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Fullname: Hugh Morton McFarlane
aka: Hugh MacFarlane, Hugh Morton McFarlane, Hugh McFarlane
Born: 1916 [tbc]
Died: 1968 [tbc]
Birthplace: Partick
Signed: 22 Mar 1940 (loan)
Position: Centre-half
Debut: Celtic 4-0 Dumbarton, League, 23 Mar 1940
Internationals: n/a
Biog
A wartime ‘loan’ player Hugh McFarlane (“a tall bashful lad“) made five appearances for the Celtic first team in the Regional League.
He was brought in as he had played under current Celtic manager Jimmy McStay at Alloa. Some were baffled by his addition as it was the attack that was needing strengthening.
The Rutherglen-born Alloa centre-half made his debut for the Hoops in a 4-0 league win at home to Dumbarton on 23rd March 1940. Dumbarton was actually one of his former clubs for whom he had played with on loan for a season in 1936-37, prior to wartime.
He went on to make just five appearances for Celtic, and he played in a very mixed set of games. The 4-1 win over Queen’s Park in his following game was good, but then Celtic lost 2-0 to Motherwell and 5-0 to Hamilton, a humiliating set of results.
He was then dropped from the first team but made a last one-off appearance in place of Willie Lyons, in a 4-2 win over Airdrie. So at least he played in one victory over a Lanarkshire side and so avoided a whitewash from teams from the region.
Possibly he must have one of the highest goals to games ratio of any player Celtic have had on their books (for those who have played multiple games).
It wasn’t necessarily Hugh McFarlane’s fault for the poor results, Celtic were actually horrendous at the time and finished 13th in a truncated league due to the wartime conditions (West Regional League). A long time till Celtic recovered fully.
Maybe at some points he wished he was still at Clyde, with whom he was with from 1934-38. Clyde finished season 1939-40 in 7th place, well ahead of Celtic, and then in season 1940-41 they finished in second place, just a few places behind title winners Rangers but still again ahead of Celtic.
Post-playing Career
A newly trained doctor in Mearnskirk Hospital, Hugh McFarlane carried on his medical career after the war. Mearnskirk Hospital was a specialist tuberculosis (and later polio) hospital for children to the south of Glasgow, but also used as an Emergency Medical Service Hospital and later as a Naval Auxiliary Hospital. We wonder if the child patients knew they were being treated by a former Celtic player, and if they may have been in awe as many of us would be.
He passed away prematurely in 1968.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES | REGIONAL LEAGUE |
SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1940 | 5 | – | – | – | 5 |
| Goals | 0 | – | – | – | 0 |
Honours with Celtic
none
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Notes
- Year of Birth & Birthplace updated: 1916 Partick not 1917 Rutherglen (see CGS forum)
- Year of passing was taken from Wikpedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_MacFarlane
- Courtesy of Alloa FC historian & fan Donald Pollock:
The legend goes that the board aspired to much better things after season 37/38 so appointed Jimmy McStay to build an entirely new team. McFarlane was one of those players. Willie McLaren, who was a veteran Alloa Advertiser hack, wrote in an Alloa handbook in 1981 that McStay moved McFarlane from inside left to centre half with great success: “The cup games with Dunfermline were the real turning point of that season, and it stamped McFarlane as the centre half…….Alloa played some magnificent stuff. The mid-line of McDonnell, McFarlane and Ferguson had that winning blend of subtlety and power”.
Alloa won promotion that season and began the next season in the top flight, only for it to be curtailed after just 5 games because of the war. Of course when Alloa resumed after the war the club were placed in the second tier and that set the tone for a couple of very poor decades in the history of the club. A certain what if situation there – what if McStay had been able to consolidate Alloa in the First Division in 1939/40.