Jimmy Hinksman

[shakermaker]

Surprised to see no mention on here as yet.

Jimmy Hinksman, former Accrington FC and Accrington Stanley 1968 player and manager, passed away on Tuesday.

I wasn't around for his tenure but am well aware of the hugely important role he played in our club's history.

Rest in peace.

See the official site: Jimmy Hinksman 1933-2014 - Accrington Stanley FC

[cashman]

Wasn't aware Shaker, R.I.P. to a stanley stalwart.

[AccyMad]

He was the manager when I first starting watching Stanley, R.I.P Sir & condolences to your family

[choirboy]

Jimmy Hinksman is a sad loss and he played a big part in the first few seasons of Stanley's revival. I remember him from when I played a few games for the reserves in the early seventies. He was a deceptively tricky winger in his best years and could always cause problems with his swerve and "jinks" when in possession of the ball. Let's pay big respect on saturday before the match.
Thoughts are with his family and closest friends.

[Wynonie Harris]

Like others, I remember his successes after we started up again in the early 70's. But the handful who frequented Peel Park in the mid-60's, will also recall him leading Accrington FC (we couldn't even use "Stanley" then because of the old club's bankruptcy), to the Lancs Combination Div 2 title in 1963/64. A loyal servant of the club through the years. RIP Jimmy.

[Chimer]

Yep, I remember the 63/64 title - last time I invaded a pitch until Woking!

RIP and thanks, Jimmy.

[ossy kid]

R.I.P. Jimmy.

[yonmon]

Whilst, along with everyone else I pass my condolences on to Jimmy Hinksman's family, I hope that I am allowed to share a few of my memories of Jimmy at the same time.
One that stands out in my mind and is not really Stanley connected, is of a superfit lad who had recently, I think been involved in some sort of P T I role in the Army....he was just finding his footballing feet again and along with Don Bramley used to turn up at the Thursday night PE / Kick around sessions which John Proctor used to run in the gym at Rishton Secondary Modern School.....Being a lad who's soccer efforts were mainly based on hope rather than skill, I joined a game and my first move was to be kicked behind the Knee by Bram !....and the second being crashed into the wallbars by Jimmy...my third making a sharp exit for the showers !....This personal experience of Jimmy's enthusiasm and personal fitness was always a pleasure to note in his later years as a player, and later still as a Manager, and to see some measure of deterioration in his health on the last of our meetings was not that easy to take !.
One thing was certain though, this being that as far as our Club is concerned Jimmy Hinksman always gave 101 per cent to the cause.....another was that he always respected the players he teamed up with, and those in management.
He was always a good mate and I'm sure that I'll not be the only one to feel some sadness at his passing.
I hope the Club make some tangible response in the near future to recognise Jimmy's valuable contributions to it's success.

RIP.

[Phil Whalley]

Visited Jimmy a few years back, I wanted his version of events with both of his tenures at the club. A true football man and a dedicated Stanley servant. Condolences to his family. I was pleased that he turned up for the launch of the Stanley history and quietly said thanks for the chapter on his managerial reign. I haven't got the time to edit it, but for those interested here are the notes I made straight from the tape of Jimmy's interview:

Jimmy Hinksman

Reserves started off in West Lancashire League, but only lasted five months. Terry Tighe ran the reserves in the WLL, about half way up, but it was too expensive to run a team in there, so they decided to go in the Bolton Comb, but a lot of travelling there as well. Was a hard league, very rough. Don Bramley got one or two ex-players to help the young lads through as it was too physical. It was a good league in terms of standards, some of the players had experience at a much higher level, some of the Manchester lads. JH wanted to return to the WLL, but it was too expensive.

Wages were peanuts – I was on £5 per game to cover everything, no expenses on top, and the top players were on the same. They really needed someone like John Alty, someone more professional. But I thought that John was coming in and trying to keep everything tight with money, and I thought that I was going to struggle, and I did – that’s why I resigned. I thought that I couldn’t go any further on what I had, and if they were going to cut my money back I was going to lose some players, and I did. John Hubberstey left, he was on £3 a week as did Ian McCrae, and they both came back on a lot more money than they were getting under me. That might have been when Dave Baron was managing them, but the penny had dropped that they had to start paying more money.

Secretary’s report, Aug 73: “The council have agreed to pay for some new changing rooms and showers. Stanley have to find £500 of the cost.”

JH suggested that the club get a clubhouse going and get a brewery in to make a bar and lounge in return for the contract to supply the beer. Could have been done without much cost if Stanley could have got a brewery interested. Bill Parky vetoed the idea as it would have meant debt, even though it might have generated income for the club.

I used to go and scout Cup opponents all over the place, while Pete Dunn would look after the first team.

The year we got beat by Altrincham, we would have held them at their place if we hadn’t lost Hubberstey. Illingworth wasn’t fit either. It changed the balance of the team losing them. If we’d have brought them back to Stanley, we’d have beaten them on that pitch! We were a fit team as well, I used to teach at the college part time, and I took the players to the college training on a Monday night, circuit training and I used to kill ‘em! But it definitely worked, and you had to be fit with a pitch like that. If you hadn’t got stamina you’d win nothing. And we had three or four players good enough for the Football League – John Nuttall, Ian McCrae, Alan Davies, Dave McDowell. John Nuttall had played for Manchester University, and I spotted Alan playing for Clitheroe Grammar School. I had a lot of contacts around Blackburn and Clitheroe, and a few around Bacup and Burnley. I used to ring the PE teachers at different schools, and I’d ask them to tell me about any good lads coming through the ranks, leaving, and that’s how I got a lot of the younger players in. Dave McDowell had played for Ireland schoolboys. I recommended all of them to Rovers at some point, but they didn’t bother. Bury wanted McDowell but they wanted to take him out of our side where he was playing so well. So I said no, if you want him you’re going to have to sign him, you’re not taking him on loan. But they had no money. There were a few scouts used to come from all over to watch them, we had a young side.

I was in charge of all the sport at Brockhall Hospital when I was approached by Stanley in 1968. They had a school attached and a gym, and I had been there 12 years. Dick Briggs came down, and I didn’t know anything about it. Because I’d done well at Stanley when they’d come out of the Football League, Harold Mather was the manager and the wage bill was around £150, it was a lot for the Lancs Combination 2nd division. Mather was dismissed and I got appointed and we won the 2nd division on a quarter of the wage bill. Dick must have remembered all this. We went in the First Division with a few of the big teams like Morecambe who went into the NPL soon after. The chairman Clarkson wanted me to manage, and I said I’m too young to manage, I was 32, you needed my experience in the side.

I said to him that I was the manager and I wasn’t dropping myself if I felt that the side needed me. You can’t have interference like that, not if you want to do it properly. Does the chairman have the knowledge? Why you pick certain players, who blends in with the side. There might be more skilful players on the sides, but you need a bit of hardness in the right positions. So if I’m doing something and I’m being successful, I won’t have interference.

64 team:
The first team under Mather had a lot of ex-Football League players, and the wage bill was over £100 a week. I’d no idea where the money was coming from, especially given that they’d gone out of the League with no money. It wasn’t a bad side, they got to the semi-final of the LFA Trophy that year. But they had to drop the wages and get more amateurs in, so they asked me to take over because I knew a lot of local lads who I’d played with, and we won the League easily. That’s a big achievement, to cut back on wages so much and win the League.

I thought we’d do all right in the First Division, but we started off very mediocre, we were very inconsistent, and we were trying to get a few players in who had more experience at that level, because it was a young side. But I left fairly early in that season after falling out with the chairman.
We’d played Fleetwood one night and I think we made a draw and one of our lads broke his ankle, but I’d picked myself ahead of a lad called Schofield – lovely little player but very lightweight, and Fleetwood were a big, tough side – and after the game Schofield went mad. Later that week, I turned up a bit late for training because I’d been away at a hospital cricket match, and the chairman had a go at me and criticised me for picking myself. I thought it was extremely unfair given that I’d run the side for nothing and won the 2nd division, so I resigned there and then. I shouldn’t have done that, I should have waited. And I’m quite impulsive like that; I did the same when I played at Chorley. I’d played all over the place for him. Some people might think about it but I made up my mind right away.

Went on to play at Darwen and Stalybridge.

Terry Neville took over, but he didn’t last that long, and then Ian Brydon took over, he had been running the reserve side in the West Lancs League, but gradually the players left, and that team that took Stanley up had broken up by the end of the season. They folded soon after. Terry Neville was a nice bloke and a good goalkeeper but didn’t want the responsibility.



There’s an art in managing. I mean, I’m one of the lads, but there’s times when you have to clamp down. When I managed Stanley in the 1970s, Benny Newell missed training. He used to come in from Rochdale and he said it had been too foggy to make it. It had been foggy in Accrington, but I rang the RAC and they said it wasn’t foggy in Rochdale, and I fined him and dropped him for a week. Dave McDowell was a beggar for going out for a drink on Friday night, and I had warned him a couple of times. Anyway he turned up one Saturday and I thought he wasn’t fit, but he said he was and I played him. I had to pull him off at half-time, and I suspended him for a fortnight without pay. He was only a young lad, but he had to learn and he didn’t do it again.

It was the same in training. I was a training instructor and a fitness fanatic, so I knew when someone was going through the motions, and I accused McDowell one night of this, while all the other lads were really pushing themselves. And he didn’t do that again either. So the players knew that they wouldn’t be able to get away with it. And after training in the gym, I’d go round and give each individual and say how they’d played and where I thought they’d gone wrong, how they could put it right. And I made it clear that I wasn’t going to do this behind anyone’s back, so that everybody knows where we’re going right and where we’re going wrong and what we wanted as a team. And I think they understood and respected that.

And you had to know what each individual would respond to. I’d blast people who you could blast, but others needed an arm round them. Stuart Illingworth would sulk if you had a go at him, so you’d have to reassure him about his form and tell him quietly to get his head up and show the others what he could do – and he’d go out and run his socks off. I think Coleman is good at that.

And I’d always back them against people who were having a go at them, including committee members at times. I remember when we went up to Barrow just after they’d come out of the League and beat them in the FA Cup. Mel Widdup had been booked because he’d committed a professional foul, he’d brought down a player on the edge of the box, just as he was going through on goal. They wanted Mel to pay the fine for his booking, and I went berserk at them for that. I had to explain to them that there was a difference between a dirty foul that set out to break a leg and a professional foul. Mel had committed a professional foul, and very important it was, too, because it was 0-0 and if they had scored it would have been a very different game. We went on to win 4-1.
But that got me the respect of the players as well.

Haggis – played in reserves a few times, got sent off in one Bolton Combination game after having quite a do with their centre-half. He was a handful was Haggis, and him and this centre-half went back to the changing rooms and Haggis was still needling this bloke, and I heard them starting to have a scuffle, so I just shut the door and walked out. He said, why didn’t you come and sort it? I said, that’s what you needed to knock you down a bit, he was a cocky beggar! He used to come up to me after I’d left the club and he’d say, how do you think I played today, I scored two goals. And I’d say: I’d have pulled you off. You wanted the ball right at your feet, you didn’t want to work. That wouldn’t do for me David, when you played for me you didn’t do that, you used to run your heart out.

But that was Dave’s attitude. I took him to Rochdale after he’d come back from the Rovers and I’d got him a full-time contract and he wouldn’t move. Mike Ferguson was player-manager at Rochdale, and he came over to Accrington with the contract and Haggis wouldn’t sign. Two or three clubs would have had him. I said to him: “All right, Rovers didn’t go as you thought it would. But if you go to Rochdale full-time, start scoring goals at that level of football, you’ll have all your League clubs watching, and you could end up at Manchester United or Liverpool.” And I truly thought that he would have done, because his ability was unbelievable, but his attitude was disgraceful.

I did regret resigning, especially when I thought of what I could have done with a bit more money. Don did well, they won the Combination. No-one really knows why Don was sacked, we were top of the League so that was shocking. They put Dave Baron in charge, and we knew he would do well because he had a lot of experience as a player and was a strong personality. I helped him out with a couple of players. Don was paying one player out of his own pocket.

[Redraine]

Good stuff. Thanks, Phil.

[Shurm]

Managed the Reserves when I played for them, really good bloke he once kept telling me to switch wings against Atherton LR and I told him to where to go hahaha he subbed me straight away and said I'd never play again. I had to apologise which I did but a lovely bloke RIP.

[Wynonie Harris]

Interesting recollections from Jimmy. Cheers, Phil!

[yonmon]

Thanks Phil, your recollections have not only provided some insight into the skills and personality of Jimmy for those who never saw his style of play and management but also act as a fitting tribute on behalf of those on our forum who were there to share in the pleasure which he and the teams which he trained and selected gave to the fans in those special times for our Club.

[choirboy]

Thanks Phil....
Some great memories of Jimmy and the vital and important role that he played in the transition of the "Owd Stanley" into the new Accy Stanley in the sixties and seventies.