Obituary: Jimmy Collins, footballer

Died: July, 24th 2018

JIMMY Collins, who has died, aged 80, was one of that legion of relatively-unsung Scottish players who were the backbone of the English game in the days before it became the money-obsessed business it now is. He was also one of the most-unlucky in terms of those wee breaks which make or mar a career.

Like many of his contemporaries, football was his escape. To Jimmy and his schoolmates at Catrine Junior Secondary School, there were two main career paths, into the local cotton mill, or, down the pits. Leaving school, Jimmy took a third course, as an apprentice bricklayer.

At the same time, he was making waves as a promising inside forward, starring in the Lugar Boswell Thistle team which reached the Scottish Junior Cup final in 1956.

Collins was capped by Junior Scotland, and was being courted by several senior sides, one of which was Tottenham Hotspur. Years later he admitted: “I wasn’t sure about going to London, until, one rainy day, while working on the new Onthank scheme in Kilmarnock, I sat in the hut and out of the window, through driving rain, I watched the wall I had built that morning be blown down by the high winds. That’s when I decided to give full-time football a go.”

He negotiated with Spurs boss Bill Nicholson to sign as a part-timer until he had completed his apprenticeship, working for a Spurs’ director’s building firm and playing in Tottenham’s third team. He played so-well, he was soon in the seconds, but, on completion of his apprenticeship, he had to go off and do his National Service in the RAF, and returned to find he was back in the third team.

Again he battled back into the reserves, occasionally captaining the side when regular skipper Tony Marchi was on first-team duty. Unfortunately, while he had been away, Tottenham had signed another Scot, who played in the same inside right position as Jimmy – and he had to play second fiddle to this man, the great John White.

He only managed two first-team games for Spurs, and, when offered a move to Brighton and regular first-team football, he agreed. The Seagulls paid £9000 to take him to Sussex, where he made the first of 221 appearances for the club, against Carlisle United – whose team included his former colleague with Lugar and Junior Scotland, Hugh Neil.

Not long afterwards, the wonderful White was tragically killed by a lightning strike. “I sometimes asked myself – what if?” Collins said years later. “But, you cannot allow yourself to think like that, I was a Brighton player by the time we lost John.”

And a good one too. He could not prevent the club from being relegated to the Fourth Division, but, he had so-impressed, he was made captain and his 17 goals from midfield had a lot to do with the Seagulls’ subsequent promotion in 1964-5.

He later reverted to part-time status, with spells at non league Wimbledon, Stevenage, Southwick, Shoreham and Saltdean United. He also rose to a management position with the building firm he joined, and, aged 56, he was still playing in the local pub league in Shoreham-on-Sea, where he lived with wife Wendy, who survives him with their children, Jimmy Jnr., and Jodi.

Matt Vallance