Jimmy Gabriel

Dundee

Jimmy Gabriel first came to the attention of Dundee when he played at right-half for the Scotland under-15 schoolboys in an international at Dens Park. His talent shone through and Dundee manager Willie Thornton snapped him up after the game, despite interest from several other top clubs. He was initially loaned out to Dundee North End Juniors, but was recalled to Dens Park a year later. He made his debut for Dundee as a 17-year-old on 13 August 1958 in a 2–1 Scottish League Cup victory over Motherwell. He was to remain a first team regular at Dundee, going on to make 67 appearances. In March 1960, Bob Shankly had taken over as manager at Dundee and, although he wanted to keep Gabriel, was unable to refuse the offer of £27,000 from Everton's manager, Johnny Carey. This made Jimmy the most expensive player to leave Scotland.

Everton

Gabriel joined Everton after three years at Dundee in March 1960. He played 304 games for Everton, scoring 37 goals and won two Scottish caps. At Everton he won the First Division title in 1962-63 and the FA Cup in 1966. By 1967, he was being challenged for his place in the side by Alan Ball and the emerging Howard Kendall. Southampton's manager Ted Bates tried to sign him initially in March 1967 but Gabriel was reluctant to move South. Eventually, when it was clear that Kendall was to be first-choice, Gabriel agreed to sign for the Saints in July, joining them for a fee of £42,500.

Southampton

At Southampton,…

Seattle Sounders and San Jose Earthquakes

Prior to becoming head coach of the Sounders, Gabriel had acted as an assistant coach and head of the Sounders' reserve team program. When he became head coach he had several Sounder legends including Mike England, Geoff Hurst and Bobby Moore on his team. Under his guidance, Seattle made it to the championship game only to fall to the hated New York Cosmos. He was unable to replicate his first year success and in 1980, the Sounders replaced him with Alan Hinton. In 1980 he was contracted to coach ASL expansion team the Phoenix Fire, but the team folded in pre-season. Gabriel then went on to coach George Best and the San Jose Earthquakes (NASL) from 1980 to 1982 for one outdoor season and two indoor seasons. During the 1981–82 indoor season he appeared in a handful of indoor matches for San Jose.

AFC Bournemouth and Everton

On returning to Britain in 1986, he spent four years as coach of Bournemouth, before going back to Goodison Park in 1990, where he became assistant to Colin Harvey at Everton. He was briefly caretaker manager of Everton for one game in November 1990 and for seven games between December 1993 and January 1994. According to Yahoo! Sports Gabriel's points per game average of 0.14 from his seven games makes him statistically the least successful manager of the Premier League era with one point from a possible 21 gained. He continued coaching Everton's reserves until 1997.

Back to Seattle…

Player

Everton

Football League First Division: 1962–63 FA Cup: 1965–66 FA Charity Shield: 1963

Manager

Seattle Sounders

NASL Championship runner-up: 1977 NASL Pacific Conference Championship: 1977 NASL PC Western Division: 1977