Time doesn't stand still does it? One minute you've signed a lad on loan from Norwich, Simon Grayson is your manager, you're trying to work out what this 'Simon Sadler' character is all about and the next, everything and nothing has changed, except your waving off James Husband from Blackpool North station, flapping your handkerchief, bravely trying to keep your emotions in check, but as the train pulls away and you catch sight of one last cheeky grin from the formally top-knotted football god (the Blackpool Baresi), you have to wipe away a bit of grit from your eye.
Let me be clear from the outset - fuck the doubters, I properly adored James Husband. From pretty much the moment he turned up as a short cropped youthful physical wingback type to the moment he left as a senior player who you could almost literally hear creaking as he played, I appreciated what he brought to us.
He came to fill a gap on the left and in Simon Grayson's wonky one lopsided set up, seemed to run the entire flank, because he had the legs to do that and no one else we tried did. Under Critchley, he was in and out, a bit part at times, a solid left back, initially a liability as a centre back but eventually a play off hero in that role. Maybe his best position was where he ended up playing in the last few months, stepping out of the left side of defence, prompting things, maybe it was left back where, in our decent Championship season, he put up some actually sensational numbers for a player who many considered a bit above his level.
It's hard to write a 'best bits' montage of a player who will probably be remembered as 'a good servant' as opposed to yer magic men who went on to greater things - but no Jerry Yates, no Wes Hoolahan, no Charlie Adam, no Josh Bowler could ever have made the tackle that I've never seen bettered in the flesh, robbing Dominic Solanki of a hat trick goal that would have put us 3-0 down away at Bournemouth in a game we eventually not only salvaged a draw but could have won. He just didn't give up, from what seemed like miles away, he threw himself full length, somehow nipping the ball off the lad's toes in what seemed an impossible feat of athleticism and split second timing and that moment inspired a change in the entire game.
Under Critchley 2.0 (safety enhanced edition), away at Oxford in a drab, drab, drab performance, Pool frustrate. Sideways and backwards, everywhere we go and Super Jimbo is the only one driving us forward, running out of defence, only to find the rest of the team recycling the ball and eventually it coming back to him to do it again. He sticks at it. He doesn't give up. He never gives up. The minutes tick away and there, surging forward, his lurching gait, running, as always in the latter part of his Pool career, as if he's carrying three different injuries, but leaping like a salmon at the back post, nodding it across and there is the fucking goal! He doesn't score it because Jimmy almost never takes centre stage, he just does his job and someone else gets the plaudits, the adoration, the moment of running away arms aloft.
We're playing PNE - I can't remember if it's the Appleton 4-2 or the Critchley 2-0 but anyway, we've scored and the world is going mental and everyone is upside down in the stands and the world is vibrating to the particular light wave of tangerine - no one is calm. Except for Jimmy, who just saunters calmly past the Preston fans and gives them a little 'shush' with the most impish grin you could imagine.
Away at Huddersfield this year - Jimmy is back in the side and he just runs the game, we've got a makeshift defence but he's taking the ball, he's pointing he's tidying up, he's calming things down, he's speeding things up when they need it. He's falling over at just the right time shielding the ball - he knows exactly what to do - the little nudge, the little lean in, the nipping at the forward and then the confrontation and the butter wouldn't melt in my mouth look as he walks away, as if aghast that anyone would get so wound up by a football match.
Jimmy Husband, bastard, sneaky purveyor of shithousery. The kind of player you hate when they're not yours.
It's a beautiful thing when they are though.
A man who lost a bet to Gary Madine and played a game with cornrows. A man with an evident dry wit and well spoken football intelligence. A player who, by all accounts was generous with his time for others and looked after younger players and helped with and encouraged their development. A man with a singular dress sense. A man who played a starring role in the single greatest piece of football media ever created by anyone ever and whose 'looking in a box' face was a thing of untrammeled joy and wonder. Husband gave the sense that he'd be good to have a chat with over a pint - a vibe that isn't always common amongst modern footballers.
His tired looking heavy legged overlaps could often show a more fleet footed winger how to put cross in when you get the chance. His vision at the back was deeply underrated. Jimmy can put his foot through it for sure, but he can also pass a football. He was never the biggest or strongest defender, but the amount of times he won a ball in the air, stretching every sinew, head tilted back, falling away and just getting the top of his head to it to send it out of the path of an incoming forward, I couldn't say - it was many. Watching him shadow and then snap into a player coming at him was a joy, he was very, very good at not getting run past by a man with the ball.
I'd love to spend a few hours trawling data, trying to prove that left wingers played better when Jimmy played left back. I haven't got a few hours to spend, but it felt that way to me. A natural talker on the pitch, someone like CJ always seemed a better player with Husband prompting him. Even early in his Pool days, when he moved inside, the left wing back seemed to play well. A future in coaching surely awaits. The man can read a football match.
Yeah, he fucked up sometimes, but I'm not some dickhead on Twitter supporting a team in another country and having a meltdown for likes if a player's passing stats drop below 99%. I'm an actual football fan who supports an actual football team and goes to actual games and what I know from being an actual real life person is that I fuck up sometimes and therefore, actual footballers in actual games will do that too because like me, they're people and people are flawed.
Remember the time he got sent off under Critch and then when he came back from suspension got sent off for exactly the same thing about 5 minutes into his first game back? I've never literally done that, but I've definitely metaphorically done that because fuck me, life, is basically making the same mistakes over and over and trying to crack on with it and get through the shame and self doubt and frustration at your own limitations, stupidity and foolishness. I once ran down my car battery by leaving my lights on twice in the same week. It's basically the same thing isn't it?
I mean, no, I've never literally chucked a full length aerial foot first spear tackle at someone for absolutely no explicable reason in a south east seaside town but metaphorically I have....
Ok, I'm not sure actually on that one...
I probably shouldn't focus on his red cards but it's impossible to think of a Jimmy Husband montage that doesn't include him trudging off the pitch, his head hung low, as tired and fed up looking as a put upon donkey making their way home from the beach. I mean, people (and that includes Ian 'emotional intelligence is my calling card' Evatt) piled into him for getting sent off this year, but really, he got sent off for a good tackle (in an absolute disgraceful decision at Port Vale that should see the referee struck off and the PGMOL disbanded, then sent to live in exile on an unpleasantly humid island with lots of biting flies and limited clean water) and whilst his second one wasn't ideal, he'd just ridden a potentially leg breaking tackle and had a bloke sat on him. I imagine if someone tried to break my leg, then sat on me I could lash out, you could lash out. Ian 'I describe myself as a weaver of DNA' Evatt certainly could lash out.
Maybe Ian 'leadership and development conference' Evatt was right to dress him down and lay down a marker and clearly, Evo knows defending and defenders and maybe, just maybe, Hubby has run his race in tangerine - but I'm glad Hubby got back in after that, I'm glad he played well for us again. I'm glad he played his part in keeping us up. I wouldn't have wanted him to go out on that note because he'd given too much and been too much for us for that to be his last act. He celebrated our survival with relish, like it meant something and that's all you can really ask of a player - to actually show a bit of soul and fight and he certainly did.
I'll miss him a lot. He's been a constant and he's a character - but I also think, a quality footballer, a player who, like all of my favourite players made the best of his attributes and played a game that was distinctly his. Is he the best left back I've ever seen play football? Perhaps not quite. Is he probably my favourite left back? I think so.
Super Jimbo, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Go well.
You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.
Yeah, he fucked up sometimes, but I'm not some dickhead on Twitter supporting a team in another country and having a meltdown for likes if a player's passing stats drop below 99%. I'm an actual football fan who supports an actual football team and goes to actual games and what I know from being an actual real life person is that I fuck up sometimes and therefore, actual footballers in actual games will do that too because like me, they're people and people are flawed.
Remember the time he got sent off under Critch and then when he came back from suspension got sent off for exactly the same thing about 5 minutes into his first game back? I've never literally done that, but I've definitely metaphorically done that because fuck me, life, is basically making the same mistakes over and over and trying to crack on with it and get through the shame and self doubt and frustration at your own limitations, stupidity and foolishness. I once ran down my car battery by leaving my lights on twice in the same week. It's basically the same thing isn't it?
I mean, no, I've never literally chucked a full length aerial foot first spear tackle at someone for absolutely no explicable reason in a south east seaside town but metaphorically I have....
Ok, I'm not sure actually on that one...
I probably shouldn't focus on his red cards but it's impossible to think of a Jimmy Husband montage that doesn't include him trudging off the pitch, his head hung low, as tired and fed up looking as a put upon donkey making their way home from the beach. I mean, people (and that includes Ian 'emotional intelligence is my calling card' Evatt) piled into him for getting sent off this year, but really, he got sent off for a good tackle (in an absolute disgraceful decision at Port Vale that should see the referee struck off and the PGMOL disbanded, then sent to live in exile on an unpleasantly humid island with lots of biting flies and limited clean water) and whilst his second one wasn't ideal, he'd just ridden a potentially leg breaking tackle and had a bloke sat on him. I imagine if someone tried to break my leg, then sat on me I could lash out, you could lash out. Ian 'I describe myself as a weaver of DNA' Evatt certainly could lash out.
Maybe Ian 'leadership and development conference' Evatt was right to dress him down and lay down a marker and clearly, Evo knows defending and defenders and maybe, just maybe, Hubby has run his race in tangerine - but I'm glad Hubby got back in after that, I'm glad he played well for us again. I'm glad he played his part in keeping us up. I wouldn't have wanted him to go out on that note because he'd given too much and been too much for us for that to be his last act. He celebrated our survival with relish, like it meant something and that's all you can really ask of a player - to actually show a bit of soul and fight and he certainly did.
I'll miss him a lot. He's been a constant and he's a character - but I also think, a quality footballer, a player who, like all of my favourite players made the best of his attributes and played a game that was distinctly his. Is he the best left back I've ever seen play football? Perhaps not quite. Is he probably my favourite left back? I think so.
Super Jimbo, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Go well.
You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.
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