Happy Birthday..............

................. to Jinky Jim Smith 65 today!


My (all time) favourite player when I was at school way back when!

 

Who?

More importantly though , it's my birthday in 10 days. Hope I don't have to remind everyone then.

 

Who? You phillestine!!

 

Didn't he manage Derby County about 15 years ago?

 

That was "The Bald Eagle" Jim Smith!

 

Unbelievable that a Newcastle fan would not know who the great "Jinky" is.

 

Well said that man!

 

Can't blame the younger generation for not knowing who he is , mate.

 

Aye, and in 30 years time when you're waxing lyrical about Shola Ameobi you'll be gutted when the younger generation ask WHO?

 

You're joking of course, Shola will still be playing for us in 30 years time.

 

He managed us didn't he?

 

Different Jim Smith.

 

Ah, well I dunno who this one is I'm afraid

 

I didn't see any threads marking the birthday of Billy Day back in December! I bet none of us can remember him as a player, thoroughly nice bloke though.

 

He joined Newcastle from Aberdeen in July 1969 for a fee of £80,000. He became a popular player amongst the club's supporters, with his mazy runs and flair that enthralled the St James' Park crowd. He also won four caps for Scotland.

Smith experienced a series of knee problems and was sent out on loan to Celtic in the hope it would recover him from the injury problems and allow him to regain form. He failed to do this, however, and was forced to retire at the age of 29.
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I've mentioned him before on here, he used to drink with Fat Fred who used him to attract birds for him that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to get.

A good player and a nice guy but not the brightest crayon in the box off the field. He was often seen in town walking around eating plums from brown paper bags between closing time and opening time when the pubs closed at 3:00 pm.

 

Can remember Jinky coming on as sub once against Carlisle when Carlisle had made the First Division. From memory we were losing 1-0 and his warm up consisted of leaning with his arm on the top of the concrete dug out. Crowd went wild as usual when he came on and the Carlisle fans I was chatting too couldn't understand why. Not long later up pops Jinky with a defence splitting pass resulting in the equaliser. Job done..typical Jinky.

 

I remember him getting sent off after about 45 seconds against Birmingham for breaking Tony Want's leg with an absolute shocker of a tackle, you could hear the leg snap in the Leazes End. He was actually a brilliant footballer when he could be arsed unfortunately the ale seemed to be his greatest passion.

 

Yep, remember this incident too. If my memory serves me right this was a night game in the League Cup and the next few games with Birmingham were quite "tasty".