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Fullname: Jonas Kaduskeviechi
aka: John Jack
Born: 9 March 1932
Birthplace: Bellshill
Died: 22 October 1988
Signed: 15 Oct 1950
Left: 19 May 1959
Position: Centre Half
Debut: Celtic 2-2 Motherwell, League, 22 December 1951
Internationals: None
Biog
Bellshill-born centre-half John Jack made 68 appearances for the Hoops in a 9-year Parkhead career.
Born Jonas Kaduskeviechi (a descendant from the Lithuanian community in Bellshill) the big defender signed for the Bhoys in October 1950 from Stonehouse Violet and he made his debut in a 2-2 home league draw with Motherwell on 22 December 1951.
“One of the cleanest kickers of the ball Lanarkshire football has produced” it was said of him. “Not Elegant but Effective” was his style but said to have struggled against more nimble attacking opposition players.
A strong, hard working and effective player, John Jack combined his early football career with gruelling shifts down the pit starting early morning then doing training with Celtic in the evenings.
He was though only a regular first team starter in one single season, 1956/57, and sadly did not play for the first team at all in the 1953/54 season when Celtic won the league & Scottish Cup double. Through his entire long time at Celtic, excluding the 1956/57 season, he only played a handful of time in each season, as competition was strong for the centre-half positions with players like Jock Stein contending for the positions available. He was effectively a filler in for other players, such as Jock Stein who was to suffer from ankle injury problems.
His one full season 1956/57 was for Celtic a disappointment in the league, with Celtic finishing fifth, long behind title winners Rangers and even below Raith Rovers & Kilmarnock. Away form was dreadful, but the home form was good conceding just 14 goals, but the first team was drawing too many games at home (6 draws at home).
The highlight that season for John Jack was winning a deserved medal with the Bhoys on Halloween when he was in the first Celtic team to lift the League Cup, the Hoops defeating Partick Thistle, playing in the final and its replay on October 26th & 31st 1956 respectively. It was Celtic’s first silverware since season 1953/54.
Possibly what signalled concern over his first team role, was in the Scottish Cup semi-finals v Kilmarnock. After a “cumbersome and occasionally reckless” performance in a 1-1 draw against Kilmarnock, a botched clearance early in the replay led to goalkeeper Dick Beattie conceding a penalty as Celtic went down 3-1, and out of the cup.
He was back in the reserves in 1957/58 with only few first team outings. He played in a 2-1 loss to Queen of the South was on Xmas Day 1957, and John Jack was attributed at fault when in the first minute he miscued the ball which flew to a QoTS player who shot past Celtic’s goalkeeper from 12 yards. He played in the return leg v QoTS later that season, with Celtic losing 4-3. Two days beforehand the Russians had just sent a dog into space.
By the 1958/59 season John was pretty much out of the first team set up and only played one first team game that season. It was all over. He wasn’t part of the Celtic sides that won the league cup in season 1957/58, which was Celtic’s last major trophy till 1965.
He went on to play an important role with the Reserves helping to train and coach the players alongside Jock Stein and was credited in that role by Chairman Robert Kelly in 1958.
He was to spend time out on loan with Stirling Albion, and then in May 1959 Celtic released John Jack on a free transfer, and he moved onto Morton.
He passed away in 1988.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES | LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1950-59 |
48 |
8 |
12 |
– |
68 |
| Goals: | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | 0 |
Honours with Celtic
Scottish League Cup
Pictures
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Articles
EVERY FOOTBALLER HAS A STORY, ESPECIALLY IF HE PLAYED FOR CELTIC
By CQN Magazine on 11th March 2017 Football Matters
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/ever-footballer-has-a-story-especially-if-he-played-for-celtic/
Written by Michael Beattie for CQN. Pics from TheCelticWiki.
Not every footballer’s story is remembered, but every footballer has a story. I’m trying to write the story of a former Celtic player by the name of John Jack, a bit-part centre-half who spent almost a decade at Parkhead in the 1950s. He played and coached alongside Jock Stein, once stepped in to replace a young Billy McNeill, and was in the side that won the club’s first Scottish League Cup in 1956.
Full disclosure: John Jack (on the far right of the photograph above) was my great uncle. I never met him – my parents left Glasgow shortly after I was born, and he died when I was a child – but I have a handful of family stories and a smattering of news clippings from his playing days. Here’s what I’ve found so far.GW165H239
Jack made 68 first-team appearances between 1950 and 1959, 50 in the 1956-57 season when the club claimed their first League Cup in a replay against Partick Thistle. Stein made his debut two games before Jack’s first appearance against Motherwell in December 1951 at the age of 19 – when I believe he was still working in the mines.
While Stein quickly made the centre-half role his own, Jack was dropped after three games – played at left-back – following the 4-1 defeat against Rangers on New Year’s Day, 1952. “[I]t was a brave thing to play young Jack in such a game,” Alan Breck wrote in the Evening Times. “He stood up well to the roasting from Waddell, but what a strain on Baillie!”
Playing at centre-half for the reserves, first XI appearances were rare – he made just 11 in the next four seasons. But Stein’s persistent ankle injuries opened the door for Jack’s promotion to the side ahead of the 1956-57 season, with Bobby Evans moving to right-half.
The early months of the season, particularly the League Cup campaign, were the high point of Jack’s playing days at Celtic. Reports praised performances against Rangers, East Fife and Queens Park, and he kept his place for the rest of the campaign, only missing the final match of the season after being forced off injured against Hibernian.
Defenders are best seen and not heard, and so it was with Jack. Largely unmentioned, there were moments of praise among the clippings that season that rounded out his reputation as an imposing presence at the back – one tackle on East Fife’s Angus Plumb reportedly left the striker “plumb level” – but his struggles against nimble forwards were common knowledge. Not elegant but effective, as one writer put it.
But defenders are judged by their mistakes, and two errors in that year’s Scottish Cup stand out. The first came against Rangers in the sixth round when, with Celtic up 4-2 and just seven minutes to play, he conceded a soft penalty before under-hitting a back-pass that led to a 4-4 draw. Celtic won the replay before reaching the semi-finals, where after a “cumbersome and occasionally reckless” performance in the 1-1 draw against Kilmarnock, a botched clearance early in the replay led to Dick Beattie conceding a penalty as Celtic went down 3-1.
The side finished fifth in the league for a second straight year. Supporters demanded investment from the board as early as January, after they went down 2-0 to Queens Park. Stein announced his retirement later that same month, and took over as reserves coach ahead of the following season, with Jack pitching in as coach.
After Celtic’s 1957 tour of North America, Jack’s days in the first team were over. He made just three more appearances over the next two seasons, with Evans at centre-half in the side subjected Rangers to the 7-1 drubbing at Hampden. In Jack’s last game, September 1958, he replaced the injured McNeill to face Raith Rovers. “Exactly 30 seconds after Raith kicked off a Kerray dance had Celtic in trouble but Jack dashed across and floored him just outside the penalty box,” the report notes. Celtic went on to win the clash 3-1. Jack was released the following May, later joining Greenock Morton.
Like McNeill, Jack was of Lithuanian descent. His full name was Jonas Kaduskeviechi, but all reports refer to him by his adopted name, which has carried through to the next generations. At one stage Celtic had three ‘Bellshill Lithuanians’ at the club, all at centre-half – McNeill, Jack, and John Kurila – all following in the footsteps of Alex Millar, thought to be the first player of Lithuanian descent to play for Celtic, who made a handful of first-team appearances between 1935 and 1938. He, too, was a centre-half.GW421H522
I’m still looking into the reasons behind Jack’s decision to change his name. Colin Deeny wrote a fine chapter in ‘Celtic Minded 3’ about the plight of Lithuanian immigrants who settled in Lanarkshire, many fleeing Tsarist Russia. They were mostly Catholic, and typically subjected to prejudice and derision. Keir Hardie was paranoid about the influx of miners taking jobs and undercutting wages for Scots, even suggesting the ‘Russian Poles’ were introduced to spread disease and kill off surplus labourers. “Dr Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen,” Hardie told parliament in 1899, “and I would keep it so.” Little wonder, then, that so many were drawn to Celtic.
In the face of such discrimination, many Lithuanians changed their names to hide their roots and make their way. The community was reportedly at its peak in the 1950s with an estimated 10,000 living in Lanarkshire, but I gather that name changes and efforts to integrate make those roots largely invisible today. The Scottish Lithuanian Social Club, established in Bellshill in the 1950s, may not be the buzzing community hub it once was, but it is still standing.
And now, a request: I appreciate it is 60 years since that 1956-57 season, but should anyone have any memories, stories, pictures, information, leads, or (especially) corrections about John Jack’s story – from his Celtic days or beyond – I’d be grateful. And finally, a thank you to Winning Captains for inviting me to write this for CQN.
Written by Michael Beattie for CQN. Pics from TheCelticWiki.
If you have any information or recollections on John Jack please email david@cqnpublishing.co.uk and we will pass this on to Michael. Please feel free to post any memories of the player onto Celtic Quick News.
