John James 1955-61

John James was known only as jimmy James during his time at plainmoor . He was mainly a left half in old terminology. A tough tackling uncompromising midfielder, a bit in the mould of another ex Birmingham city players, the beast, Colin Bettany. Jimmy James occosionally played at centre forward. Controversially he was picked in that position for arguably,torquays most important game in their history. He was preferred to cannon ball ted Callander in the game at crystal palace,, where a win would have given its promotion into the second div, now the championship. Should read CALLAND. Speaking many years later to the late ted CALLAND, it was still a sore,point with him that he wasn't picked for that match. CALLAND went on to score,many goals for Exeter and was a cult hero at st James , with his own,official fan club.

Thank you, phipsy, for your excellent reply.

I thought he was known as Jimmy James but hesitated in using this nickname after reviewing other websites.

The situation with Ted Calland is puzzling as he scored 15 goals in 29 league appearances for Torquay during the 1956/57 season, having replaced Harold Dobbie as centre forward. In the summer of 1957, Torquay released both players and commenced the next season without a recognised centre forward. Colin Bettany filled this position in the opening 2 or 3 games.

According to the Gillingham 57/8 programme, attempts had been made to sign a centre forward and it would appear that Eric Webber wanted to sign Tommy Northcott during the close season. After protracted negotiations, Northcott eventually arrived and played his first game at home to Southampton on 23 November 1957.

torquayfans.boards.net/thread/8514/28-08-57-gillingham

Some good posts on this and a few other historical threads.

As for Wiki, I share some of Jon's reservations. I suppose I'd describe Wiki as "usually reliable" rather than "totally reliable". Others may settle for "often reliable". Having said all of that, it's still a pretty remarkable resource and one I use every day. One area of weakness, however, is the confusion between people of the same name in the same locality or area of activity. This seems a good example of that and is probably due to somebody somewhere making a false assumption. But you wouldn't want anybody not quoting from Wiki without feeling they have to check a dozen other sources first. If it's wrong, it just adds to the discussion. It's not as if we're writing anything definitive here but we usually get there in the end. Or thereabouts.

There's a little bit on Merse's site today about the latter John James who was responsible for bringing those Midlands players to Plainmoor.

The suggestion is that John James had been running a shop in Paignton for a fair time before he became associated with Torquay United. He was, apparently, previously involved with a club in the Torbay Pioneer League.

Whether or not James was a scout himself is a moot point but he certainly had links with people in Birmingham and the Black Country who watched a lot of age group football.

Scouting has always been something of a mystery to me. It seems to be both expert and inexpert, formal and informal with its' fair share of dreamers and chancres. If you want to know more I see there's a book out at the moment about football scouts called Nowhere Men by Michael Calvin (reviewed online by the Independent).

I knew a bloke in Devon who claimed to have done a bit of scouting. There was always an air of mystery about him and I never knew which of his stories to believe. He once told me a story about being shown a drawer full of cash by Dave Webb. Somehow I was inclined to believe that bit.