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A Beautiful Pain: Looking Back At Jinky

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I never watched the magnificent Jimmy Johnstone play football.

I never had that pleasure, which I am sure would have been sublime, except for in videos and on DVD’s.

I never got to stand on the terraces and see him in full flow; instead I’m restricted to memories caught in little snatches from highlight reels and archive footage.

But somehow it’s enough.

It’s enough to know what we had at Celtic for a period of time that went by as quickly as one of his gliding runs.

He is the greatest player ever to wear the Hoops, and the statue outside Parkhead that bears his likeness is testament to the respect and affection, not to say love, in which every Celtic supporter holds him, whether we saw him or not.

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of his death, and a decade on it is still an occasion for profound sadness that can bring a tear to the eye. It’s also a day for enormous pride, because if looking back on Jimmy’s life can, at times, make your heart ache in the pain of his loss it’s a beautiful pain because so much of him lives on today.

For Jimmy was more than just a phenomenally gifted football player; he was, first and foremost, a Celtic supporter.

He was one of us.

Jimmy belonged to a generation of players at our club who’s roots were in the stands, and who knew, therefore, what it meant to be at Celtic Park in the cold and wet and cheer on the boys on the pitch. He and those of that time put heart and soul into their endeavours on behalf of Celtic, because they knew what it was like to be on those terraces, urging on their own favourites and to look beyond their horizons to distant glories they dared only dream of, as supporters.

As a player, he was one of the men who reached the pinnacle of greatness and accomplishment that day in Lisbon, when he was a vital cog in the big wheel Stein set in motion to bring home the greatest prize football had to offer.

I can’t be alone in having spent much of this morning watching YouTube footage of his phenomenal skills, but I’m willing to bet that I can’t be the only one who’s spent time watching him, watching his interviews and his public appearances.

Because Jimmy was a genuinely engaging guy, and not just because he was one of us, one of the fans.

It seems to me that he always had something interesting to say, whether on Celtic or on football itself. He had a wicked sense of humour and was always ready to laugh at himself as well as at others and at the world around him. He is a legend because he was down to earth. This wasn’t a “Billy Big Time” ex-footballer who looked down his nose at others; he was a well know fixture in certain Celtic bars and was giving of his time and attention, and his affection, for the supporters.

The little man’s moments of magic are too few to mention in a short article, but there are certain games who’s highlights leave an indelible mark on your memory. What a thrill it must have been to have watched such games in the flesh.

The twin demolitions of Leeds United, where none of their famous team could get near him, were headline making examples.

Johnstone so terrorised Terry Cooper, the famous England full back, in the first leg that people afterwards said he would have nightmares about Jinky for the rest of his life. Stein’s psychological boosting of the wee man in the run up to the game – telling every journalist who asked who Celtic’s biggest threat to Leeds was that it was “the dwarf” – proved telling. His performance still haunts the stalwarts of Elland Road to this day.

Writing about the first game, the Elland Road match, Albert Barham, in The Guardian, gushed that “Johnstone with his low centre of gravity was as elusive as a piece of wet soap in a shower bath.” That summed it up nicely.

In the aftermath of that match, the doubters in England had been silenced as to the quality of Celtic, but they were effusive about Jinky in particular.

When he was compared, by some, to George Best and it was suggested he’d have his pick of clubs south of the border he dismissed all that talk with a wave, and committed himself to wearing the Hoops far into the future.

“They can put all the valuations they like on me,” he told the hacks. “They can compare me with any player they like. I don’t care! I know people are saying I must be worth a quarter of a million pounds, but as far as I am concerned I am a Celtic player and I always will be a Celtic player.”

If Leeds thought they’d seen something in the first leg, Jinky was even more mesmeric in the second.

He single-handedly destroyed Leeds, taking their confidence first and then rubbing their faces in his, and Celtic’s utter superiority.

Cooper, still trying to recover from the first leg drubbing he received, famously got into it on the pitch with his own player, Norman Hunter, about how to handle the red-headed winger.

Tommy Gemmill recounts that, “It was so pointed a ‘doing’ wee Jimmy was giving them that we heard Norman Hunter, Leeds’ infamous hard man, shouting blatantly to Cooper to chop him down, and Cooper shouting back at him to come and try it himself if he wanted. He did. They swapped positions, and Jimmy just did the same to him and ran him ragged.”

The Daily Telegraph, doing the rest of the team a little injustice, was full of praise for Jinky; “They may have only one world-class individual player, Jimmy Johnstone, in what is essentially a team. But what an individual! What a team!”

Those memories could say it all, but even those great moments pale next to the night in Madrid when he upstaged De Stefano in his own testimonial to win the “Ole, Ole” chants of the home supporters in one of the finest footballing exhibitions you could ever want to see. His assist for Lennox’s goal that night is notable for the position he took the ball in; he was deep inside his own half, in the middle of the park, and he beat five of their players to thread the ball through.

The iconic image of him lifting the ball above his head at the end of the game is one that’s lodged in the mind forever.

These are my memories of him, those and the countless clips of him doing wonderful things with the ball, things few other footballers could do.

He played 515 times for our club, and apart from being a majestic entertainer he was also quite the goal scorer; he put the ball in the net 129 times, a ratio of about one goal every five matches, a return that a lot of strikers would have been pleased with.

His admirers were, and are, many across the world, and not just in football, who’s ranks lined up to honour him in the aftermath of his death.

When he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, Sarah Faberge, the heiress to the jewelery making dynasty, announced that they would commission a special series of their famous and much sought after eggs in his honour, 19 high end eggs were made, to celebrate the number of honours he won as a player. These sold out, at prices over £10,000.

Even those celebrities who watched him never forgot the experience; Michael Parkinson tapped Jim Craig’s father-in-law on the shoulder at Elland Road, during a testimonial match, and told him how lucky he was to watch the wee man every week; Rod Stewart talks about how he became a Celtic fan after meeting Jinky and Jock and even Hollywood actor Robert Duvall (who named his dog after Jinky!) was mesmerised by not only his enormous football talent but by his personality.

He tells a story of how he once spend a day with Jinky, and then at the end “I put him into a cab and said to the driver ‘Be careful, he’s second only to Jesus Christ here’. And the driver replied, ‘No, he’s in first place, Jesus is second’.”

Jinky himself would have laughed at such a comparison.

He was humble, and he never forgot that his first and most important job was to entertain the fans.

He loved us as much as we loved him.

“Without the fans, you are nothing,” he said, “and what I am most thankful of is that I got a chance to realise my talent at Celtic, because it is a special club, supported by special people.”

Those people remember him, and we always will.

Rest in Peace Jinky.

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