Jimmy Johnstone

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Celtic's greatest

Personal information
Jimmy Johnstone
Full name	Jimmy Johnstone
Date of birth	30 September 1944
Place of birth	Viewpark, North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Date of death	13 March 2006
Place of death	Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Position	Midfielder
Professional clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (goals)
	Celtic
National team
	Scotland
* Professional club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

James Connolly 'Jimmy' Johnstone (30 September 1944 – 13 March 2006), was a Scottish football legend. Johnstone, known as "Jinky", was voted the greatest player ever to have played for Celtic by Celtic fans in 2002.

He was born in Viewpark, in the village of Uddingston in South Lanarkshire, and was spotted by the Celtic and Manchester United scouts at age 13. He chose to sign with Celtic and he played his first game for the senior team on 21 March 1963 becoming an instant favourite with the Celtic fans.

1 Lisbon Lion
2 Scotland career
3 Humorous episodes
4 Later career and life
5 Motor Neurone Disease and death
6 External links

[edit] Lisbon Lion

Johnstone was one of the "Lisbon Lions", the team that won the European Cup for Celtic in 1967. Jock Stein had instilled in the team the conviction that they could beat the superstars of Internazionale, but Johnstone expected that Celtic would "get gubbed". He later recalled : "There they were, Facchetti, Domenghini, Mazzola, Cappellini; all six-footers wi' Ambre Solaire suntans, Colgate smiles and sleek-backed hair. Each and every wan o' them looked like yon film star Cesar Romero. They even smelt beautiful. And there's us lot - midgets. Ah've got nae teeth, Bobby Lennox hasnae any, and old Ronnie Simpson's got the full monty, nae teeth top an' bottom. The Italians are staring doon at us an' we're grinnin' back up at 'em wi' our great gumsy grins. We must have looked like something out o' the circus."

In the tunnel before the game, legend has it that he led a Celtic chorus of the The Celtic Song much to the bemusement of the Inter players.

In the end of course, the Italians had no answer to the free-flowing total football of Stein's Celtic, exemplified by Johnstone, a style in polar opposition to Internationale's cynical defensive cattanacio style which had dominated European football. Johnstone described the Celtic style as "like the Dutch speeded-up".

In the immediate aftermath of the Lisbon victory Celtic formed the opposition in the testimonial game for the Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stéfano. Johnstones performance was such that the Real supporters began to cry "Ole !" every time he dribbled past one of their own teams players. Referring to his encounter with Johnstone in the 1970 European Cup semi-final, in what was billed at the time as the football "Battle of Britain", Terry Cooper of Leeds United described Johnstone as "my nightmare", such was the quality of his opponents play.

[edit] Scotland career

Johnstone was also a Scottish international team member, playing 23 times for his country. England captain Emlyn Hughes was run ragged by Johnstone in an international, and remembered: "Scotland beat us 2-0 one year, and I was embarrassed to come off the pitch. Jimmy Johnstone absolutely crucified me. Alf Ramsey came up and said 'you've just played against a world-class player today. He can do that to anybody'".

[edit] Humorous episodes

Johnstone's dry wit was in evidence when the Lisbon Lions were paraded at Celtic Park on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of their triumph in the European Cup. In an aside, Paul McStay, the then Celtic captain, and an excellent player in a poor Celtic team, asked Johnstone who he thought would win if the 1967 team was to play the team of 1992. Johnstone paused to consider for a moment, then replied that he thought it would be a draw. McStay suggested that perhaps the veteran was being kind to the current team. Johnstone explained -"well, you've got to remember that we're all in our fifties now!"

Johnstone suffered from a phobia of flying. Jock Stein used this to the advantage of the team in a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade, when he promised the winger that if he helped Celtic secure a large enough lead in the home leg, he would be excused from flying to Yugoslavia for the second leg. On this promise, Johnstone put in an excellent game, scoring twice and making three more goals, thus fulfilling his side of the bargain. After the game the wily Stein declared that the people of Belgrade deserved to see his talents, and Johnstone had to endure the flight to Yugoslavia.

During one stint with the Scotland team, Johnstone was the centre of some "high-jinks" which has gone down in Scottish football folk-lore as "The Largs Boat Incident". As there was four days before the teams next match, manager Willie Ormond had allowed the players a night out in the town at their Largs retreat. Coming out of the hostelry quite late, and quite drunk, the players were walking along the shore when Johnstone spotted a couple of rowing boats, and decided to borrow one of them. He was already a speck on the horizon when he realised there were no oars. The coast-guard had to be called to rescue him. On his return to the hotel, Johnstone remarked "Don't know what all the fuss is about - I thought I'd go fishing!"

[edit] Later career and life

He played for the San Jose Earthquakes before returning to the UK in 1975, signing for Sheffield United. He also played for Dundee, Shelbourne and Elgin City before retiring.

Billy Connolly is the narrator on a documentary about Jimmy's life titled Lord of the Wing. The programme was first aired on the BBC in 2004.

In June 2005, Johnstone became the first living person since the time of the Tsars to have a Fabergé Egg designed in his honour. The egg was designed by Carl Fabergé's granddaughter Sarah (see [1]).

[edit] Motor Neurone Disease and death

Johnstone was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in November 2001. To raise funds for charity and to raise awareness of the disease, Jimmy together with Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, launched a new version of the classic single "Dirty Old Town".

Johnstone lost his battle with the disease in March 2006 (see[2]). The last person to call him was old Rangers rival, Willie Henderson, who had become a firm friend of Johnstone. Thousands of Celtic fans, and fans of many other clubs, including those of arch-rivals Rangers paid tribute to his memory outside Celtic Park on St Patrick's Day, the day of his funeral service.

Tributes were paid to Johnstone before the Scottish League Cup Final on 19 March 2006. There was a minute of applause before the game and the entire Celtic squad wore the number 7 on both the front and back of their shorts in his honour.

[edit] External links

	Scotland squad - 1974 FIFA World Cup
1 Harvey \| 2 Jardine \| 3 McGrain \| 4 Bremner \| 5 Holton \| 6 Blackley \| 7 Johnstone \| 8 Dalglish \| 9 Jordan \| 10 Hay \| 11 Lorimer \| 12 Allan \| 13 Stewart \| 14 Buchan \| 15 Cormack \| 16 Donachie \| 17 Ford \| 18 Huchison \| 19 Law \| 20 Morgan \| 21 McQueen \| 22 Schaedler \| Coach: Ormond