JIM Kennedy, who has died in his 70th year, was by no means unsuccessful as a professional footballer. He was, after all, ten years with Celtic at the top, but could have been excused had he wondered wryly what a minute adjustment in the timing of his career might have brought.
He came to Parkhead just as the great men of the 50s, the Collins's and the Tully's, were going, or about to go, and he left Parkhead just as the Lions were starting to gather.
Like several other Celtic players of his time, he would have benefited greatly from
a more hands-on manager. For all his virtues, Jimmy McGrory was a reactive manager, and tactics consisted of a mildly phrased exhortation to do one's best. Thus the Celtic side that Kennedy joined from Duntocher Hibs in the mid-1950s was strong in individual skills but weak in sustained cohesion. There can rarely have been so talented a side which was at the same time so unfitted for the winning of league championships.
Jim Kennedy had to work for his success. His strengths were not the attention-getting kind. Willingness to drive and to help out his team-mates was a necessary strength, however, for throughout his career he would be competing for a place with the rumbustious Sean Fallon and later
the swashbuckling Duncan MacKay. Six months after arriving at Parkhead he made a modest debut, and a losing one at that, as Celtic went under to Partick Thistle by 2-0 at Firhill, a result which encapsulated what was wrong with the club at the time.
That was the sole game of the season for him, and in the following season (1956-57) he had four first team outings. His first really big match was the semi-final of the Scottish Cup in 1960, when in the first game the Celtic defence was magnificent, and in the replay they were unbelievably poor. The gifted but erratic Frank Haffey displayed his first characteristic the first time round and his second in the replay.
Jim Kennedy was fated to be unlucky where the Scottish Cup was concerned. In the following year, 1961, he was part of the Celtic side which relentlessly bombarded the Dunfermline goal and drew miraculous saves from their goalkeeper, Eddie Conachan.
Celtic supporters reflected that matters would be put to rights in the Wednesday replay, but they arrived at Hampden to learn that appendicitis had lain Jim Kennedy low. After much deliberation, Willie O'Neill stepped in, although there were those who would have preferred the more experienced Bertie Peacock. Once again superlative goalkeeping at one end and indifferent goalkeeping at the other seemed to make it probable that Jim Kennedy would have nothing to show for his hard-working career. This seemed especially so when in an Old Firm cup final of 1963, Celtic's defence was magnificent in a 1-1 draw and abject in a 3-0 defeat in the replay. So, no medals, and the road to a cap seemed equally blocked by the consistent form of Eric Caldow of Rangers.
Yet in the autumn of his career he was capped by his country six times, the most important being against England and West Germany. The England match was a 1-0 win for the Scots at Hampden, and for those who might be tempted to write Jim Kennedy off as a diligent foot-soldier, have a look at the company he was keeping: Forsyth, Hamilton, Kennedy, Greig, McNeill, Baxter, Henderson, White, Gilzean, Law and Wilson. He was retained for a match with West Germany at Hanover which brought a very creditable 2-2 draw. Oddly enough, for one who had spent almost all of his career at left back, he reversed the usual order of things by spending his last season as a Celtic player in the left half position.
He was picked for the Scottish League four times and spent his last footballing days at Greenock Morton. He moved to Cappielow in 1965 and spent almost three years there. He once described himself to me as ''not very much of a Flash Harry''. Perhaps in this instance, and for once, the selectors' judgement was better and more far-seeing than it usually was.
James Kennedy, Celtic and Scotland full back; born 1934, died December 2, 2003.
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