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Alan Rough

Scottish footballer and manager (born 1951)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ1400294
Source-derived summary

Alan Roderick Rough (; born 25 November 1951) is a Scottish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He won 53 caps for Scotland and played in two FIFA World Cups. He also had a long club career, principally with Partick Thistle and Hibernian.

Since retiring as a player, Rough had a spell as manager of junior club Glenafton Athletic and has worked in the media, particularly on radio phone-in shows.

Early life

Rough was born in Glasgow and was educated at Knightswood Secondary School.

Club career

After making his debut at the end of season 1969–70, Rough went on to play a total of 631 games for Partick Thistle in all competitions (409 in the league), which are all-time club record totals. He was a member of the Jags team that defeated Celtic 4–1 in the 1971 Scottish League Cup Final.

Rough told The 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 in Maryhill, the sports shop in Musselburgh – failed.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Alan Rough” as scottish footballer and manager (born 1951). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alan, Rough and Scottish.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1951, 1969, 1971, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1951-11-25. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Alan, Rough and Scottish providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Alan Rough”, the useful work is to connect “scottish footballer and manager (born 1951)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1400294. VIAF identifies the subject as 48671279. The Library of Congress control number is n2007002013. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1969, 1971 and 2010.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alan Rough”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alan Rough primary sources, Alan Rough archive and Alan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alan Rough”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Alan Rough” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.