Jimmy McGrory

Club

_Deceased Soccer

Position

Centre-Forward

Nationality

Scotland

Date of birth

1904-04-26

Birthplace

Garngad, Scotland

Height

168 cm

James Edward McGrory (26 April 1904 – 20 October 1982) was a Scottish footballer who played for Celtic, Clydebank and Scotland as a forward. He later managed Kilmarnock and Celtic.

McGrory is the all-time leading goalscorer in top-flight British football, with a total of 550 goals in 547 competitive first-team games at club and international level.

A legendary figure within Celtic's history, he played for the club for 15 years between 1922 and 1937 (aside from the majority of the 1923–24 season wich was spent on loan at fellow Division One side Clydebank), and is Celtic's top scorer of all time with 522 goals from 501 games and holds their record for the most goals in a season, with 62 goals from 46 games in the 1927–28 season. He has also notched up a British top-flight record of 55 hat-tricks, 48 coming in Scottish Football League games and seven from Scottish Cup ties. Some argue that he scored 56, as he hit eight goals in a Scottish League game against Dunfermline Athletic on 14 January 1928, a British top-flight record.

After a spell managing Kilmarnock from December 1937 to July 1945, he became Celtic manager, where he remained for just under 20 years, until March 1965 when he was succeeded by Jock Stein.

Although only 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) tall, McGrory was renowned for his prowess and ability for headers. His trademark was an almost horizontal bullet header, which he used regularly in scoring, and which earned him the nicknames "the Human Torpedo" and "the Mermaid".

McGrory was born at Millburn Street in the Garngad neighbourhood of Glasgow. He was the son of Henry McGrory and Catherine Coll, both of whom were Irish Catholic immigrants from Ulster. Henry and Catherine had been married at Saint Baithin's Church (known locally as 'the Chapel') in St Johnston, a village in The Laggan district in the east of County Donegal, before emigrating to Scotland. Catherine was from the townland of Cavanacaw and Henry was from the townland of Tullyowen, both in St Johnston, where Jimmy's elder brother was born before the family left Ireland. They lived in Glasgow's East End on his father's wages as a gasworks labourer.

McGrory gained a total of seven caps for the Scottish national team, scoring six goals. In the mid and late 1920s he was generally overlooked, as were Dave Halliday and Hughie Ferguson, in favour of Hughie Gallacher who played 18 times in that period, scoring 24 goals in 17 victories and one draw. McGrory's full international debut