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Jim was only at Watford for a short time but he really enjoyed everything that went on there. He loved his initiation, where he had to learn and perform Gangsta’s Paradise in front of the whole squad. He approached that in his usual fashion: he worked really hard to get it right but he had a lot of fun with it. He loved everything about Watford and he was really excited to get started there. He picked up a little injury in a pre-season game, which annoyed him, but he couldn’t wait to be fit again so he could get going and show everyone what he could do. Back at United, the squad at that time was so hard to get into, with so much competition in every position, that realistically we’ve no idea what Jim’s next step would have been in his career after Watford.
The tragedy is that we’ll never know.
On 8 August, 2003, Jimmy was at his hotel in Watford the night before the first game of the season. He knew he wouldn’t be playing, so he decided to come home to Redditch for the night with the plan of getting up early and heading back to Vicarage Road so he could have some physio and be at the game. He was due to drive back early with his mate Tim. So he came back, he and Tim went out into town and he got a taxi home in the early hours.
I heard him come in. I was only half-asleep because, when you’ve got kids, you’re never really asleep when they’re out, are you? Jim would often clamber onto Ry’s bed and give him a cuddle while he was asleep, so I heard him do that and I went to sleep.
When I got up the next morning, Jim’s shoes were in the hall, which struck me as strange. They were the shoes he was supposed to be wearing to the game. So I tried phoning him. No answer. I kept trying him but couldn’t get in touch.
Then, later that morning, when the news was announced that the Watford game was cancelled, I knew something was wrong. I phoned the police station in Watford and they couldn’t tell me anything. I just kept saying to them that I had an awful feeling because I couldn’t get in touch with Jim.
Not long afterwards, the police turned up at our door and that was it. The awful news. Jimmy had set off for Watford in the early hours, crashed his car and died.
I just lost it. I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t process what it meant.
Our Jim was gone.
You wouldn’t wish that feeling on your worst enemy, let me tell you. It’s always so sad and horrendous to lose anybody you love, but the way we lost Jim and the impact it had on those of us who were left behind… it was just heartbreaking.
Because of the circumstances, because he had alcohol in his system, some journalists wrote some really crappy things about Jimmy at the start. I could have punched some of them for what they wrote. Jim would go and have a bevvy with the lads at the right time, but that was it. That was one of the hardest aspects of the whole thing, for me. As far as we’re concerned and as far as any of us can tell, Jim made one mistake and paid for it with his life. It just wasn’t him. I didn’t get it then and I still don’t get it. None of us do. We’ll never, ever understand.
Aside from those few journalists, the reaction we got from people was absolutely lovely. The house was full of flowers, the garden was full of flowers. The cards, I’ve never, ever seen anything like it. Hundreds of them. I didn’t open them for a while but everybody was so lovely.
Sir Alex came to the house with Les Kershaw to pay his respects. My mom reacted like Frank Sinatra had walked in – he must have been offered 10 cups of tea while he was here – and United brought the entire first-team squad to the funeral. David Beckham had just left for Real Madrid, but he came back specially. Honestly, if you’d met Jim, he touched your heart.
The funeral was chaotic. People everywhere. You couldn’t get anybody close. I vaguely remember there being lots of people on the grass verges on the way in. On the traffic islands on the way in, there were lots of United supporters. There were hundreds of people outside the venue. Inside there were the players from United, Watford and Swindon, his family and closest friends. Everybody else was outside. They put speakers outside so that people could hear what was happening inside.
We were all brightly dressed. There was no way our Jim would have wanted us all turning up in black. A lot of people wore football shirts. Kate wore a pink suit, I was in pale blue. We all tried to make it as colourful as we could.
My brother, Michael – who had driven past the scene of the accident shortly after it happened without knowing it was Jimmy’s car – read a passage from the Bible which, for years, he had always said was Jim’s verse: Isaiah 40:29-31.
It goes: “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Young men stumble and fall. I’ve got that passage on the kitchen wall.
Jim’s friend Tim spoke about him as a footballer and a mate. His girlfriend Melissa wrote something about how she found being in a relationship with him. And Kate, she was so brave. She wrote a tribute to her brother. It wasn’t a full eulogy because it was too hard to do that for somebody dying that young; where do you start when there isn’t an end? She just wrote about what he did as a brother and how grateful she was to have had him.
I loved their relationship. Jim and Kate both loved their music and dancing. Garage, R&B, they were mad for it. Back then he always had the latest CDs and he and Kate would nick them off each other. He’d be halfway home, pull over and ring Kate and yell: “Have you had that CD out of the case?” One time Kate had just bought a Wayne Wonder CD and noticed it was missing on the same day Jim had gone back to Manchester. She rang him up. He answered but didn’t speak; he just played the song really loud down the phone because he knew what she was calling about. We played that song at his funeral. Kate put a load of empty CD sleeves in his coffin with him because that was their little joke with one another.
The way everything was handled was fantastic. On the day, with such great turnouts from United, Swindon and Watford, it was so respectful. Sir Alex and Jim’s other managers, Andy King from Swindon and Ray Lewington from Watford, were all so lovely. We couldn’t ask for any more from anyone.
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