Jimmy Blain
British association football player (born 1940)
James Donald Blain (born 9 April 1940) is an English professional footballer who made 501 appearances in the Football League playing as a left back or inside forward for Southport, Rotherham United, Carlisle United and Exeter City. Blain was born in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, and began his career as a youngster with Everton, but never played for their first team. After retiring from football he remained in the Exeter area and worked as a carpet fitter.
Blain was a schoolmate of John Lennon, Jimmy Tarbuck and Peter Sissons at Dovedale Primary School.
The public source identifies “Jimmy Blain” as british association football player (born 1940). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jimmy, Blain and British.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Jimmy Blain”, the useful work is to connect “british association football player (born 1940)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q64748326. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Jimmy Blain”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Jimmy Blain primary sources, Jimmy Blain archive and Jimmy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Jimmy Blain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.