Lawrie Reilly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lawrence "Lawrie" Reilly (born 28 October 1928, in Edinburgh) is a former Scottish football player.
He was one of the "Famous Five", the Hibernian forward line during the 1950s. The others were Bobby Johnstone, Gordon Smith, Eddie Turnbull, and Willie Ormond.
Reilly joined Hibs in 1945 at the age of 16, despite interest from their city rivals Hearts. He quickly established himself in the Hibernian team, scoring his first goal against Queen of the South. He netted the first of 18 hat-tricks for Hibs in 1947, again against Queen of the South.
By the early 1950s, Hibernian were the most feared force in Scottish football as they won back-to-back league championships in seasons 1950-51 and 1951-52, with Reilly instrumental in both, finishing top scorer in the 1951-52 triumph. Reilly was also now an established Scottish international, making his debut against Wales in 1948 and scoring the first of 5 goals in 5 matches at Wembley later that year.
In 1955-56, Reilly almost quit football after a row with Hibernian after they refused him a testimonial match - a matter which was eventually resolved by the SFA. Reilly, however, began to suffer from illness as pleurisy and pneumonia led him to miss much of the 1955-56 season.
Reilly made his final Scotland appearance against England in 1957 but failed to score at Wembley for the first time.
His last appearance for Hibs came in 1957-58 where he scored against Rangers.
Reilly is Hibernian's most capped player ever and is joint third in the Scotland national team's top ever goalscorers . He also boasts an international strike rate of 61%, greater than that of Kenny Dalglish, Denis Law and Joe Jordan, and second only to that of Hughie Gallacher amongst those capped more than 10 times.
He won a total 38 caps for Scotland, scoring 23 goals.
