| Personal information | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Alan Roderick Rough[1] | |||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1951-11-25)25 November 1951 (age 73) | |||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Glasgow, Scotland | |||||||||||||
| Position(s) | Goalkeeper | |||||||||||||
| Youth career | ||||||||||||||
| Lincoln Youth Club | ||||||||||||||
| Sighthill Amateurs[3] | ||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | ||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||||||
| 1969–1982 | Partick Thistle | 409 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1982–1988 | Hibernian | 175 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1988 | Orlando Lions | |||||||||||||
| 1988 | Celtic | 5 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1989 | Hamilton Academical | 5 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1989–1990 | Ayr United | 1 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1990–1991 | Glenafton Athletic | |||||||||||||
| Total | 596 | (0) | ||||||||||||
| International career | ||||||||||||||
| 1973–1976 | Scotland under-23[2] | 9 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1976–1986 | Scotland | 53 | (0) | |||||||||||
| 1978 | Scottish League XI[4] | 1 | (0) | |||||||||||
| Managerial career | ||||||||||||||
| 1990–1995 | Glenafton Athletic[5] | |||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||
| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | ||||||||||||||
Alan Roderick RoughMBE (/rʌf/; born 25 November 1951) is a Scottish former professionalfootballer who played as agoalkeeper. He won 53caps forScotland and played in twoFIFA World Cups. He also had a long club career, principally withPartick Thistle andHibernian.
Since retiring as a player, Rough had a spell as manager ofjunior clubGlenafton Athletic and has worked in the media, particularly on radio phone-in shows.
Rough was born inGlasgow and was educated atKnightswood Secondary School.[7]
After making his debut at the end ofseason 1969–70, Rough went on to play a total of 631 games forPartick Thistle in all competitions[8] (409 in theleague),[3] which are all-time club record totals. He was a member of theJags team that defeatedCeltic 4–1 in the1971 Scottish League Cup Final.[9]
Rough toldThe Scotsman in 2010:"I loved playing for Thistle, loved winning the League Cup with them, and maybe I stayed there too long but that was me. I never thought about 'career' and I never bothered about money. All of my business ventures – the pub inMaryhill, the sports shop inMusselburgh – failed. But I absolutely loved standing in theWembley tunnel next to these English stars likeKevin Keegan andEmlyn Hughes when I was on 40 quid a week at Thistle, when the previous week at Firhill the crowd had been 2100, and we were about to walk on to the park and enjoy a famous win."[10]
Shortly after his testimonial game in 1982 (Scotland XI vs Celtic),[11] Rough transferred toHibernian for a £60,000 fee.[12] He was eventually replaced byAndy Goram, who also took his place in the Scotland squad.
After leaving Hibs in 1988, Rough played in the United States withOrlando Lions. He also had spells with Celtic (covering for the injuredPat Bonner),Hamilton Academical andAyr United before leaving senior football.
He was won theSFWA Footballer of the Year and finished runner-up (separated by a single vote) for Scottish Football Personality of the Year in 1981.[13]
Rough was chosen for theScotland under-18s for theUEFA under-18 Euros held on home soil in1970.[6]
Rough played in twoFIFA World Cup tournaments for Scotland, in1978 and1982. He played 53 times for his country, keeping a clean sheet in 16 of those games. Rough was Scotland's most capped goalkeeper at the time of his retirement, but that record was broken byJim Leighton.
Rough's penultimate cap was won in the tragic circumstances of the1–1 draw withWales atNinian Park,Cardiff in 1985.[14] Rough came on as a half-time substitute because Leighton had lost hiscontact lenses.[14] The result, secured by a lateDavie Cooperpenalty kick, meant that Scotland qualified for a play-off againstAustralia, butmanagerJock Stein collapsed and died at the end of the match.[14] Rough was selected for the finals squad byAlex Ferguson, but only played in one further international.
Rough had a successful five-year spell as the manager (initiallyplayer-manager) ofJunior clubGlenafton Athletic after being appointed in 1990.[15] He led the team to threeScottish Junior Cup finals in a row between 1991–92 to 1993–94, also reaching the semi-finals in 1990–91 and 1994–95.[15] Glenafton lost 4–0 toAuchinleck Talbot in the 1992 final and 1–0 toLargs Thistle in the 1994 final,[15] but did beatTayport 1–0 in the 1993 final atFirhill Stadium (Rough's home ground for much of his playing career), winning the trophy for the first time.[15] The team also added the Ayrshire First Division title and the Ayrshire Cup to make it a treble in 1992–93, the most successful season in the club's history.[15]
AlongsideEwen Cameron, Rough co-presented a football phone-in show onReal Radio Scotland until July 2012, when the station replaced the phone-in with music.[16][17] From August 2006 to June 2009, the Irish sports broadcasterSetanta Sports simulcasted the show live twice a week on Setanta Sports 1.[18]
He later co-presented a football show along with Peter Martin shown onSTV2,[19]STV.[20] The Football Show was eventually moved toYouTube on the channel PLZ Soccer. Alan Rough continues to be a co-host on the show with Peter Martin onMondays andFridays coveringScottish football.[21]
Rough was appointed to the Partick Thistle board of directors in June 2018.[22] He resigned from this position in July 2019 following a boardroom coup which saw chairman Jacqui Low ousted.[23][24] Rough was re-appointed to the board later in 2019, when Low returned to the chairperson role after the purchase of club shares by her friend Colin Weir. Rough remained a non-executive director at the club until December 2022, when several board members were forced to resign due to fan discontent at the lack of movement on a promise of fan ownership that had been made by Weir before his death.[25]
Rough married Margaret Barry,[10] aDaily Mirror reporter, in 2009 after a seventeen-year engagement. Barry has two children from a previous relationship.[10] Rough was previously married to Michelle, a former model andTennent's girl.[10] Michelle and Alan had one son, also named Alan.[10]
In an interview withShoot magazine in 1986, Rough said that during his childhood he had supportedPartick Thistle and that Chelsea goalkeeperPeter Bonetti was a hero.[26] He was an electrician before playing football professionally, and he liked to play golf and tennis in his spare time.[26] His favourite television shows includedBlack Adder andOnly Fools and Horses, and his favourite musicians were Dire Straits and ELO.[26]
Rough was appointedMember of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the2022 Birthday Honours for services to association football and to charity in Scotland.[27]
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 1976 | 7 | 0 |
| 1977 | 9 | 0 | |
| 1978 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1979 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1980 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1981 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1982 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1983 | — | ||
| 1984 | — | ||
| 1985 | 1 | 0 | |
| 1986 | 1 | 0 | |
| Total | 53 | 0 | |
Partick Thistle
Scotland national team
Glenafton Athletic
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) FIFA, 10 September 2008Scotland squads | |||||||||||||
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