Keeping it in the family - Sunderland RCA's Ross McNab is the grandson of Scottish legendary left half Jim McNab

In yesterday’s post I left you with my next task – to find the link between Sunderland RCA (or Sunderland Ryhope Community Association to give them their full name) and Scotland. A quick tweet to the football club’s twitter feed brought some gold dust back to Donkin Towers. I have discovered that the current Sunderland RCA left back Ross McNab is the grandson of the legendary Scottish Sunderland left half Jim McNab.

Jim was born in 1940, brought up in Denny in Stirlingshire and sadly passed away in 2006. He is buried in Ryhope cemetery. Sunderland were his first club and he was a regular between 1958 and 1967. He played 285 league games for Sunderland. Jim was part of the Sunderland promotion winning team in 1963-64 and the same season they enjoyed a good cup run. Jim alongside Jim Montgomery in goal, Irwin, Ashurst, Harvey and Hurley formed one of the most notable and settled back fives in Sunderland’s history.

Jim did not score that many goals for Sunderland but he did score the crucial opening goal in an FA Cup 5^th round tie in February 1964 when Sunderland beat Division One high flyers Everton 3-1 in front of 63000 fans at Roker Park. The pathe news video from that match is available on YouTube if you click this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9vLFoR9SNQ you will be royally entertained. Incredible scenes from a by-gone age and great footage of Jim McNab opening the scoring. A still pic of that goal is shown below.

 

Jim McNab scores at Roker Park against Everton in the FA Cup in 1964

The ready-to-go Sunderland AFC message board notes that this is a rare goal from ‘Mac The Knife’ and that it received one of the loudest roars ever at Roker Park. A roar that it is reported could be heard in South Shields!

Jim’s grandson Ross McNab now plays for Sunderland AFC and like his grandfather plays on the left side of the defence. Ross is pictured below.

 

Ross McNab - eligible to play for Scotland !

 The SRCA web site describes Ross as a left sided player who has developed into a very good full back. Defensively he is very competent, loves to get forward in support of his midfield and has a great range of passing. Gary Errington from the backroom staff at Sunderland RCA has been helping me via twitter with background information from the club. In addition to the testimonial on the web site, Gary describes Ross as a ‘lovely lad’. I am looking forward to seeing Ross and his team mates in action against Penrith in the first weekend in August.