Motor Neurone Disease and Death
Johnstone was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in November 2001. To raise funds for charity and to raise awareness of the disease, he launched a new version of the song "Dirty Old Town" together with Jim Kerr of Simple Minds.
Johnstone died in March 2006. The last person to call him was old Rangers rival, Willie Henderson, who had become a firm friend of Johnstone. Thousands of Celtic fans, and fans of many other clubs, including those of arch-rivals Rangers paid tribute to his memory outside Celtic Park on St Patrick's Day, the day of his funeral service. Tributes were paid to Johnstone before the 2006 Scottish League Cup Final, played between Celtic and Dunfermline. There was a minute of applause before the game and the entire Celtic squad wore the number 7 on their shorts in his honour.
In 2011 a statue of Jimmy Johnstone and a memorial garden were created on the site at his former school, close to his home, on the Old Edinburgh Road, Viewpark, Uddingston. The garden was opened by Jimmy Johnstone's wife, family and some of the surviving members of the 'Lisbon Lions' team. The bronze life size statue was made by sculptor John McKenna.
Read more about this topic: Jimmy Johnstone
Famous quotes containing the words motor, disease and/or death:
“This biplane is the shape of human flight.
Its name might better be First Motor Kite.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.
I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:
We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter—
Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,
Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
For the same beauty doth, in bloody leaves.
The sentence of thy early death contain.”
—Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666)