Davie Kinnear was one of the players, whose footballing career was most interrupted by the Second World War, certainly in terms of potential. Born in 1917, the son of a coal-miner, both his parents Fifers, he grew up in Sinclairtown between Dysart and Kirkcaldy. Thus in 1939 he was twenty-two and something of a prodigy. He had debuted on the left-wing for his home team, Raith Rovers, aged just sixteen. Rangers had signed him at seventeen, winning titles in 1937 and 1939. He was capped at twenty, as it would turn out his only international recognition. And in 1945 at twenty-eight with his best years perhaps behind him Rangers would give him a season more before he would, now married in Pollock to Mary McIntyre, move on, down a division to Dunfermline for three seasons and more or less to the end of his playing career.
Yet he remained remarkably loyal to the Govan club. Back in Fife he coached Cowdenbeath, whilst working as a remedial physiotherapist at Bridge of Earn Hospital by Perth. But in 1956 he was back at Ibrox still as a physiotherapist but under former team-mate Scot Symon's was appointed a trainer, remaining, after Symon's departure in 1967, at the club until 1970. He was then offered the chance to coach in Turkey at Galatasaray but declined, preferring to work as an occupational therapist close to home at southern Glasgow's Leverndale Hostpital until retirement. And after retirement he continued to live in the area, dying the last of the pre-War International-players, in 2008 at the age of ninety in a nursing-home south of Newton Mearns and cremated at Linn Crematorium.
Birth Locator:
1917 - 8, Kidd St., Sinclairtown, Dysart/Kirkcaldy, Fife
Residence Locations:
1921 - 8, Kidd St., Sinclairtown, Dysart/Kirkcaldy, Fife
1948 - 18, Neilsland Oval, Glasgow
1956 - 18, Neilsland Oval, Glasgow
Death Locator:
2008 - Mearnskirk Hse., Newton Mearns, Renfrewshire
Burial Locator:
Back to Cathcart Cemetery and Linn Crematorium,
or the SFHG Home page
© Copyright. All rights reserved/Todos los derechos reservados.
Any use of material created by the SFHG for this web-site will be subject to an agreed donation or donations to an SFHG appeal/Cualquier uso del material creado por SFHG para este sitio web estará sujeto a una donación acordada o donaciones a una apelación de SFHG.
We need your consent to load the translations
We use a third-party service to translate the website content that may collect data about your activity. Please review the details in the privacy policy and accept the service to view the translations.