Jimmy Maloney – Trusted Secretary for Willie Maley

Saturday the 12th of September Celtic v Queens Park, exactly a week to the day since the death of Celtic young Goalkeeper John Thomson. The flags were at half mast as the Celtic team wearing black armbands come out slowly from the Pavilion. As Celtic captain Jimmy McStay steps on to the trackside clutching the ball there stands a forlorn figure deep in his thoughts.
Who is this Man? The Man in the Suit?, that is a question that has been asked many a time by folk who take a great interest in Celtic and their history, but, up until now that question has always remained unanswered.

Jimmy Maloney's children Sheila and Jim with the Glasgow Charity Cup at Celtic Park a few years later.

It certainly has the right title "Behind the Scenes" as it gives you a in depth description of the layout of Celtic Park, from the minute the "Wanderer" steps his foot into Paradise he is greeted by Willie Maley's trusted Lieutenant Jimmy Maloney. A man until very recently we knew absolutely nothing about. The first time I had ever seen the name J.Maloney it was inscribed on the reverse of a football medal, a medal that was presented to him by none other than the flawed genius that was Celtic centre-forward Tommy McInally.

Once I had seen the words presented to J.Maloney from T.McInally engraved on the back I thought this must be someone important for him to be given a gold winners medal by a Celtic player, I knew I just had to find out who he was? which was never going to be an easy task and it wasn't. A number of years later after some searching I came across a reference which stated Celtic manager Willie Maley had a secretary by the name of J.Maloney, my first thought was "I wonder if her first initial stood for Jean or Janette"? then it clicked she's no a woman he's a man and the very man I had been looking for all them years ago.

As someone who takes a great interest in medals, especially Celtic I was looking for a medal that was presented to Celtic commemorating a match for the Belgian Relief Fund in 1916 and came across an article in the Celtic View (see above), sadly it did not show the actual medal but right there in front of me was a story about a lady coming over from America to present Celtic with a medal, a medal that her father was given by Willie Maley and her father was none other than Jimmy Maloney. When I seen Tom Grant was in the photograph I knew it wasn't taken yesterday and my chances of tracing Jimmy's daughter Bunty in Boston would have been long gone by now.(but the plot thickens)

Fast forward a few years and I am going through my daily read on twitter and I happen to see a reply to someone's tweet saying something like, "I also have a copy of the Willie Maley book that belonged to my Grandfather who worked as Secretary to Willie Maley". I know going through tweets can be tedious at times but this was Manna from heaven to me and I immediately contacted and followed Graeme who posted the tweet, I wasn't for letting this one slip away, I just had to find out more from him about his Grandad.

Not one for missing a trick I passed on my mobile number to Graeme and my email address asking if he had any photographs of Jimmy?, it would be a great help to me identify him if he turned up in any other images I may have, I also asked him if it was ok if I posted any photographs he was planning to send me on to the Celtic Wiki. Graeme was very helpful and keen to help me but did say that his mother Sheila was the only surviving child of Jimmy Maloney and Bunty who features in the image above was no longer with us and sadly passed away a number of years ago. I asked Graeme a bit about his mother and he tells me she is 89 and living a fine life over in the Isle of Bute, Graeme tells me in recent years he drove his mother over to see Celtic Park and when she looked through the big gates, the tears welled from her eyes saying "it brings back so many fond memories". Luckily a groundsman saw this, came over and took them both into the ground.

Thinking back to the article Jimmy's daughter Bunty did with the Celtic View, I had to ask Graeme about the rest of the families connection with Celtic? Graeme tells me that his mother Sheila had a brother Jim (both in the photos above) and there was Betty who was a twin sister to Bunty. At the moment he does not have any information to hand about all the family working at Celtic Park, but, he tells me he himself is working on it.

About the newspaper article below which I think is fantastic, I asked Graeme if he knows anything about a Birthday book?, he says there was word in the family of an autograph book belonging to his Grandad and I could not contain myself and had to point out that the Celtic birthday book and the autograph book might be one and the same, but that was really wishful thinking in my part. I will need to ask Celtic if they know anything about the whereabouts of this birthday book, what an addition that would be to our new State of the Arts Museum when its up and running.

TBC …