Jimmy has appeared for Newcastle more times than any other player in their history and is surely their greatest ever goalkeeper. His consistency was legendary, much to the disappointment of several good 'keepers at Newcastle who could not get a game because of Jimmy.

In a team that was to be renowned throughout the country as the "Edwardian Masters" Jimmy won three League Championships, 1905, 1907 and 1909, and the FA Cup in 1910. He also appeared in an amazing four other FA Cup Finals, 1905, 1906, 1908,1910 and 1911. Being first choice 'keeper for 14 seasons it is surprising that he only ever got the one cap for Scotland (a 1-1 draw at Goodison Park, 01/04/1911). Making his last appearance for Newcastle in April 1922 (v Bradford City) Jimmy was 42 years old!

In 1924 Jimmy became manager of South Shields, but after only a few months he was persuaded to move to Preston North End. With the club undergoing a severe financial crisis at the time his first action was to sell the club's leading scorer, Tommy Roberts to Burnley. In the previous five seasons he had scored 118 goals in 199 games. To replace Roberts he brought in veteran the striker, Horace Barnes, from Manchester City. Barnes scored on his debut and went on to score six in his first 10 games and finished as the club's joint top scorer. Despite this however, Preston finished in 21st place in the league and were relegated to the Second Division. In 1925 Jimmy resigned as manager of Preston and moved to Germany where he managed Karlsruhe.

Jimmy was quite active in politics and along with his friend and team mate Colin Veitch, and Billy Meredith of Manchester City, played an important role in the growth of the Association Football Players Union (AFPU) which was the forerunner to the Professional Footballers Association (PFA). In 1921-22 he served as chairman of the AFPU.

Jimmy passed in November, 1934.