Despite warnings from Whitburn club official Bob Bawn that Jimmy wasn't ready for that level of football (he was only 17) he accepted a trial in a Sunderland Reserves North-Eastern League match against Darlington, playing in what was by now his less favoured position, centre-forward. Jimmy was slight of build, and clearly not target man material.
In the Jimmy Seed Story Jimmy admits 'Perhaps I should have taken Mr Bawn's advice. Since my schoolboy ambitions of being a centre-forward I had settled into my best position at inside-right. Yet I dare not let this chance slip, and so I accepted the trial. I went to the pit for my night shift and took a bath on arriving home in the morning. I then went to bed to try and snatch a few hours sleep before the game but, as you can guess, I hardly slept a wink. It was not to be a lucky day for me. I did nothing in the centre-forward position and realised after I dressed after the trial in readiness for another night shift that Sunderland would not be interested in me. I was in low spirits because I had come to loathe working in the pits, and success in football seemed my only escape. I had failed hopelessly. If only Sunderland had given me a chance at inside-right!'
'The giants of soccer came and went as week after week I went to Roker Park, but the man who held my attention longer than any among my schoolboy heroes was Charlie Buchan. His tricks and subtle moves impressed me so much that I would spend hours trying to copy him. I didn't wait until I arrived home. The lesson began as soon as I had turned down some side street to avoid the crowd. Then for two miles with the help of a small rubber ball I would attempt to reproduce the latest Buchan move.
Sunderland had some wonderful forwards in those days . . . Jacky Mordue, Charlie Buchan, Arthur Brown, George Holly and Arthur Bridgett. This formation was backed up by a splendid half-back line consisting of Frank Cuggy, Charlie Thomson and Harry Low. I have never seen the equal of the superb triangular play of Buchan, Mordue and Cuggy.'
A month of the most strenuous work I had ever endured followed. I thought it was hard enough down the mine, but this had been child's play compared with the physical exertion prior to the start of my first season as a professional footballer. I had to walk 2 and a half miles from Whitburn to the ground every day, and back again in the evening. Then came the usual training spell. Sometimes a walk to Whitburn and back was included in the training course. This I ducked because this route twice in one day was too much for me. I have told you I was only around 9 stone, and working down the pits isn't the best of training for an athlete, and although I hardened as the months went by I was often so fatigued at the end of the day that I had to seek a lift home to Whitburn.
¬
Sunderland AFC 1915: Roker Roar
'Half price for ladies', which would have pleased Jimmy's little sister Minnie, who was to become a munitionette footballer of some repute. Or perhaps Jimmy was able to get her in for free?
If the dream appeared over to Jimmy, others accepted defeat a little less easily.
A local councillor who had admired Jimmy's progress at Whitburn wrote to Sunderland asking that he be given a second chance, and fortunately Sunderland agreed, offering him another trial, this time at inside-right in a North-Eastern League match against Wallsend. A hattrick in Sunderland's seven goal thrashing of the side rooted at the bottom of the table showed how his luck had changed. As Jimmy put it;
'It's always results that count, and I was immediately invited to become a professional.
That night I went home with five golden sovereigns - I afterwards learned it should have been £10 - my signing on fee, together with League forms. My pit togs were spread out before the fire to air. But I did not go down the pit that night - or ever again. It was with joy I folded my miner's clothes for the last time. I was eighteen and a professional footballer. Life seemed good.'
Jimmy Seed signed those forms in April 1914, on summer wages of £1 a week, just enough for a young lad living at home with his parents to get by on.
Hugely relieved to quit the pits he can only have enjoyed his summer months playing cricket and tennis out in the fresh air, and perhaps enjoying the beautiful beaches of the north east.
Of course, quitting the mines to play for the team he'd supported as a boy was a big deal, especially as that side was arguably the biggest club in the land, being the reigning league champions with four previous titles to their name. The team included his footballing hero, the great Charlie Buchan.
'The giants of soccer came and went as week after week I went to Roker Park, but the man who held my attention longer than any among my schoolboy heroes was Charlie Buchan. His tricks and subtle moves impressed me so much that I would spend hours trying to copy him. I didn't wait until I arrived home. The lesson began as soon as I had turned down some side street to avoid the crowd. Then for two miles with the help of a small rubber ball I would attempt to reproduce the latest Buchan move. Sunderland had some wonderful forwards in those days . . . Jacky Mordue, Charlie Buchan, Arthur Brown, George Holly and Arthur Bridgett. This formation was backed up by a splendid half-back line consisting of Frank Cuggy, Charlie Thomson and Harry Low. I have never seen the equal of the superb triangular play of Buchan, Mordue and Cuggy.'
So it's no surprise that he was afflicted with first day nerves:
It was a big ordeal for me to report in August. I did not personally know any of the players who were my heroes and they certainly didn't know me. Would they accept me as one of them?
After all, Sunderland were the outstanding team of that time. The previous season they had come close to bringing off the elusive double. They had won the League Championship and had reached the Cup Final only to lose 0-1 to Aston Villa. Can you wonder that Seed, the 'unknown' eighteen-year-old lad from the pits, was scared stiff to face these giants as a new member of the club?
I was so shy that on the morning I was due to report I didn't enter the door marked 'Players and Officials Only'. Instead, I stood around watching the big names arrive one by one . . . Charlie Buchan, Charlie Thomson, Frank Cuggy, Jacky Mordue, George Holly, Harry Martin and the rest. Then at long last my opportunity came. Two chaps walked briskly to the players' entrance. They were Tommy Thompson who, like myself, had joined at the end of the previous season, and Tommy Wilson. Both were Seaham Harbour lads, so I presented myself and they took me in and introduced me to the regular first team. What a thrill it was to shake hands for the first time with so many men whom I had previously idolized from the terraces.
Of course, I began with the reserves—a thin, scraggy boy weighing little more than 9 stone. I'm not surprised that my colleagues smiled at the idea of my being the understudy to the great Buchan.
After all, Sunderland were the outstanding team of that time. The previous season they had come close to bringing off the elusive double. They had won the League Championship and had reached the Cup Final only to lose 0-1 to Aston Villa. Can you wonder that Seed, the 'unknown' eighteen-year-old lad from the pits, was scared stiff to face these giants as a new member of the club?
I was so shy that on the morning I was due to report I didn't enter the door marked 'Players and Officials Only'. Instead, I stood around watching the big names arrive one by one . . . Charlie Buchan, Charlie Thomson, Frank Cuggy, Jacky Mordue, George Holly, Harry Martin and the rest. Then at long last my opportunity came. Two chaps walked briskly to the players' entrance. They were Tommy Thompson who, like myself, had joined at the end of the previous season, and Tommy Wilson. Both were Seaham Harbour lads, so I presented myself and they took me in and introduced me to the regular first team. What a thrill it was to shake hands for the first time with so many men whom I had previously idolized from the terraces.
Of course, I began with the reserves—a thin, scraggy boy weighing little more than 9 stone. I'm not surprised that my colleagues smiled at the idea of my being the understudy to the great Buchan.
[Sunderland FC Squad 1914/15. JS Back row, second from the right]
A month of the most strenuous work I had ever endured followed. I thought it was hard enough down the mine, but this had been child's play compared with the physical exertion prior to the start of my first season as a professional footballer. I had to walk 2 and a half miles from Whitburn to the ground every day, and back again in the evening. Then came the usual training spell. Sometimes a walk to Whitburn and back was included in the training course. This I ducked because this route twice in one day was too much for me. I have told you I was only around 9 stone, and working down the pits isn't the best of training for an athlete, and although I hardened as the months went by I was often so fatigued at the end of the day that I had to seek a lift home to Whitburn.
In Jimmy's 1947 book 'Soccer From the Inside' he takes up the story:
My first month's training with Sunderland nearly finished me as a footballer. I have already told you I was a slim lad straight from the pits when I forsook coal-hewing for goal-scoring and as in my junior days I had never given much consideration to training of any sort, it is no wonder my limbs protested against the strain of the severe training programme which I was expected to carry out as a professional footballer.
I felt at one time during that initial month that I should never be able to stand up to it, but as my whole body slowly became attuned to the systematic exercise, the aches and pains faded, and not only did I quickly settle down to my new life, but I began to realise how very necessary to a footballer was a hundred per cent standard of fitness.
Certainly, it was a lucky day as far as my health was concerned when I took to this outdoor life. I developed physically beyond all belief in the years that followed.
His first appearance as a professional was for Sunderland's reserves against Darlington. Seeing Jimmy was nervous before the game, captain, Billy Cringan, the old Celtic and Scottish international half-back, took him to one side and wished him well saying, "Forget the crowd, concentrate on the ball, and if you see half a chance to score, have a pop." Jimmy scored twice in the first five minutes in a 3-3 draw, just the boost his confidence needed.
His first appearance as a professional was for Sunderland's reserves against Darlington. Seeing Jimmy was nervous before the game, captain, Billy Cringan, the old Celtic and Scottish international half-back, took him to one side and wished him well saying, "Forget the crowd, concentrate on the ball, and if you see half a chance to score, have a pop." Jimmy scored twice in the first five minutes in a 3-3 draw, just the boost his confidence needed.
[-JSS]
From then on the 1914/15 season went well, Jimmy scoring 18 goals while Sunderland won the Durham Senior Cup, earning Jimmy his first medal.
¬ Sunderland Reserves with the Durham Cup.
JS front row, second player from the left.
Below: A tougher looking Jimmy Seed aged 19
Events in Europe had been taking place that would ultimately result in the outbreak of WW1.And so the season ended and attention focussed for the military conflict that would engulf much of the world, as most of the Sunderland squad entered into the Army. Both Charlie Buchan and Bob Young went on to win the Military Medal. Perhaps the most tragic case for Sunderland AFC was the death of up and coming centre forward Sammy Hartnell, killed in action on 8th August 1918.
Sunderland AFC 1915: Roker Roar
From Sunderland Daily Echo
Friday Feb 1915:
'Half price for ladies', which would have pleased Jimmy's little sister Minnie, who was to become a munitionette footballer of some repute. Or perhaps Jimmy was able to get her in for free?
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