there was something of the Corinthian, but nothing of that club in his fierce competitiveness. He would never have understood that Corinthians deliberately missed penalties awarded to them because they would not believe that their opponents would intentionally resort to foul play.
At home, his four championship medals were matched by four Scottish Cup ones, and there were two for the League Cup as well. In addition there were any number of wartime successes in those years when Rangers completely dominated the Scottish game. After his suspension expired he took no direct part in football but was for many years a percipient and helpful colleague in the press box.
In his day he put the shackles on such fine players as Lawrie Reilly, Paddy Buckley, and Willie Bauld and his day was the time of the man-to-man duel between pivot and centre forward. He fulfilled the essential requirement of the truly great player - close your eyes and at once you see him clearly.
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