Jim was my best ever manager, says hero Joe
JOE Gallagher has expressed his devastation at the loss of Jim Smith, the Birmingham City manager he considers the best he ever worked under.
Gallagher, who made 335 appearances for Blues between 1970 and 1981, said he was ‘devastated’ to hear the sad news of Smith’s death at the age of 79.
After a long playing career, Smith made his mark as a manager including leading Blues into the First Division, taking Oxford United into the top flight and steering Derby County into the Premier League.
Former Blues captain Gallagher had just returned to fitness from a broken leg when Smith, fondly known as the Bald Eagle, succeeded Sir Alf Ramsey at St Andrew’s in March 1978.
“I played under about eight managers and Jim Smith was without doubt the best I ever worked under. Jim Smith was fantastic,” said.
“He wasn’t only a fantastic manager, managing the players, the training and the coaching and so on but as a man too, as a person he was lovely. He was really, really good.
“I was just knocked sideways with the news. He was so close to me, he helped me, he helped everybody, I am talking about your Trevor Francis, your Kenny Burns, your Howard Kendall. He was a player’s dream.”
And sometimes a player’s nightmare. In fact Gallagher recalls how after just a few days at Blues the Bald Eagle launched into his new charges for conceding a sloppy goal in his first match.
“On the day Jim Smith took over we were playing the next day at Newcastle,” said Gallagher. “We went down to St Andrew’s and trained on the pitch – only a short session – before we jumped on the coach to go up to St James’ Park.
“We went up there, an evening game and in those days to win at Newcastle United was a fantastic result – just to get a draw up there would have been enough for most teams.
“We were winning 1-0, it was getting pretty close to the end of the game and one of our players tried to dribble the ball out of the box.
“You are at Newcastle, you are winning 1-0 in the last few minutes, you want to just boot it away.
“But we lost the ball and Newcastle scored for 1-1 when apart from that mistake we should have won.
“This is Jim’s first game, remember. We have come into the dressing room, all the benches were around the side and a physio’s table in the middle of the room.
“On top of it were lots of cups of tea. He came into the dressing room, put his hand on one end of the table and swiped right across the table top and everything has smashed up against the lockers and walls
“He screamed and shouted at us, told us effing this and b-ing that, a terrible, terrible result, we could have won that game. We were petrified, we sat there shaking, we were terrified of him. I have never seen a man so angry in my life – apart from Jim Smith again as the seasons rolled by. He was a furious, furious man when the team got beat.
“But I still loved him, he was a great man, very fair, very happy, very jolly. There was never a quiet time around the dressing room. He would encourage, help people and help the young players.”
Smith started as a trainee at Sheffield United before going on to play for Aldershot, Halifax and Lincoln.
He took up his first coaching post as player-manager of Boston in 1969 before moving on to Colchester and then Blackburn in 1975.
After three years at Ewood Park, Smith was appointed as manager of Birmingham, whom he helped to promotion from the Second Division.
He moved to Oxford and guided them to the Third and Second Division titles before being sacked by the owner, Robert Maxwell, taking over at QPR and leading them to defeat in the League Cup final against his former club in 1986.
Smith went on to manage Newcastle, Portsmouth and also served as the LMA’s chief executive before returning to management and leading Derby to the Premier League.
LMA chairman Howard Wilkinson paid tribute to Smith, saying: “Jim and I have known each other since our teenage years, and I have been in his debt since the day he asked me to become player-coach at Boston United where I served my apprenticeship. I have so many fond memories of Jim as a football manager but foremost as a friend.
“He was intelligent, passionate, determined, honest and always great fun to be with. Never one to mince his words, he was a leader in the truest sense. He was liked and admired by everyone around him, truly an authentic, down-to-earth gentleman.”