“One man and only one man takes the credit for bringing Jock Stein to Celtic Park – Jimmy Gribben. It was not Bob Kelly and it was not me,” Jimmy McGrory…

On his return to Celtic Park from Lisbon, Jock Stein took the European Cup straight to his old friend Jimmy Gribben in a wonderful, symbolic gesture of the unique bond between the two men. But if things had panned out differently, Jimmy would have been in the Estadio Nacional to witness the historic event for himself. His granddaughter Margaret Gribbon recalls that he and his wife were invited to travel there as guests of the club, but that her ‘Granny Gribbon’ was not keen to make the trip.

READ THIS…“No-one knew more about football than Jimmy Gribben. He was my friend and advisor,” Jock Stein

Below is a piece attributed to Jock in The Sunday Mirror three years later, on 19 July 1970, as Celtic attempted to recover from the despair of Milan – “Lisbon in reverse” – and as Stein’s former teammate Willie Fernie joined his backroom team on a permanent basis.

“There will be one more behind-the-scenes change with us, for one of our back-room staff, Jimmy Gribben, is officially retiring. At over 70, I think he deserves it! I stress the word ‘officially,’ for I hope to see him about the place as often as possible. He is the man to whom I owe a special debt, for without his recommendation nearly twenty years ago there might have been no Stein and Celtic tie-up.

It was Jimmy who remembered my play with Albion Rovers when Celtic were shopping around for a reserve centre-half in 1951, and I first joined them from the Welsh club, Llanelly.”

If the Jack Harkness article cited earlier implied that Bob Kelly had originally come up with Jimmy Gribben’s name, then Jimmy McGrory himself would support Jock’s recollections that Gribben was the man behind Stein’s arrival at Celtic. In his 1978 autobiography A Lifetime in Paradise, the legendary Hoops striker makes it clear how that move came about, with no mention of the Albion Rovers cup-tie display by Stein, as referred to in the Harkness piece.

“The most important signing Celtic ever made was late in 1951, although at the time it could not have seemed all that significant to our supporters. In fact, I’m sure many must have been mystified by the move. Our regular centre-half Alex Boden was suffering from loss of form and our recognised pivot, Jimmy Mallan, was injured. Added to these problems we had a good but young and inexperienced team which needed some guidance on the field of play.

“Bob Kelly and I had been discussing for some time the merits of a player coach but could not come up with a name to fulfil the role. Jimmy Gribben, our chief scout, was called into the conversation a short while later and he came up with the name of Jock Stein, a virtual unknown who was to dominate the Celtic scene for many years.

“I had really only heard of him a couple of times, once when his name appeared in the newspapers in connection with a dispute [that]he was having with his club Albion Rovers. It was a dispute which led to him walking out on them and signing on for the obscure Welsh non-league club Llanelly and it was at that fairly mediocre level that Celtic found him playing.

“Let me say here and now that one man and only one man takes the credit for bringing Jock Stein to Celtic Park – Jimmy Gribben. It was not Bob Kelly and it was not me. A lot of people wanted to take the credit for the move just as a lot of people wanted to take the credit for signing John Thomson and other fine players the club has had.

“Jimmy Gribben had been a very good player himself in his day with St Anthony’s and Bo’ness and he was a very thorough scout with his finger on the pulse of the country’s football talent. But almost in the same breath as telling us about Jock Stein he mentioned some misgivings about Jock not being too Celtic-minded. I remember Jimmy saying: “I’ve played against him and I don’t know if he will come here. He certainly knows the game and he’ll make a fine coach. You won’t lose anything by signing him.

“Anyway, we were not interested in the man’s background, his past, or anything else other than him doing a job for Celtic. I telephoned the Welsh club and arranged for Jock to come and see me. He came immediately to Celtic Park and I had no trouble in signing him. There was no fee as he had not been under contract to Llanelly and I offered him about £16 a week which delighted him.

“My first impression on talking to Jock was that he had a sound knowledge of the game and even if he didn’t turn out to be the best player coach in the world, I knew by his manner that he would be good for our young players in the club.

“In next to no time, he was in the first team and although he was a very left-sided player I could see the potential in his leadership on the field. He was very safe, and as they say, knew his onions and that is exactly what we needed. It was amazing also how he could entice opponents into his favourite left-foot tackle.

“Jimmy Gribben had already given me all kinds of assurances having watched Jock in his first few reserve outings: “He’ll do all right,” he said. One thing which appeared to be baffling our chief scout was how Celtic-minded Jock had become in such a short space of time. Obviously, the player knew that Celtic had given him a great chance in life, and he was all out to pay us back – although at that early stage we were not to know just how much of a messiah he was to become at Celtic.”

And another club legend, Sean Fallon, concurs in Ken Gallacher’s biography of Jock Stein.

“It’s a funny thing, but I couldn’t remember Jock from Albion Rovers, and so the first thing I knew about him was when he arrived at the Park after he had signed for the club. Jimmy Gribben, the club scout, was the man responsible for bringing Jock back. Old Jimmy remembered him and suggested he should be brought back from Wales.”

CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE…

JIMMY’S OWN STORY…

Jimmy’s own story began in the previous century, born James Gribbin at 2am on Tuesday, 22 October 1895 in the family home at Mack’s Land (sometimes known as Mack’s Row), Main Street, Baillieston on the eastern outskirts of Glasgow. Note the spelling of the surname, albeit one explanation for the confusion mentioned earlier may be that perhaps his father could not read or write, as it was his mark rather than signature on Jimmy’s birth certificate.

Jimmy’s parents were James Gribbin, a coalminer from Coatbridge, and his wife Mary (nee Nichol, later shown as Nicol), a blacksmith’s worker born in Barkip, a mining hamlet between Beith and Dalry in North Ayrshire commonly referred to as The Den. The 1881 Census shows that the Nichol family had moved from Ireland to Ayrshire around 1870, as 10-year-old Mary was the first of their children to be born in Scotland, her 13-year-old sister Bridget and two elder brothers all being Irish-born. In the spring of 1881, coalminer James Nichol, his wife Catherine, their four children, three-year-old granddaughter and a boarder – another Irish coalminer named Daniel McMillan, who may have been related to Catherine – were all living together in a house where just one room had a window at 79 Greenend in Old Monkland.

Seven years later, Mary Nichol married James Gribbin. The young couple – James was 20 and his bride just 18 – wed in St Brigit’s [sic]Catholic Church, Baillieston on Saturday, 14 July 1888, as a fledgling football club formed by Irishmen for the best yet saddest of reasons just a few miles away to the west was preparing for its first-ever competitive match, a Glasgow Exhibition Cup tie with Paisley outfit Abercorn at Kelvingrove on the opening day of August. The Gribbins’ yet-to-be-born son Jimmy would have a huge part to play in the development of that club, and in particular two of its most famous figures, more than six decades later.

Jimmy’s paternal grandparents were also from Ireland. Blacksmith John Gribbin and his wife Margaret (nee Murphy) were married in Belfast in July 1856 but had settled in Summerlee in Old Monkland by the time their son James was born on 19 October 1867. Both John and Margaret had sadly passed away before the marriage of James and Mary in July 1888, whilst Jimmy’s maternal grandparents, James and Catherine Nichol, had both survived at that point.

By the time of the April 1891 Census, Jimmy’s parents James and Mary Gribbin are settled into their home at Mack’s Land on Baillieston’s Main Street with their two infant daughters, Catherine (known as Kate and born on 5 February 1890) and Elizabeth (known as Lizzie and born just a few weeks before the Census, on 16 March 1891). All their neighbours worked at the nearby colliery, suggesting the housing was linked to James’ employment. On 4 December 1892, the couple would see the arrival of their first son, John, but the first of several family tragedies would strike within seven months as baby John passed away at home on 9 July 1893 of tabes mesenterica, a form of tuberculosis which affects the mesenteric lymphatic system.

At the time of baby John’s death, Mary Gribbin was already expecting her fourth child, and a daughter named after her was duly born at home in Mack’s Land on 26 January 1894. Like the three previous offspring, baby Mary’s birth was recorded with the surname Gribbon. That would finally change with the arrival of a fifth child in October of the following year, as their second son, James – to be known as Jimmy and the subject of our article – had his birth recorded as Gribbin, thus reverting to the traditional family name.

Four days later, on Saturday, 26 October 1895, the first Celtic match of Jimmy’s life would result in an 11-0 win over Dundee at Celtic Park, to this day a record victory for the club, with Jimmy Blessington, Johnny Madden and Sandy McMahon all scoring doubles and even Willie Maley on target. Celts would go on to reclaim their Scottish League title from Hearts in the spring, a third championship in four seasons for The Bould Bhoys. I guess Jimmy just brought us luck from the offset. It would be the same at his passing.

On a much more sombre note, on the afternoon of Jimmy’s birth – Tuesday, 22 October 1895 – there was a major railway incident in Paris, the iconic outcome forever captured on camera, as an express train crashed through the exterior wall of the Gare de l’Ouest in Montparnasse to land on the street more than 30 feet below.

As the first Census data of the new century was recorded in late March 1901, the Gribbin family had expanded to include six children, Kate (11), Lizzie (10), Mary (7) and Jimmy (5) now joined by two-year-old Margaret (born 23 August 1898, birth registered by her grandmother Catherine Nicol) and a second baby to be given the Christian name John, born 7 August 1900. The two latest additions to the family were born at Mack’s Row and were once again registered with the surname Gribbon. Like the Nicols back in 1881, all eight members of the Gribbin family at that time were living in a home where only one room had a window.

By April 1911 the family had relocated to a two-roomed property at 8 Camp Road, Baillieston. However, the Census report of that year reveals a grim story, the only obvious sign being that youngest son John is no longer listed, one of five of the couple’s 10 children recorded as not having survived to that point.

Jimmy – at 15 now working in the colliery beside his father as a coalminer hewer – is the only living son, sharing the home with his parents and sisters Kate (21), Lizzie (20), Mary (17) – all three listed as Preserve Workers – and Margaret (8). A closer inspection of the age profiles reveals that Margaret was actually the second of the daughters to be given that Christian name. She was born on 12 April 1903 at Pender’s Row, Baillieston, registered as Maggie Gribbon, exactly 15 months after the original Margaret died of measles, bronchitis and the dreadful facial infection cancrum oris on 12 January 1902 at Dyke Street, Baillieston, aged just three years and four months.

Just 15 days after the infant Margaret Gribbin passed away, the family were in mourning once more. You may recall that the Gribbins also had two sons named John, the first born in December 1892 but dead within seven months. Tragically, the second son to be given that name did not reach his second birthday. He had been born in August 1900 but died aged 17 months at Dyke Street on 27 January 1902, just two weeks after his older sister. In another bizarre and cruel twist, John had contracted the same tabes mesenterica illness which killed his brother of the same name a decade earlier.

As if losing two infants within two weeks was not bad enough, there was more heartache to follow. Incredibly, James and Mary Gribbin were blessed with, then lost, another two children in a little over three years that decade. Agnes Gribbon was born on 25 September 1906 at 58 Buchanan Street, Baillieston and died in the same place on 9 April 1908, aged 18 months, suffering from rickets and acute bronchitis. And once again, Mary Gribbin had to bear the loss of a baby whilst expecting another. The couple’s 10th and final child was another son, William, born later that same year, on 25 November 1908 at Buchanan Street. He died on 6 January 1910, aged just 13 months, and had been suffering from pneumonia for three weeks.

Sadly, such horrific infant mortality was not unique to the Gribbin family. The McGowans next door at 10 Camp Road had 12 children, only seven of whom had survived at that point.

For the most recent census records available, those of 1921, we learn that the family are still living at 8 Camp Road, but that Jimmy’s mum Mary has passed away. She died a few months after the end of the First World War, in the early hours of 26 January 1919 at the family home, 8 Camp Road, Baillieston. She is recorded as being 46 years old, which doesn’t align with any other records going all the way back to that 1881 Census, and I believe she was actually 48. She had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage the day before and her death was witnessed and registered by James, her husband of over 30 years. In June 1921, 52-year-old widower James Gribbin is sharing the Camp Road home with daughter Kate (31), now listed as a housekeeper, 25-year-old son Jimmy, no longer a colliery worker but a steelwork labourer with Boyd’s of Shettleston, and youngest daughter Maggie, now aged 18, a gardener at Finlay Bros. Nursery in Baillieston.

So at 25, Jimmy described himself as a steelwork labourer, but what about his football career?

We’ll look at that in the next part of this story, which will be published tomorrow on The Celtic Star, the Celtic site like no other.

Hail Hail!

Matt Corr

With grateful thanks to Pat Woods, Tom Campbell, Manus Gallagher, Ken Ross, Nikki Guthrie, Elaine Currie, Margaret Gribbon, John Gribbon, John Tracey, Philomena Tracey and the wider Gribbon family.

Follow Matt on Twitter/X @Boola_vogue

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