THE FUNERAL of the much-loved Glasgow football scout who “discovered” Kenny Dalglish will take place next month.
Bobby Dinnie MBE sadly died on February 14 at the age of 91, just a week after he was inducted into Partick Thistle’s Hall of Fame.
His funeral notice in the Glasgow Times described him as “Bobby, beloved husband of Betty. Much-loved dad of Robert and Russell. Loving grandad, brother, uncle and friend to many.”
A spokesperson for Partick Thistle said Bobby had been “a great servant to the club over 20 years” and added that everyone was “deeply saddened” by news of his death.
In an article written for the induction event, the club said: “Bobby served as chief scout for the club for decades under the management of many, perhaps most notably during the John Lambie era, using his links to Possil YM, where Bobby had helped the club establish a reputation as a hotbed of young Scottish footballing talent."
“His work for Partick Thistle is well known by older fans but as an indication of his eye for a player he was instrumental in the recruitment of Kenny Arthur, Alan Archibald, Kris Doolan and Chris Erskine – all of whom were so successful they too are in the Thistle Hall of Fame.
“He is also credited with the early breakthrough of the ‘other’ goalscorer in the famous 1971 Scottish League Cup Final, a certain Kenny Dalglish.”
Bobby’s picture will be installed on the club’s Wall of Fame at the staircase of the hospitality entrance to the Jackie Husband Stand.
Bobby grew up on Kilmun Street in Maryhill, with his dad, Jock, who was a chimney sweep, his mum Betty, and his brothers and sisters George, Jim, Hugh and Agnes.
Football was the great love of his young life.
In 2022, he told the Glasgow Times: “Of all the street games I took part in, it was football I loved the most.
“Me and my pals started a club, Bardowie Rovers. We’d hire the local pitch for a shilling a week. We had no strips, of course, so my mum told us all to bring her a white shirt and she’d dye it yellow for us.
“Of course, it rains a lot in Glasgow, so by the end of the first game, the yellow dye was running down our bodies….”
After his National Service, Bobby played for Possil YM Under-21s, and then the senior team. Celtic and Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish was one of the young players he discovered. In his autobiography, Dalglish calls Bobby “something of a legend".
“He was a nice boy, and a great player, of course,” said Bobby. “His dad was a marine engineer, and he’d sometimes run us to games in his van. He’d just pile us all into the back. By the time we got there, we were covered in oil.”
Sir Alex Ferguson, who got to know Bobby when he was a young player with Drumchapel Amateurs and later, as a fledgling manager with St Mirren, said in a book Bobby wrote in 2007, called Scout: The Bobby Dinnie Story: “Bobby had the wonderful ability to spot young talent and nurture them to greater things and his most famous boy, Kenny Dalglish, was testimony to his ability.”
Other Possil graduates included ex-Rangers players Gary McSwegan and Bobby Russell, St Mirren manager Tony Fitzpatrick, Jim Duffy, of Hibs and Dundee, and Allan Moore at Stirling Albion.
Bobby took his wife Betty on honeymoon to America, but had not told her 18 boys were coming with them to take part in a football tournament.
He said: “She was furious, but all she said was – ‘I might have known’. And it was a great trip, we had a wonderful time.”
Betty clearly forgave her new husband, as the couple enjoyed more than 50 years of marriage and had two sons, Robert and Russell, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Bobby, who worked at the White Horse distillery in Port Dundas for 36 years before becoming head commissionaire at the police headquarters on Pitt Street, went on to scout for Rangers under John Greig, and Partick Thistle.
In 1997 he received an MBE for his services to the community and to the police in Glasgow. His memories of life in Maryhill and Possil, and of his time as Glasgow’s most famous football scout, have been turned into a book. The Scout: The Bobby Dinnie Story, is available on Amazon.
A photo of the presentation made to Bobby when he finally retired from Thistle, aged 80, always had pride of place on his living room wall.
“It was a real honour,” he said in 2022. “Sometimes, I can’t believe the life I’ve had - a wonderful life, with a wonderful family.”
Bobby Dinnie died peacefully at home in Possilpark on February 14, 2025.
His funeral will take place on Monday, March 10, at 11.15am at Glasgow Crematorium, Maryhill.
