Garvey Jim Image 1 Leicester City 1947

Description

Motherwell, Lanarkshire born left half Jim Garvey began his football career with Corby Town and spent 1937-38 on the books of Queen’s Park Rangers without making their first eleven. He played for Stewart & Lloyds in 1938 before joining Third Division (South) club Northampton Town in May 1939, for whom he made his Football League debut in a defeat to Exeter City in August 1939. A week later the 1939-40 football season was abandoned as the Second World War broke out, and Garvey lost seven years of his playing career to the War.

After the War he joined Second Division club Leicester City in June 1946 and played three matches a season, sometimes at inside left, during their first two post-war seasons. He started 1948-49 in the first team and made 6 appearances before losing his place in the first team, returning to the reserves. That season Leicester City reached the FA Cup Final and Garvey had made 3 further first team appearances before being selected for Leicester’s final and most important match of the season.

Not the Cup Final, which had been lost 3-1 to Wolverhampton Wanderers a week earlier at Wembley, but in a match at Ninian Park against Cardiff City, where they needed a point to avoid relegation to the Third Division. In Garvey’s last match of 16 for The Foxes they duly secured a 1-1 draw to maintain their Second Division status. Garvey was released in 1950, joining non league Corby Town, and he moved to Hinkley Athletic in 1955, his final club before his retirement.