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All Goalies Great and Small

Many tributes and obituaries have been published over the recent death of former Scotland, Dunfermline Athletic, Birmingham City and Hibs goalkeeper, James Herriot and focused on his playing career, but ‘Jim’ will always be remembered by our Motherwell Club as one of our brilliant Club members.

And what a GREAT career James had in football. He was never ever SMALL for the 6’1 tall goalkeeper who was described by George Best as “…safer than the Bank of England” after a 2-2 draw against the mighty Manchester United. 

There is a tremendous interview by The Scotsman newspaper recorded during Covid when Jim was 80, which catches many of Jim’s memories and tales from his playing career but today we wanted to capture a little of Jim, the Sporting Memories club member, loving husband, father and grandfather. 

The real James Herriot 

Of course, many already know the story of how he gave his name to the legendary fictional vet author, James Herriot aka writer Alf Wight but he was always tickled pink to share it.  As a practising vet, writer Alf needed a pen name to comply with professional rules banning advertising and chose James Herriot after seeing the goalkeeper play for Birmingham City in a televised match against Manchester United. Jim said that afterwards “Folk I’d never met before would tell me that my life tending all those animals in such lovely countryside must be wonderful. I’d sometimes say: “Well, I’m the real Jim Herriot. I live in Larkhall and don’t even own a goldfish. But my life is no’ bad either!” 

Loyal Member 

Jim was a stalwart member at our Motherwell Club from 2018 and rarely missed a meeting.  He liked Sporting Memories so much he also attended our Larkhall club until infirmity and illness intervened.  During lockdown Jim agreed to record a short interview with us and it’s here we learnt of his meeting with his wife, Ann. 

Love at first sight 

At the time Jim was playing for Dunfermline Athletic alongside George Miller, another talented Lanarkshire lad. He recalls that they had finished training and then pelted down to Ayr racecourse – he never made clear what for but we can guess!!!! On their way home George said “Do you want to come to my house for a coffee”. That coffee stop was the first time Jim laid eyes on George’s sister, Ann. He shared that with just one look he had fallen in love and knew immediately that was the girl he wanted to marry. 

Ann was a huge supporter of her husband as these two anecdotes demonstrate: 

Ann was more brave, bashing a Rangers fan with her brolly for his derogatory remark after the keeper, in a green jersey, had kept goal rather too well for Dunfermline. She also bristled at Big Jock’s (Jock Stein) criticism of Herriot’s performance when Scotland lost 4-1 at Wembley, asking the then Celtic boss: “What about your three guys – were they even fit?” 

We all knew Jim as a lovely man and raconteur of footballing tales, but it wasn’t until his funeral that we learnt from the tributes paid that he was such a devoted husband, father and grandfather and will be sorely missed and fondly remembered by family and friends for a long time to come.