Jim Leighton Profile

Jim Leighton

Ja­mes Leigh­ton, born John­stone, Scot­land, Ju­ly 24, 1958. Jim Leigh­ton star­ted out wi­th Ab­er­deen where he won every do­mest­ic hon­our un­der Al­ex Fer­guson. Ar­gu­ably, the greatest achieve­ments of his ca­reer were the Euro­pean Cup Winner’s Cup tri­umph ag­ainst Re­al Mad­rid in May 1983, and the Su­per Cup win over Ham­burg in Nov­ember the same year. 

As things turned out, Jim Leigh­ton teamed up wi­th for­mer man­ager Al­ex Fer­guson at Man­chester Uni­ted in a £500,000 deal in the sum­mer of 1988. Al­though every­thing went fairly well for him in his fir­st sea­son, he ev­entually lost his fir­st te­am place to Les Sealy af­ter suf­fer­ing a huge crisis of con­fid­ence. Af­ter play­ing 73 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ga­mes for Man­chester Uni­ted, Leigh­ton fell out wi­th Fer­guson and was sub­sequently dis­patched to Dun­dee. Whi­le at Dens Park, he also had a rather brief loan spell wi­th Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue club Shef­field Uni­ted in 1993. The in­creas­ingly frus­trated shot stop­per fi­nally ma­naged to pick up his play­ing ca­reer at Hi­ber­ni­an where he ap­peared in 151 top-flight mat­ches be­fore he re­turned to for­mer club Ab­er­deen at the end of the 1996-97 cam­paign. Wi­th The Dons, the long serving stal­wart set the re­cord for the old­est play­er in the Scot­tish Pre­mier Lea­gue at 41 years and 302 days be­fore he an­nounced his re­tire­ment in 1999. Leigh­ton col­lec­ted an im­press­ive total of 91 full caps for his na­tive Scot­land and played in all of his country’s ga­mes at the 1986, 1990, and 1998 FIFA Wor­ld Cups. Jim Leigh­ton Play­ing Ca­reer: Ab­er­deen, De­ver­on­vale, Man­chester Uni­ted, Ar­senal, Read­ing, Dun­dee, Shef­field Uni­ted, Hi­ber­ni­an, Ab­er­deen. Man­aging Ca­reer: None.

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