James Quinn (8 July 1878 – 21 November 1945) was a Scottish footballer who played for Celtic for 15 years, becoming one of the club's leading goalscorers of all time. He also represented

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

Career

Club

A native of the village of Croy, North Lanarkshire and signed for Celtic aged 22 by

Willie Maley William Patrick Maley (25 April 1868 – 2 April 1958) was an Irish-born Scottish international football player and manager. He was the first manager of Celtic Football Club, and one of the most successful managers in Scottish football histor ...

from junior club Smithston Albion in 1900, Quinn took several seasons to make his mark, playing at outside-left then inside-left before being moved to

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics * Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentri ...

. Like so many players of the time and since, he was a

coal miner Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

. A man who was strong and powerful in stature but shy and unassuming in character, the foundations of Quinn's enduring fame were laid with a hat-trick in the 1902 British League Cup final against

Old Firm The Old Firm is the collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, which are both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are by far the most successful and popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply em ...

rivals Rangers, and cemented in the 1904 Scottish Cup Final against the same opposition. At half-time Rangers led by two goals to nil. In the second half, however, Celtic came back to win 3–2, Quinn scoring all the goals. This was the second

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

in a

Scottish Cup Final The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the Scottish Cup, is a knockout cup competition in Scottish football. Organised by the Scottish Football Association, it is the third oldest existing football competition in the w ...

; it was 68 years before the feat was repeated by

Dixie Deans John Kelly "Dixie" Deans (born 30 July 1946) is a Scottish retired footballer. He played as a centre forward in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily for Motherwell and Celtic, and was a prolific goal-scorer. Deans played in two international mat ...

in Celtic's 6–1 defeat of Hibs in

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

. That cup final hat-trick was the first a Celtic player scored against Rangers in a major competition, and Quinn also scored the second, in a 3–0 league victory on New Year's Day 1912. He was the only player from either side to have twice scored a hat-trick in an

match until

Ally McCoist Alistair Murdoch McCoist, (; born 24 September 1962) is a Scottish former footballer who has since worked as a manager and TV pundit. McCoist began his playing career with Scottish club St Johnstone before moving to English side Sunderland in ...

emulated him in the 1980s. Celtic team 1908

Quinn won six successive

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

and five

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Bennett, McMenemy, Quinn, Somers and Hamilton. He scored 218 goals in 331 appearances in the two major competitions – 188 in the League (273 appearances including a playoff in 1905) and 30 in the Scottish Cup from 58 appearances, eight of them in finals (1904, 1908, 1909, and 1911), plus dozens more in various minor tournaments. His strike rate of 0.65 – almost two goals every three games – is surpassed among Celtic goalscorers only by Jimmy McGrory, Henrik Larsson and Sandy McMahon. As a scorer of league goals, his total of 187 is behind McGrory alone. Quinn was the first Celtic player to score 200 goals for the club, and only four others have done so—McGrory,

Bobby Lennox Robert Lennox, MBE (born 30 August 1943, in Saltcoats, Ayrshire) is a Scottish former professional footballer who played for Celtic and was a member of their 1967 European Cup-winning team, known as the Lisbon Lions. He earned ten internation ...

(273), Larsson (242), and Stevie Chalmers (228). Ninety years after his retirement, he remains the club's fifth highest goalscorer. He received a benefit match in 1926, in which Celtic played against a Scottish League team, ending in a 3–3 draw. His grandson of the same name also played for Celtic.

International

Quinn scored seven goals in 11 appearances for

including four out of five goals against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in 1908, and eight in as many games for the

Scottish League XI The Scottish League XI was a representative side of the Scottish Football League. The team regularly played against the (English) Football League and other national league select teams between 1892 and 1980. For a long period the annual fixture be ...

Honours

Scottish League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km sout ...

(6): 1904–05, 1905–06, 1906–07, 1907–08, 1908–09, 1909–10 *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1903–04, 1906–07, 1907–08, 1910–11, 1911–12 **Finalist: 1908–09 * British League Cup: 1901–02 *

Glasgow Cup The Glasgow Cup is a football tournament open to teams from Glasgow, Scotland. Operated by the Glasgow Football Association, it was competed for annually by senior Glasgow clubs from 1887 until 1989. It is now (since the 2019–20 amended rul ...

: 1904–05, 1905–06, 1906–07, 1907–08, 1909–10

Notes

References

;Sources *''Factfile - Celtic'' ed Chris Mason, pub Parragon 1998 *David Potter, ''The Mighty Quinn: Jimmy Quinn, Celtic's First Goal Scoring Hero'' (Tempus, 2005)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Jimmy 1878 births 1945 deaths Scottish footballers Footballers from North Lanarkshire Scottish people of Irish descent Scottish Junior Football Association players Association football forwards Celtic F.C. players Scotland international footballers Scottish Football League players Scottish Football League representative players Scottish miners Scottish league football top scorers People from Croy