Jim Baxter - Personal Life and Retirement

Personal Life and Retirement

After moving to Rangers, Baxter became a notorious womaniser. In his words, "One day, I was a Raith Rovers player who couldnae pull the birds at the Cowdenbeath Palais. The next day I was in Glasgow and the girls were throwing themselves at me. It was certainly a change and I wasn't letting it go by." However in 1965 he married Jean Ferguson, a hairdresser, and the couple brought up two sons Alan and Steven. His marriage to Jean broke down in 1981 and the two divorced. Jean married golfer William McCondichie three years later. In 1983 Baxter formed a relationship with Norma Morton, and the couple remained together until his death in 2001.

Baxter was free of the sectarianism that marked the rivalry between Glasgow's two leading teams. His close friends included the Celtic players Billy McNeill, Pat Crerand and Mike Jackson, in defiance of the unwritten rule that rivals did not associate.

Like some other British football stars of the late 20th century, Baxter drank to excess, and at one point was said to be consuming three bottles of Bacardi a day. Scotland team-mate Dave Mackay unsuccessfully advised him to train harder and live more sensibly. Baxter often got falling-down drunk the night before a match, but this did not seem to hamper his play, and team managers took little notice of his drinking. After retiring from football Baxter became a pub licensee, an unsuitable career for a problem drinker. At the age of 55 he needed two liver transplants in four days, and promised to quit drinking.

His other lifelong addiction was gambling, at which he lost £500,000 by his own estimate and £250,000 by third-party estimates. Later in his life, when asked if earning the huge incomes of footballers in later decades would have made a difference, he replied, "Aye, I would have gambled £50,000 a week on the horses instead of £100."

In February 2001, Baxter was diagnosed as suffering from cancer of the pancreas, and he died at his home on Glasgow's South Side on 14 April 2001, with his partner Norma and his sons Alan and Steven at his bedside. His funeral was held in Glasgow Cathedral, where a reading was given by Gordon Brown, a long-time fan of Raith Rovers F.C., where Baxter began his career.