Jerry Kerr was born in Armadale* in 1912. He died in 1999. He played for Armadale Thistle then went on to play for Rangers. His son and daughter both attended Bathgate Academy. At Belhaven, there was a tiny township of timber shacks much used by people from Bathgate for their holidays. I saw him there in 1953 when I was 13 years old. If I remember correctly, he had a pipe in his mouth. He came manager of Dundee United in 1959 when they were third bottom of the Second Division. I knew United player David Whytock** and he told me that Jerry Kerr’s first move was to buy up the best players in the Second Division. David was playing for Brechin City and he went to Dundee United in December 1959 and in his first game scored three goals. United gained promotion to Division 1 in Jerry Kerr’s first season there.
Jerry got money into the club by starting Taypools and greatly strengthened the team by bringing in Scandinavians such as Finn Dossing, Orjan Persson, Lennart Wing, Finn Seeman, and Mogens Berg. One of his greatest achievements was going to Barcelona on 25th October, 1966, in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and beating the holders 2-1. In the second leg at Tannadice on November 16th, United won 2-0.
In his honour, the south stand at Tannadice is called The Jerry Kerr Stand.
*Armadale is in Bathgate Parish.
**David Whytock (1940 – 1978) was a lecturer in Chemistry at Essex University. He was a strong Labour supporter and was adopted as Parliamentary candidate for Dundee East in the General Election of 1979. Sadly, he was killed in a crash near Ayton on the A1 on the 24th February, 1978. We worked together at Open University Summer Schools and we would arrange football matches in which England and Wales would play Scotland and Ireland. With David in the team we never lost. He did pay me a compliment. He said about my footballing ability, “There’s something there.”
Talking about football at Open University Science Summer Schools, at Stirling University I used to organise games between the O.U. students and staff, and the Stirling University technicians. It was not unusual for professional footballers to take Open University degrees. For example, at Stirling we had Irving Nattrass of Newcastle and Mike Brolly* of Grimsby. But perhaps most pleasing for me was when Willie Smith came along. He was cousin to George Smith and he had been goalkeeper for Partick Thistle and Queen of the South. He attended The Lindsay High School and I remember seeing him training on the grass strip beside the ashie football pitch in Meadow Park. We never lost to the technicians and Willie never let in one goal. We also had a Biology tutor called George Renton who had played for the Welsh National Amateur team. He said that Donald Ford was the best player he had ever played against.
(*Mike came from Kilmarnock and when he retired from football he became a science teacher.)
What might interest Dundee United fans is Dave’s legacy to the club’s goalscoring record.
Midfielder Dave signed for United from Brechin City in his late teens, and went straight into the first team.
A number of his former school pals were at the first game, which was a very cold evening, warmed only by Dave scoring three goals.
Bathgate Old Times 