Celtic have unveiled a statute to Jimmy Johnstone outside Celtic Park. 'Jinky' was a legendary winger who graced Scottish football in the 1960s and 70s. As a Hearts supporter growing up during that period my formative years were spent following a team that was heading downhill fast, a side far removed from the glorious team of the 1950s. And some opposition players would simply tear a distinctly average Hearts team to shreds. Jinky was one of them.
The wee man was a member of Celtic's Lisbon Lions side, which became the first British club to win the European Cup in 1967. On his day he was quite simply brilliant - one of the best players in the world. I saw him several times at Tynecastle and at Pittodrie when I lived in Aberdeen. I remember him single-handedly destroying the Aberdeen defence in the early 1970s - his performance that day was one of the best I've ever seen from a Scottish footballer.
The other performance that sticks out is when Johnstone played for Scotland against England at Hampden in 1974. The wee man had been involved in the 'infamous' rowing boat incident at Largs a couple of days previously (when he had to be rescued in the middle of the night!) but he gave the performance of his international career that afternoon as Scotland won 2-0.
I've seen some famous players over the years including the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Kevin Keegan, Ronaldinho, John Robertson, Gordon Strachan. To me there was no finer player than Jinky Johnstone, who died at the tragically early age of 61 after a long battle with motor neurone disease.
2 comments:
Very sad. I remember watching Celtic demolish East Fife 6-0 during those days in front of a crowd of about 200. They were quite a team in the late 60s and East Fife were and likely always will be crap.
Vale Jinky Johnstone.
Jinky was scared of flying. Playing Red Star Belgrade at home Stein told him, "If we win by three clear goals, you don't have to go." Johnstone scored FOUR in a 5-1 win!
He tore them apart!
However, Red Star insisted he came as there would have been no crowd for the second game otherwise! He went by train!
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