JIMMY JONES
Glenavon, 1951-1962
“I am there to score goals.” That is how Jimmy Jones bluntly described his role. And such single-mindedness served the Northern Irishman pretty well: he hit 517 goals for Glenavon, winning three league titles and three cups. In 1956-57, the burly, square-shouldered striker netted 74 goals in all competitions.
These figures are all the more impressive given Jones nearly lost a leg at the start of his career, as the result of an attack following a derby clash between his first club, Belfast Celtic, and Linfield on December 27, 1948. Situated just half a mile from each other, the two rivals had different religious roots: Belfast Celtic were Catholic (though Jones was a Protestant) and Linfield proudly Protestant. In one of the most notorious 1-1 draws in football history, Jones broke an opponent’s ankle in an accidental collision. After the final whistle, 30 Linfield fans sought vengeance, throwing Jones around “like a rag doll” as one report described it, beating him and stamping on his legs. By the time he had been rescued, Jones was bloodied and barely conscious. His right leg was so mangled up that even after surgeons saved the limb, it was one and a half inches shorter than his left.
In the ensuing furore, Belfast Celtic’s directors folded the club. Only 20 years of age, Jones was left without a team and, seemingly, a career too. After embarking on a gruelling training routine, however, he recovered to play for Larne, then Fulham reserves – he would’ve made the first team but the Football League rejected his registration on a technicality – before returning to Northern Ireland to join Glenavon in 1951.
There was not too much finesse about Jones’ game. Glenavon’s chairman Adrian Teer recalled: “When you saw Jimmy on the pitch, you wondered, ‘What can this guy do?’ But he could score with both feet and he was a great header of the ball.” Jones soon formed a lethal strike partnership with Jackie Denver, an old friend and former Belfast Celtic team-mate. For several years, the strikers’ Sunday evening ritual was to walk from Lurgan to a nearby village and back again, reminiscing about the old days. Northern Irish sports journalist Malcolm Brodie said that, “they went together like Scotch and water, milk and honey. They were the perfect blend.”
Almost perfect. Jones had one trait that vexed the Glenavon boss Jimmy Mcalinden – he was a talented motorcyclist and often competed in the Ulster Grand Prix. When the two seasons clashed, Mcalinden was tormented by the thought that his star striker might get hurt in a crash. Indeed, Jones did once break his collarbone. Yet he refused to hang up his boots until 1965, at Newry, when he was 37 years old.
Although he scored 646 goals in his career, it seems legitimate to ask what Jones might have accomplished but for the vicious attack in 1948. Did Northern Ireland’s selectors somehow blame him? He picked up just three caps, but proved that he could have played at a higher level during a 5-3 victory against a Football League XI at Anfield in 1954, when he scored two past a defence being marshalled by England centre-half Billy Wright.