Jimmy Johnstone

Jimmy Johnstone

Johnstone in Amsterdam in 1971
Personal information
Full name	James Connolly Johnstone
Date of birth	(1944-09-30)30 September 1944
Place of birth	Viewpark, Scotland
Date of death	13 March 2006(2006-03-13) (aged 61)
Place of death	Uddingston, Scotland
Height	1.57 m (5 ft 2 in)
Playing position	Outside right
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1961–1975	Celtic	515	(129)
1975	San Jose Earthquakes	10	(0)
1975–1977	Sheffield United	11	(2)
1977	Dundee	3	(0)
1977–1978	Shelbourne	9	(0)
1978–1979	Elgin City	18	(2)
National team
1964	Scotland Under 23	2	(0)
1964–1974	Scotland	23	(4)
1964–1970	Scottish League XI	4	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

James Connolly "Jimmy" Johnstone (30 September 1944 – 13 March 2006), nicknamed "Jinky", was a Scottish football player. Johnstone was best known for his time with Celtic, and was voted their best ever player by the club's fans in 2002. He scored 129 goals for Celtic in 515 appearances.

Johnstone was the youngest of five children born to Matthew and Sarah Johnstone. He grew up in the family home on Old Edinburgh Road in Viewpark, North Lanarkshire, and he was educated at St Columba's primary school in Viewpark and then at St John's secondary school in Uddingston. In 2003, Johnstone stated that he was a Catholic.

His footballing ability first came to note at primary school, playing for the St Columba's team that won three trophies between 1953–54. The team at his secondary school, St John's, were less able but their Physical Education teacher, Tommy Cassidy, was a friend of Sammy Wilson who played for Celtic at the time and had scored in Celtic's 7–1 win over Rangers in the 1957 Scottish League Cup Final. Cassidy used his connections to get Johnstone a role as a ball boy at Celtic.

At home, he used to dribble around milk bottles every day in the hallway for hours to perfect his dribbling skills. On reading that Stanley Matthews used to walk to Blackpool's ground wearing heavy boots to strengthen his leg muscles, Johnstone began wearing pit boots and would sprint and play football in them. He later said that this "probably added about three yards on to my pace."

Despite the thrill of being involved with Celtic as a ball boy, Johnstone wanted to play football. As a result, he left Celtic to play for his local Boys Guild team. As well as playing locally, the team travelled down to play Manchester United's boys team. Johnstone's ability caught the eye of the English giants, but upon his return to Scotland, Celtic scout John Higgins persuaded him to sign for Celtic. In order to gain experience, he was farmed out for a spell to junior club Blantyre Celtic.