Jimmy Philip (1863 – 12 October 1930) was the first coach of Scottish
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
club
Aberdeen F.C.
Aberdeen Football Club is a Scottish professional Association football, football club based in Aberdeen, Scotland. They compete in the and have List of unrelegated association football clubs, never been relegated from the top division of th ...
He was in charge of the club virtually from its foundation in 1903 until his retirement in 1924.
Early life
Philip was the only son of four children.
His father James Philip (born 1833) and mother Jane Philip (born 1830) were both Brass Founders. Their daughters Jane Philip (1861) Eliza Philip (1864) were both Envelope Makers and the youngest Isabella (1872) was a scholar. Philip married Mary Ann Forsyth (1864–1937) and had five children: James, Dot, Lily, Mary and George John (1905–1972).
Philip was a native Aberdonian, he had a wide range of sporting interests, and he had proposed to underwrite the first overseas tour by a Scottish international team. He was also a referee, although by profession he was a wood-turner.Managers Jimmy Philip AFC Heritage Trust
Aberdeen FC manager
Philip was appointed part-time manager for the first competitive game of the new club, a 1–1 draw with Stenhousemuir on 15 August 1903. In that first season, Aberdeen won the Aberdeenshire Cup, and subsequently made a bid to be elected to the
Scottish Football League Division One
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, Numeral (linguistics), numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest Positive number, positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in o ...
. Philip was despatched to
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
to make the club's case, and returned with the promise of enough support. However, the final decision of the existing league members was to elect Aberdeen to the Second Division.
During that second season, the Qualifying Cup was won at Dens Park in
Dundee
Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Celtic to expand Division One to 16 clubs meant that places were available for the 1905–06 season, and Aberdeen were duly elected.
Thereafter, progress was steady rather than spectacular, the club finishing in 12th position in the next two seasons, although there was a Scottish Cup semi-final in 1908, in which Celtic prevailed at Pittodrie. For the next few seasons, Aberdeen seem to have been genuine contenders for League honours, topping the table on more than one occasion, but never at season's end. In the 1910–11 season, both Rangers and Celtic were beaten at Pittodrie for the first time, and another Cup semi-final followed. That game, too, was lost to Celtic, but the strength of the side that season led to an invitation to a close season tour of
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...
,
Moravia
Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The medieval and early ...
, and
Poland
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.
After the end of the 1911–12 season, Philip served as a referee at the Olympic Games in Stockholm.
In April 1920, Philip's position became full-time, in spite of the relative penury of the club at this time, but during wartime, the position reverted to part-time. The manager and players struggled on through the early years of the war, the team often made up of locally billeted servicemen, but by early 1917, the strain on finances, and the lack of public enthusiasm was too much, and the club withdrew from competition.
On the resumption of football in 1919, Philip was offered his old, full-time post at a salary of £350 per annum; a move which caused some controversy among the directors at the time. Philip accepted, and prepared to take the club forward into the new decade.
The early 1920s proved no more fruitful for Philip and his team than the prewar era, but one record was set which still stands as of 2020: Aberdeen's record victory of 13–0 over
Peterhead
Peterhead (; , ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is the council area's largest settlement, with a population of 19,060 at the 2022 Census for Scotland, 2022 Census. It is the largest fishing port in the United Kingdom for total landi ...
in 1923. There were two further unsuccessful Cup semi-finals, in 1922 and 1924, but Philip's reign came to an end with no senior silverware to show for it.
Final years
Philip retired as Aberdeen manager at the end of the 1923–24 season, becoming a director, and was also involved with the Clan MacGregor. His death was unexpected. He met the Aberdeen reserve team on their return from Paisley on the Saturday evening, and on returning home had a fatal seizure shortly after midnight, believed to be related to a road accident he had been involved in three months earlier while in Ireland. There was a very large attendance on the 16 October 1930 for the funeral of Philip. The cortege was over three-quarters of a mile in length, passed through streets lined with spectators. The burial was at Trinity Cemetery.