JIM BAXTER (1939 - 2001)

FirstFoot joins most of Scotland in mourning the loss, through cancer, of Jim Baxter, possibly the greatest Scottish footballer of all time.

If there is a Celestial All Stars XI, you can be sure Baxter goes straight into the team for their next game.

Born James Curran Baxter in Hill o'Beath, Fife, in September 1939, "Slim" Jim won a paltry 34 caps for Scotland in a career that took him from Raith Rovers to Rangers, Sunderland and Nottingham Forest. That he failed to win the 150 or so caps his outrageous talent deserved was partly down to injuries but was mainly down to the "self-destruct" trait that characterises so many gifted Scots and which led to his early retirement from the game at the age of 30.

The fans' own tribute at Ibrox stadium

His boozing, womanising and gambling ways are legendary.

Asked in later years if his life might have been different had he received the astronomical wages of today's football stars instead of the £100 a week he was paid, Jim's reply was typical of the man.

"Definitely" he said "I'd have spent £50,000 a week at the bookies instead of £100."

It is for his sublime talent with a football, however, that Jim will be best remembered.

At his peak, Baxter had an arrogance on the field of play that made the likes of Souness, Beckham or Beckenbauer seem like stumbling schoolboys. He didn't want to simply beat opponents; he wanted to humiliate them.

Never was this arrogance more ably displayed than in the 1967 game against England at Wembley.

The record books will show that Scotland won 3-2 against the reigning World Champions.

It is no exaggeration, however, that a scoreline of 6-1 would have been a fairer reflection on the events of the day, such was Scotland's superiority.

When we were "Slim"

Baxter was at the heart of everything, strutting majestically around the Wembley pitch as if he owned it. He teased, tormented and toyed with an English midfield that simply had no answer to his mastery.

The ball belonged to Baxter, and he wasn't giving it up for anyone not wearing a blue shirt.

England's humiliation was complete a few minutes from full-time when Baxter began the now legendary demonstration of "keepie-uppie" ball juggling, playing to the crowd like a matador who senses the bull is exhausted and ready for the coup de grace, the bull in this case being a near apoplectic Alan Ball.

Denis Law, who scored Scotland's first goal and who wanted revenge for the 9-3 defeat of six years earlier, criticised Baxter after the game for not turning Scotland's utter dominance into more goals, and later commented that "Jim just wanted to take the piss."

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who knows a thing or two about football, would later remark that it was "a performance that could be set to music."

"Thanks for the Memories" would be more than appropriate.