John Stirk
English professional footballer (born 1955)

John Stirk (born 5 September 1955) is an English former footballer. His primary position was as a right back. During his career he played for Ipswich Town, Watford, Chesterfield and North Shields. He also made two appearances for England at youth level.
Career
Born in Consett, Stirk played youth football for local non-league team Consett A.F.C. He joined Ipswich Town on schoolboy terms in 1971, and after making two appearances for the England youth team and winning the FA Youth Cup, turned professional in 1973. During his time at Ipswich he was largely a reserve. He made his first-team debut on 5 November 1977, in a Football League First Division match against Manchester City at Portman Road. His manager at the time was Bobby Robson, who later went on to manage the England national football team. Ipswich won the FA Cup in 1978, in what proved to be Stirk's final season at the club. However, Stirk himself did not play in the final, nor did he play in any of the rounds en route to the final.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “John Stirk” is english professional footballer (born 1955). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through John, Stirk and English, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10513601. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1971, 1973 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Stirk” 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.