Jimmy Jones (footballer, born 1928)
Jimmy Jones (25 July 1928 – 13 February 2014) was a Northern Irish footballer. He holds the record for scoring the most goals in a season (74). He is the leading goalscorer in the history of Irish League football with a total of 647 goals. According to RSSSF he is one of the greatest scorers of all time with more than 809 goals in official matches. In a career spanning almost 20 years, Jones started his career with Belfast Celtic. After having his leg broken by rival supporters, he spent over a year out of the  game, before returning at intermediate level with Larne. After a short spell there and a season in English football with Fulham, he joined Glenavon where he help to propel the club to the most successful period in their history. He later represented Portadown, Bangor and Newry Town. He also won 3 caps for Northern Ireland, scoring 1 goal. Early life. Jones was born in his maternal grandmother's home in Keady, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, the only child of Thomas Jones, a police sergeant, and his wife Ellen ("née" Wilson). After education at Carrick Primary School and Lurgan Technical College , he served his apprenticeship as a mechanic, while making an impact as a footballer. Club career. Belfast Celtic. Jones signed for Belfast Celtic in 1946 after playing youth football with Shankill Young Men. Jones made an immediate impact, scoring 62 goals in all competitions in the 1947–48 season. Such was his ability that his club rejected a £16,000 offer from Newcastle United. During the following season, Jones had 27 goals from 19 games (including six hat-tricks), prior to an infamous match on Boxing Day 1948 with Linfield. At the end of the match, Linfield supporters invaded the pitch  and Jones was chased onto terracing and stamped on until his leg was broken. Such was the outcry over this incident, Belfast Celtic resigned from the league at the end of the season and left football. Jones had surgery to save his leg (which left his right leg shorter than the left), but would not play again until March 1950, when he signed for Irish Intermediate League side Larne. After a short spell there, he joined Fulham in the summer of 1950, where he spent one season but made no first-team appearances due to a technicality over his registration  which meant he could only play in reserve team matches. Glenavon. In 1951, he joined Glenavon where he would spend 11 years and became a club legend. He was the leading Irish League goalscorer for some years in the fifties, and finished as Irish League outright leading goalscorer in six seasons (a record still unbroken), during the most successful period in Glenavon's history where they won the Irish League championship and Irish Cup three times each. Jones also hit a record 74 goals (in all competitions) during the 1956–57 Irish League season. He scored 517 goals in total for  the Lurgan Blues. Later career. Jones later represented Portadown, Bangor and Newry City, before retiring in 1965 with a national domestic record of 647 goals. He remains the leading goalscorer in Irish league history. International career. Jones scored three goals in the Irish League representative team which defeated the Football League 5–3 at Windsor Park in 1953, and played in three full international games for Northern Ireland, scoring once against Wales in Cardiff in the 1956 British Home Championship.