Club 08/01/2026
Willie Knox Obituary
It was with great sadness that Raith Rovers learned on Tuesday of the passing of former player Willie Knox, at the age of 88.
He made 18 appearances, before leaving to join Third Lanark.
Willie made his Rovers debut on the 13th April 1957, in the Scottish League Division One at Stark’s Park against Queen Of The South in front of a crowd of 4,500. Rovers won 3-1. He was a right-back. Willie then played the next eight games-in-a-row until the end of the season. The team scored 84 goals that season and finished fourth in League Division One.
Rangers, Hearts and Kilmarnock finished in the top three places, with Celtic, Aberdeen and Hibernian all below the Rovers.
Willie later went on to become the most successful Scottish Junior Football manager ever, with Auchinleck Talbot. He won 47 cups, including the Scottish Junior Cup five times. He lifted the Scottish Junior Cup, five times in seven seasons from 1986 to 1992, including an unprecedented three-in-a-row. He also won the West of Scotland cup nine times, between 1978 and 1989.
In March 2016, I had the fortune of meeting Willie, after he asked if he could visit Stark’s Park. He had never visited the ground since he left the club in 1958.
Willie Knox, signed for Raith Rovers on the 19th July 1955 from Ayrshire junior club Annbank United. After signing, Willie continued to train in Ayrshire at Rugby Park with Kilmarnock, on a Tuesday and Thursday night, as he was an apprentice engineer.
Willie explained, “Without a doubt Willie McNaught was the player I admired; he was in my opinion the best centre-half in Scotland at the time. He was a better all round player than George Young of the Rangers, but he never got the Scottish caps that he deserved, because of the committee set up that chose the Scotland International team. He wasn’t at the right club; the Rovers were too much a provincial club. We had a great defence with Willie Polland, Andy Young and Andy Leigh.
We had a great support; they were smashing and they were big crowds.
There were no subs in these days and it was hard to break into the first team with so many established seasoned professionals in the team, but we when I got my chance in the team. I was guided by Willie McNaught, he was always giving me advise on how to play, where to make my tackles and even when to hit the opponent with a hard tackle. When I did well, he’d come up and say, “That’s mair like you noo son”.
The thing that brought a premature end to my time at Stark’s Park was that I had to go to do my National Service”.
After his spell with Third Lanark, he also played for Forfar and Barrow. While playing at Barrow, he played against Manchester United in the Lancashire Senior Cup in 1961. Matt Busby brought quite a strong team to Barrow-in-Furness, Barrow were taken apart in the game, very quickly it was 4-5-6-nothing but Willie kept shouting at his team mates to try to stop them. At the end of the game Busby knocked on the door and asked to speak to Mr Knox, he said to Willie that, “He was a typical Scot, don’t you ever change! Willie replied, “Don’t you worry!
When he returned to Ayrshire, he firstly played for Darvel. Then while he worked for Glacier Metal Light Engineering in Kilmarnock and a work mate asked if I fancied having a go as the manager of Auchinleck Talbot. I went up to have a look and ended up staying for 17 seasons.
Willie was awarded the British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honours List in 1989.
Written by John Greer