On the day French striker Marc-Antoine Fortune (finally) signs at Celtic, Inside Left takes a look at another Celtic striker from days gone by – the great Jimmy McGrory.
In the days when football was considerably more physical than it is today, it’s almost impossible to believe that a player who stood only 5ft 6in could be not only his clubs greatest ever goal scorer, but also – to this day – Britain’s top goal scorer of all time. Yet Jimmy McGrory, who scored 550 goals (171 more than England’s top scorer Dixie Dean) for Celtic in a career spanning some 15 years set standards in loyalty and commitment to clubs so sadly missing from the modern game.
James Edward McGrory was born in 1904 in Glasgow, the son of Irish immigrants from Donegal and began his football career in 1921 with St. Roch’s Juniors. In 1922 he joined Celtic but a largely undistinguished first season saw him loaned out to Clydebank (where he scored 13 times, including the winner in last game for Clydebank against Celtic). It was on his return to Parkhead that his phenomenal goal scoring record started with a goal against Falkirk, a goal he scored on the afternoon of his fathers funeral. In the two seasons which followed, McGrory scored 84 goals to help his side win the 1925 Scottish Cup as well as the League in 1926. He scored 21 goals in eight games in December 1927 including eight in a 9-1 victory against a hapless Dunfermline. A tireless player, in one game, the 1931 Scottish Cup Final against Motherwell with Celtic 2-0 down, McGrory scored from a sitting position, then put so much pressure on the Motherwell defence that he forced Alan Craig, the Motherwell center-half to put the ball through is own net to level the scores – Celtic won the replay 4-2, with McGrory netting twice.
With “shoulders like a young Clydesdale and a neck like an Aberdeen Angus”, McGrory was a prolific header of the ball. Almost a third of his goals came from headers, something he did with some style. Journalist Hughie Taylor described a McGrory header as hovering “hawk-like, then twist that powerful neck, and flick the ball as fiercely as most players could kick it”. Equally comfortable with his right as well as his left foot, McGrory was a courageous – or “committed” to use the language of the day – player, regularly suffering broken noses, and in one match even breaking his jaw after getting kicked in the face.
McGrory loved Celtic and was loyal to the club in ways that seem almost unheard of these days. In 1928, Arsenal offered Celtic £10,000 (approximately £450,000 in today’s money) for McGrory. Although he was earning £8 a week (the maximum wage then) McGrory turned down the move, despite being able to make considerably more playing for the London club. In his short playing career – and despite his prolific scoring record – McGrory made only 7 appearances in the dark blue of Scotland (and also scoring an average of a goal per game), kept out of the national side by another legendary center-forward of the game, Hughie Gallacher.
He remained with Celtic for another 9 years before being allowed to leave by Celtic to become manager of Kilmarnock in 1937, on the proviso that he retired from playing. In 1945 he returned to Celtic as manager, where he would stay for 20 years before being replaced by Jock Stein. In his time as manager, McGrory won the League in 1954, the 1951 and 1954 Scottish Cups and the 1957 and 1958 League Cups. He remained with the club as public relations officer until his death in 1982.
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