JOIN US IN STIRLING FOR A NIGHT OF CELEBRATION FIND OUT MORE
Date: 5th September 2025
E for B and Jimmy Bone
For those of us of a certain vintage we will remember a national TV and cinema advertising campaign broadcast in the early 1970’s that had a wee jingle that was adopted by the Thistle young team of the day. The advert was trying to encourage the population to eat more eggs. The E for B was short for Eggs for Breakfast and…. ( you were meant to put in what you liked with the eggs – toast, tea or the like at the end of the jingle)
At Firhill at that time we had a young striker who had just come into the first team called Jimmy Bone and every time he scored a goal a fans chant reverberated around The Shed…. “E for B and Jimmy Bone” .
As a primary school kid who played centre forward for my school team I was captivated by this young, long haired, free scoring striker. He quickly became one of my favorites Jags and of course on 23rd October 1971 he wrote himself into Thistle folklore, forever and ever. I always sang along to “E for B and Jimmy Bone”, but like so many things to a 10 year old the song and hero worship were just features of a life of trying to get through rather taxing primary school lessons just waiting to get to the next game.
Like many of my heroes before Jimmy and many after they all disappeared to so called bigger clubs and I had to patiently await the next arrival.
Dozens of heroes had been and gone in the decades by the time I had moved to live near Stirling. In 2011 I led a successful campaign to take the Binos into community ownership which meant that I was in the very privileged position of running Stirling Albion as a fan owned club. Within weeks of being thrown the keys and being like a rabbit in the headlights, trying to figure how to run a then Championship club, my football life was to change with a simple knock on the door. In stepped Albion legend Alex Smith and his pal, a certain Jimmy Bone both offering to help me in any way they could. It was fun first meeting as I recalled the E for B chant and Jimmy said it was the first time that fans had ever shouted out his name so that chant would live with him forever.
Alex and Jimmy came to offer me support at a time when I really needed it and the club benefited from them nudging some SFA youth international games and SFA coaching courses in the direction of Forthbank. They helped in loads of ways over the next two years. It was an amazing experience to meet my hero and chat about his time at The Jags and if I had never seen Jimmy again it would have filed away as a great memory.
Little was I to know that this was just the start of what for me was a unique friendship. How privileged was I to get to know Jimmy over the next 15 years. He helped me get my coaching badges, the helped me when I set up the Scottish Football Supporters Association (because fans need a voice) and he helped me with every campaign activity that I was involved in.
His mantra was that we were both in a privileged position in football and it was essential that we give back to the game that we love. From a Thistle perspective that support came in 2019. With a group of like-minded Jags fans we set up Thistle For Ever, to grasp the Community Ownership mantle, Jimmy was there for us. He had seen what I did at Stirling Albion and the success at Hearts he felt it was his duty to help promote the Jags fans bid to own the club. It was brave given that the club owners at the time wanted to sell out to a US consortium and it might annoy them having a club legend wanting something else. But he was with me and the fans every difficult step of the way and we celebrated together when we finally had success.
My favourite and most unique experience I had with Jimmy was when I was approached to see if he could support the SFSA get someone over to Malawi to help with coaching education / development. I met Jimmy for a coffee to see if knew anyone who might be willing to volunteer for the work. Within half an hour we covered the very rough plan and Jimmy had volunteered himself for the task. He just loved Africa from his successful time with Power Dynamos in Zambia. Our trip to Malawi turned into the best football experience I will ever have. Two weeks away talking football morning, noon and night with someone who started as my hero and became my friend. In between times we were coaching teams, educating coaches and word soon got around that someone special was in town. At one session we travelled 5 hours on dusty bumpy roads to get to Blantyre to put on a session for 24 elite players.
Things just happen in Africa and we were not surprised that 50 players turned up for the exclusive invitation only trial event. Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and smiled and told me I was to be his official no 2 that day as some of these kids had walked for miles to impress us and we were not going to let them down by restricting the session to 24 players. We split the group into two and with my very basic Under 16’s coaching experience I just mirrored everything JB did on the other side of the park. It worked a treat and several of the players were selected to go to the Malawi U21 side. The impact was huge and through our contact Patricio we were invited to the equivalent of the Celtic v Rangers game and ended up presenting the man of the match award on the park after the game. So impressed were the Malawi FA with Jimmy that he was soon to be offered a position in coaching education in Malawi.
We had a zoom call at Stirling University on a day that Jimmy was working with the Scotland U17 team as the kit man ( just to keep busy) and we chatted with the Malawi football president. It was a serious offer and I think most of the kids in the under 17 squad would have been shocked that the kit man was up in a conference room being offered an International Management job. Sadly, local politics got in the way and my chance to be his no 2 in international football never materialised.
Those two weeks away with Jimmy made me think was that it would be a travesty if the stories Jimmy told were not captured for posterity. Ever the modest Jimmy had to be persuaded that his story really was special. Just over a year ago he agreed to do a book and Jimmy started relaying his story to a journalist, Ben Ramage .The book (working title Bone Idol ) is now in the early draft stage of editing. I do hope that sometime soon with his family’s permission we can get the book into print. I am sure that it will be a fitting tribute to the hero who became my friend. Thanks for everything Jimmy.
Paul Goodwin
Co Founder of the Scottish Football Association and pal of JB
Posted in: Fan's Blog, Latest News
Tags: JimmyBone, Partick Thistle