Smith had been playing for Hibs since 1941. Johnstone, Reilly and Ormond had joined in 1946, and the four of them had helped Hibs win the Scottish league title in 1948. Turnbull joined the next season, and, together, they won the league in 1951 and 1952, just missing the title in 1950 and 1953.
Johnstone left right before the 1955-56 season, and helped Manchester City win England's FA Cup that season, the only real success any of them had with any other club. That same season, as something of a "last stand," the remaining four played for Hibs in the 1st European Cup, and reached the Semifinals, before losing to French club Stade Reims, led by the great Frenchman of Polish descent, Raymond Kopa.
Reilly left in 1958, Smith and Turnbull in 1959, and Ormond in 1961. Turnbull managed Hibs from 1971 to 1980. Ormond managed perhaps the best Scotland national side ever, into the 1974 World Cup. He managed Hibs' Edinburgh arch-rivals, Heart of Midlothian, a.k.a. "Hearts," before replacing Turnbull as a caretaker manager of Hibs in 1980.
Ormond died in 1984. The others were still alive and on hand when Hibs opened the rebuilt north stand at their Easter Road stadium in 1995, renamed the Famous Five Stand. Reilly was the last survivor of the Famous Five, living until 2013.
*
October 15, 1949 was a Saturday. In English soccer, the North London team I would eventually support, Arsenal F.C., traveled to Ayresome Park, and played Middlesbrough F.C. to a 1-1 draw. Arsenal would win the FA Cup in that 1949-50 season.
In American football, these were some of the college games played that day:
* Number 1 Notre Dame beat Number 4 Tulane, 46-7 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.
* Number 2 Army beat Harvard, 54-14 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.
* Number 3 Oklahoma beat Kansas, 48-26 at Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma.
* Number 5 Minnesota beat Number 11 Ohio State, 27-0 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.
* Number 6 North Carolina beat Wake Forest, 28-14 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
* Number 7 Michigan were upset by Northwestern, 21-20 at Dyche Stadium (now Ryan Field) outside Chicago in Evanston, Illinois.
* Number 8 Kentucky beat The Citadel, 44-0 at McLean Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky.
* Number 9 University of California beat Number 12 University of Southern California, 16-10 at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, California.
* Number 10 Southern Methodist University (SMU) were upset by Rice University, 41-27 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
* Number 18 Navy were upset by Wisconsin, 48-13 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.
* Columbia University lost to the University of Pennsylvania, 27-7 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
* Fordham University of The Bronx beat the University of Scranton, 33-13. Scranton didn't have a home field, and so the game was played at the stadium of Dunmore High School in nearby Dunmore, Pennsylvania. (The night before, New York University had lost to Georgetown, 21-6 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.)
* And in New Jersey, Princeton beat Brown, 27-14 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton; while Rutgers lost to Syracuse, 21-9 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.
The baseball season ended 6 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5 to win the World Series. The NBA season opened 14 days later. Two games were played in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a 4-4 tie at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.
