SLIM JIM – SIMPLY THE BEST.
The banner’s message was straight and to the point but it didn’t say it all.
What did say it all was that it was held aloft in the Celtic end at a Scottish Cup semi-final 24 hours after Jim Baxter passed away at the age of 61 on April 14, 2001.
He may have been a Rangers icon but Baxter’s skills and lust for life captured the imagination well beyond the boundary of Govan.
His death plunged the entire football community in this often divided country into a period of mourning.
The impact this one-time Fife miner had on the Scottish game in the 1960s has not been diluted by the passage of time.
If anything the stories and TV footage that captured the essence of Baxter have made him even more admired by generations who didn’t actually see him caress a football with that wand of a left foot.
Baxter would admit tackling wasn’t his thing. His right foot was for standing on and he wasn’t good in the air. But his left peg rendered everything else irrelevant.
His career soared after leaving Raith Rovers for Rangers in 1960. Within a year he’d have played in the first European Cup Winners’ Cup Final, losing to Fiorentina, but Baxter was to win three leagues, three Scottish Cups and four League Cups at Ibrox – and come 13th in the 1965 Ballon D'or.
In 18 Old Firm games, he tasted defeat only twice.
His team-mate Ronnie MacKinnon has no doubt Baxter belonged among the elite. “I was fortunate to play in an era, not of good players – but great ones,” he said.
“Celtic had so many fine performers in their nine-in-a-row team of the time but Jim was the best Scottish player ever. He was a magician.
“His confidence in his own ability was something to behold. His instruction to John Greig and me was simple. ‘If you’re ever in trouble, just give me the ball’.”
But Baxter’s legend was cemented in the darker blue of Scotland. He represented his country 34 times but two appearances at Wembley, in 1963 and 1967, hurtled him into the superstar bracket.
Scotland, down to 10 men in ’63 after Eric Caldow broke his leg, beat England 2-1 with Baxter scoring both goals. He later joked he’d been tempted to score an own goal just to claim a hat-trick.
Four years later he ran amok as the Scots beat the newly-crowned world champions 3-2 in their own back yard. The sight of Baxter playing keepy uppy on the left flank, goading the English – and Alan Ball in particular – has become almost as iconic as Archie Gemmill’s goal against the Dutch at the 1978 World Cup.
The fact that Baxter chose to humiliate England with his skill rather than hammer them in the scoreline says everything about his laid-back demeanour.
In fact, 10 minutes before the game began he was reading the form in the Racing Post. When it was suggested he might want to warm up, Baxter first of all stretched out his left leg and then his right. “That’s me warmed up,” he said, eyes still fixed on the paper.
Sir Alex Ferguson tells a similar tale: “One day, when playing for Dunfermline, we went to Ibrox for a game and I was injured so I was out at the front door giving tickets to my family and pals 20 minutes before kick off.
“I turned round and there was Baxter doing exactly the same thing, standing there with his suit on.
“So I went in to tell our manager Willie Cunningham that Baxter wasn’t playing – but he was. It was just his way of doing things. I don’t think he had a single nerve in his body.
“There was something special about him that made him one of the greatest players Scotland has ever produced. He had touch, balance, vision and this wonderful aura that indicated you were in the presence of someone touched by football genius.
“You could go on all day about his lifestyle but what a player. I don’t know if we will ever see his like again.”
He found a kindred spirit in the late, great George Best, who shortly before his death named him in a team of players he’d played with or against.
Best said: “The fact that Jim is remembered mostly for humiliating England at Wembley in ’67 helped with his selection. He was even more of a showman than me which is saying something – and perhaps why I got on with him so well!
“So skilful, a real genius. Whenever we played against each other we would try to outdo one another.”
Baxter burned the candle at both ends but the flame lit up the lives of everyone who saw his touch, his vision, his ability to rake a cross-field pass.
He left Gers for Sunderland, then Nottingham Forest, before returning for a swansong at Ibrox in 1969. By then the party lifestyle had taken its toll and after one season he retired from football at only 31.
He fought a long battle with alcoholism and twice had liver transplants to save his life in 1994. Seven years later it was cancer which claimed him but the impression he made in the 60s will endure.
His statue stands in his home village of Hill of Beath. Baxter would have loved that but perhaps even more he’d have enjoyed the cheeky attempts by the Tartan Army to have the new-look Wembley Bridge named after him when the English FA had revamped their national stadium in 2005.
Thousands voted for Baxter but the FA ignored the clamour.
Didn’t matter though. The hoisting of that banner by those Celtic fans proved Baxter had bridged a far bigger divide than the one linking a walkway to the Wembley he’d once made his own.
