TRIBUTES & OBITUARIES
Scotsman:
Jimmy Dunn, Former professional footballer
Published on Friday 11 February 2005 00:30
Born: 23 October, 1922, in Rutherglen, Glasgow.
Died: 7 February, 2005, in Leeds, aged 82.
There are natural laws governing the universe and the game of football. As to the former,
for example, the world turns in an easily calculable manner. In the case of the latter,
it is a canon that any winger attempting to take the ball beyond Jimmy Dunn found himself
bounced off the stand. This was as precise and inevitable as the Earth’s relationship to
its axis.
One of the greatest players never to be capped for Scotland, the bandy-legged,
hard-as-nails Glesca "keelie" became a Leeds United legend during the heyday of the late
1950s.
Jimmy was an uncompromising defender who scored only one goal in 443 appearances. But
his greatest strength was his ability to prevent opponents putting the ball in the net.
Some of the finest forwards of his era have said that jinking past Jimmy was no great
problem; the trick was to get away, and stay away.
A master of the (crunching) sliding tackle - in the days before players were overly
protected - Jimmy had the gift of depositing ball and player alike into the crowd.
It was hardly surprising. Jimmy, a Glasgow man, had a head start on toughness, which was
honed to a fine degree by service during the Second World War in the Royal Marines, a
band of brothers who knew a thing or two about inflicting injuries.
It was that physical hardness, allied to consistency, that guaranteed his name appeared
on the team sheet week in, week out, for five seasons, during which he missed just one
league game.
And it is a measure of his stature that even today - 45 years after he retired from
professional football - his name regularly appears in the "greatest ever" team lists
compiled by fans of the Yorkshire club.
Jimmy was born in Rutherglen and was a pupil at St Columbcille’s school.
At the age of 24, he joined the local junior team, Rutherglen Glencairn and soon came
to the attention of several clubs, which began a scramble for his signature.
A promise of the princely weekly wage of 7 persuaded Jimmy that his future lay in
Yorkshire with Leeds United, then a sleeping giant in the old second division, with
aspirations to be in the top flight.
Jimmy once recalled: "Rutherglen got 200 for my transfer. I got 40 and the promise of
100 more if I became a first team regular."
It was not long before Jimmy earned his ton. His name soon became the first on the
sheet as he became ever present in the team.
His contribution during the promotion-chasing season of 1955-56 was vital. While his
team scored goals for fun through the legendary John Charles, Jimmy’s ability to
prevent them at the other end was crucial.
When Leeds won eight of the season’s final nine games, including a thumping 4-1 success
at Hull City on the final day, promotion to the old first division was assured.
The player became as big an influence on the team in the first division as he had been
in the second, but one of his greatest regrets was that he never received international
honours. Those who know the game recognise this grave injustice.
However, being "exiled" in England did win him a wife. He met and married Audrey and
the couple had four children, Janice, Michael, Paul and John. The family lived a stone’s
throw from the Leeds ground at Elland Road, where, until recently, Jimmy was a regular
visitor, often to be seen in the stand with his old mate John Charles. Jimmy left Leeds
in 1959 - when he was earning 20 a week - to join Darlington, but a knee injury ended
his career soon after.
It was an era before football players earned the big bucks of today and Jimmy had to
take a day job. He worked as a driver’s mate with the Post Office until his retirement
in 1987.
His niece, Pat Morrow, described him as "very unassuming", and said: "He was a real
gentleman, who loved coming back to Rutherglen."
A spokesman for Leeds United added: "We were saddened to hear of Jimmy’s death. He was
a true legend at the club and is regularly included in fans’ greatest Leeds team."
Andrew Mourant: Independent
Jimmy Dunn, a swift, hard-tackling right full-back of the old school, is widely considered
the finest in his position never to have played for his country. Right-backs for Scotland
came and went during the 1950s without Dunn, who monopolised the position for his club,
Leeds United, ever being called up.
James Dunn, footballer, milkman and postal worker: born Rutherglen, Lanarkshire 23 October
1922; played for Leeds 1947-59, Darlington 1959-60, Scarborough 1960; married 1951 Audrey
Price (three sons, one daughter); died Leeds 7 February 2005.
Jimmy Dunn, a swift, hard-tackling right full-back of the old school, is widely considered
the finest in his position never to have played for his country. Right-backs for Scotland
came and went during the 1950s without Dunn, who monopolised the position for his club,
Leeds United, ever being called up.
It mystified his team-mates, a close-knit group of players living cheek by jowl in the
shadow of Elland Road. Few wingers got the better of Dunn, whatever their trickery. They
might pass him momentarily, but Dunn's pace made him almost impossible to shake off. He
tackled with a gusto that in modern times would incur many a card.
Dunn played in a no-frills game in a workaday team dominated, yet never knocked out of
equilibrium, by its one colossal talent, John Charles. Dunn and Charles had a friendship
that endured until the latter's death last year. Charles described Dunn as "one of the
best full-backs I ever played with . . . at tackling and covering he was unbelievable.
Very fit, strong and hard."
During the Second World War Dunn had served in the Royal Marines - although he could not
swim and never left British shores - and he joined Leeds United aged 24, in June 1947,
spotted by a club scout while he was playing for his local junior team, Rutherglen
Glencairn. He made his début, the first of 443 league and cup games, in a 0-0 draw
against Cardiff City in November that year. In 1948-49, aged 25, he took possession of
the right-back slot for 10 seasons and became an icon of durability.
Dunn had joined an unfashionable club without a major honour to its name perennially
lurching between the top two divisions. Leeds, relegated in disarray in 1947, came
perilously close to a second demotion the following year. With the help of Dunn and
other emerging talents, the rot was stopped and the club came under the firm, if
eccentric, management of Major Frank Buckley.
Under Buckley and his successor Raich Carter, who took over in 1953, Dunn proved
indispensable. Other solid professionals emerged around him; Grenville Hair at
left-back and Eric Kerfoot, a constructive ball-playing right-half who later became
captain. The team made it back to the top flight as Division Two runners-up in
1955-56.
The team had its one genius in Charles, supreme either at centre-forward or
centre-half, and then, in Dunn's words, "a lot of quite good players who didn't
always fire together". As for Dunn himself, Charles detected the one weakness, a
limited ability in passing the ball, that may have dissuaded the Scotland selectors.
After the west stand at Elland Road caught fire in September 1956, the revival in
Leeds United's fortunes faltered. The structure had been under- insured and forced
the sale of Charles to Juventus to fund its replacement. The brief reign in 1959 of
Bill Lambton, Carter's successor, was an unhappy one, provoking a players'
rebellion in which Kerfoot and Dunn were to the fore. Both players left, Dunn going
to Darlington and then Scarborough. In the twilight of his career, he succumbed to
a knee injury. His fitness and good fortune had finally run out.
Dunn's first job after retiring from football was as a milkman. His round covered
a tough estate in south Leeds and he was reluctant to collect cash from families
he thought too poor to pay up. Instead, he took a manual job with the drinks
manufacturer Schweppes before joining the Post Office, where he was a sorter
until his retirement.
Dunn's dry humour, good nature and generous spirit were widely appreciated. A
regular at Leeds home games, he was never heard to criticise another player.
Fondly remembered for his innocence, Dunn belonged to an era when earnings were
suppressed by the maximum wage; one in which he derived pleasure from Friday
nights at the cinema and a shared packet of wine gums.
Rutherglen Reformer
A RUTHERGLEN footballer has been named as one of the best players in the history of
Leeds United.
Full back Jimmy Dunn was on a shortlist of eight players to fill the right back
berth in their all time 11.
And although he lost out to Paul Reaney, the fact he was listed by a Yorkshire newspaper
shows the high esteem the Elland Road side hold him in.
And it was no disgrace to lose out to Reaney, a player that even George Best struggled
to get past.
Only Gary Kelly, a recent Leeds hero, and Mel Sterland, who was full-back the last time
they won the English title in 1992, also finished above him. Jimmy beat the likes of
Trevor Cherry and World Cup star, Danny Mills in the fan poll.
Jimmy, who died in 2005 at the age of 83, actually started his rise to professional
footballer relatively late in life, at Glencairn having previously served in the Royal
Marines during the Second World War, where he also started in the Services Cup Final.
A former pupil at St Columbkille’s, Jimmy signed up at Southcroft in 1946 but quickly
attracted the attention of senior clubs.
He looked set for a move north to Arbroath before Leeds stepped in to secure his signature
for the princely sum of £7 a week.
He went on to make the right-back berth his own over the next decade, playing in 443 games,
15th on Leeds all time list, and going for three consecutive seasons between 1954 and 1957
without missing a game.
Incredibly, despite that record, Jimmy only ever scored one goal, against Blackburn in 1950.
He was an integral part of the Leeds side who gained promotion to the first division in the
1955/56 season but he was never called up for Scotland, a fact that bemused many of his
teammates as well as the Leeds support.
Among his teammates was the great John Charles, who described Jimmy as “one of the best
full-backs I ever played with, adding: “at tackling and covering he was unbelievable. Very
fit, strong and hard.”
After leaving Elland Road, Jimmy turned out for Darlington and Scarborough before retiring
due to injury and working as a milkman and then with the Post Office.
He continued to attend Leeds games and settled in Yorkshire, but often returned to
Rutherglen to visit family.
