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Details
Title: Jinky, the Biography of Jimmy Johnstone
Author: Jim Black
Published: 2008
Player Homepage: Jimmy Johnstone
Synopsis
The son of a coal miner, Jimmy Johnstone was born in 1944 in Lanarkshire. Signed by Celtic in 1963, his dazzling dribbling skills earned him the nickname Jinky. He made 515 appearances for Celtic, scoring 129 goals in the process, won 23 caps for Scotland and in 2002 was voted Celtic’s greatest ever player by the club’s supporters. His ability to outwit defenders, particularly English ones, endeared him to football followers everywhere – even Rangers fans – and he was a vital part of the team that won nine consecutive Scottish league titles between 1965 and 1974.
But the undisputed highlight of his career came in Portugal on 25th May 1967 when the team that became known as the Lisbon Lions came from a goal behind to defeat Inter-Milan 2-1 to become the first British club to win the European Cup. Jinky was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2001, after which he became a tireless campaigner for stem cell research to find a cure for the disease. He died in March 2006.
Review
The post-football fate of Jimmy Johnstone is one of the best arguments that can be mustered in favour of the super-inflated salaries of today’s footballers. He was voted the greatest ever Celtic player in 2002, yet for the previous two decades, after finishing with football as a player, he had found himself skint and, as outlined here, spent that period meandering unsatisfyingly through various menial jobs. These included three years as a manual labourer and, irony of ironies, a spell as a satellite-dish salesman, purveying the very piece of equipment that has made today’s players rich beyond Jimmy’s wildest dreams.
It was tragic to see Jimmy ravaged physically by motor neurone disease in the final five years of a life characterised by his being a ball of perpetual motion on and off the football field. His death in 2006, aged only 61, concluded the story of “the Scottish George Best” as Giacinto Facchetti, the great Internazionale defender, described him, but in his final years Jimmy was indifferent to the idea of relating that enormously eventful life story in an autobiography. It is with some apprehension, then, that one opens the pages of this biography, rushed out just a year after his passing.
Puzzlingly, no members of Jimmy Johnstone’s family appear to have been interviewed – surely vital for a book such as this? The author presents a picture of an often maddening, seriously troubled, shy individual, but inside information from those who knew him best might have clarified aspects of Jimmy’s character and motivations quite properly hidden from the public during his lifetime. There is no sustained attempt to delve deeply into his personality, which was surely related closely to his individualistic style as a player. Instead, we get this bland explanation for a complex, brooding, often explosive personality: “Perhaps it had something to do with being a redhead, for most associate red hair with a quick temper.”
Often, Jimmy is threaded into the tale only here and there and frequently he is absent from his own story altogether, when you might expect him to be entirely to the fore in his own biography. Too frequently, non-sequiturs and irrelevancies jostle dully for attention and hoary old facts, trotted out to fill up the pages, trip up and waylay the flow of the story.
There are occasional enlivening mom-ents, such as a suggestion that Johnstone’s international career was stunted by him plundering a couple of bottles of champagne from the room of Tommy Docherty, then Scotland manager; and, perhaps worse in Docherty’s eyes, replacing them, when caught, with a greatly inferior brand.
The conclusion of the story, with the details of a five-year battle against motor neurone disease, is genuinely moving; painful to read, too. Overall, though, readers are likely to experience a familiar feeling to that experienced by inferior opponents when confronted by Johnstone in his heyday; just as you seem to be getting close to getting to grips with Jinky, he slips frustratingly away.
Graham McColl from When Saturday Comes
Product Details
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Sphere (6 Mar 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 184744198X
ISBN-13: 978-1847441980
Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 14.6 x 2 cm
Links
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Other Reivews
Jinky, born James Connolly Johnstone, was a dynamic winger that played for the Celtic side that won nine Scottish championships in a row between 1966 and 1974. He was also one of the famed Lisbon Lions, the Celtic side that became the first British side to lift the European Cup (now Champions League) in 1967.
Known as the ‘Wee Man’ (he stood just 5ft4in tall) to his manager and teammates, Johnstone was nicknamed Jinky by the fans because of his jinking movements down the wing that left defenders so bamboozled that he would often go back and beat them a second time purely for his own enjoyment.
Many rate Jinky as one of the top players ever and he is a testament to hard work. As a young lad, he was never without a ball at his feet and often invented litle games and drills to improve his skills. Assist statistics were not accurately kept during that era but in his 515 appearances for Celtic, Jinky scored 130 goals. It’s not hard to imagine him having twice as many assists.
Despite all of his talent, Johnstone only appeared 23 times in a Scotland shirt, scoring 4 goals. Largely it was due to his lack of discipline off the field, which the book touches on briefly.
After he was given a free transfer by Celtic at the end of the 1974-75 season he bounced around from club to club, never staying very long in any one place. He spent time with the San Jose Earthquakes of the NASL, Sheffield United, Dundee, Sbelbourne and Elgin City before calling it a day. His heart was always at Celtic Park and he was never quite the same player after leaving.
Life after football was difficult for Johnstone and this is where the book began to give us some insight into his life and friendships. However, while the book’s back cover promises that this is the definitive account of Jimmy Johnstone’s life, it falls short of delivering on that promise. This does not mean that the book is poor — it is still an entertaining, quick-paced read.
In reviewing the notes I made while reading the book, I often noted that there were large sections that seemed to be no more than re-hashing of match summaries with little personal detail. Frequently opportunities to delve into interesting and potentially telling personal situations are bypassed.
We’re given a run through almost game by game of Jinky’s amazing career but until the final chapters of the book and Jinky’s struggles after his playing career ends and his battle with motor neurone disease (commonly referred to in North America as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Beyond these surface details, we get to know very little about the man, his family or his life outside the arena. There are only a few quotes from teammates and no quotes from family members. We don’t really learn why Jimmy drank so heavily, we’re not shown details of his disputes with legendary Celtic manager Jock Stein and there is no real indication of what his home life was like. His wife and children are distant, peripheral figures.
The really interesting bits are glossed over and I am going to assume that this is due to a lack of quality information available and not a lack of research. This is the only book on Celtic that I’ve read so I am in no position to judge accurately.
The book does give an outline of his life after football and it was a sad downfall. Not having been paid princely sums like today’s stars and not having been wise with his money, Johnstone found himself broke.
He attempted to sell off his winner’s medals to feed his alcohol problem and he spent years failing at a variety of blue-collar jobs. One particular stint as a satellite-dish salesman sticks out as bitterly ironic. Here’s poor Jinky hoping to make a few bucks off of the same piece of equipment that hepled today’s top-paid footballers earn more in a week than Jimmy ever earned in a year.
Jinky was voted Celtic’s greatest ever player by the fans in 2002. Sadly, in 2006, Johnstone succumbed to ravages of motor neurone disease. The club paid tribute to Johnstone before the Scottish League Cup Final by wearing the number 7 on both the front and back of their shirts in his honour. At the end of the match, Celtic’s team wore shirts with the squad name “Jinky” and the number 7 as a further tribute
Despite the lack of personal detail that I wanted, the book was entertaining and provided some insight into a player and an era that I am not well-versed in. However, as a biography of Jimmy Johnston, it left me wanting to know a whole lot more.
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