Joe Baker
Hibernian legend Joe Baker burst onto the scene with dynamic impact. Signing for Hibs from Armadale Thistle in 1956, Baker made his first team debut in a League Cup game against Airdrie at Broomfield in August 1957 after just six games for the reserves. His enthusiastic, exciting style of play and electric pace, allied to his film star looks, made Baker an instant hero with the Hibs fans. His explosive arrival was a timely boost for the Hibernian support who were faced with the impending premature retiral of the legendary Lawrie Reilly at the end of the season.
Scoring his first goals for the club against Queens Park a few weeks later, he ended his first season with a more than credible 29 goals, and by the age of 21 had scored over 100 goals for the club. In his two spells at Easter Road Joe scored an incredible 169 times in just 190 games, including five against Third Lanark, four against Airdrie and nine in a 15-1 Scottish Cup demolition of PeeblesRovers in 1961, but he is perhaps best remembered for scoring all four Hibernian goals in the famous 4-3 Scottish Cup defeat of pre-match favourites Hearts in March 1958. His most prolific period came in the 1959-60 season when, with the assistance of the recently returned Bobby Johnstone, Baker scored a total of 42 league goals, a club record which stands to this day and is unlikely to be broken.
Although he spent the first few months of his life in Liverpool, Baker was Scottish in all but birth. In 1959 he made football history when he won his first England cap against Ireland, becoming the first player outside the Football League to be capped at full international level by England. In total Baker made eight full appearances for England in addition to six Under-23 appearances. Having been capped for the Scottish Schoolboys against England in 1955, Baker recorded a unique double for the time when, in April 1960, he won a full England cap playing against Scotland at Hampden.
By this time Baker had become the most sought-after player in the country and soon after scoring in both legs of the famous Fairs Cup victory over Barcelona in season 1960-61, the Hibernian board of directors bowed to the inevitable and sold their star player to Torino for £65,000 - an incredible figure for the time.
However Baker’s stay in Italy was far from happy, and at the start of season 1962-63 he was transferred to Arsenal, renewing his partnership with former Hibernian player Johnny MacLeod. At Highbury he won another three full caps and featured in the original pool of 40 players selected for England’s 1966 World Cup squad, but narrowly missed out when the squad was trimmed to the final 22.
Moving on to Nottingham Forest in 1965, after which a short spell at Sunderland followed, Baker returned to his first love, Hibernian, in January 1971, scoring on his debut against Eddie Turnbull’s Aberdeen as Hibs ended the Grampian side’s record of not conceding a goal during the previous twelve games. Regrettably, a bad injury curtailed his second period at Easter Road and he retired from the top class game in 1974 after two seasons with Raith Rovers.
Latterly a match day hospitality host at Easter Road, Joe Baker was an extremely popular figure with the fans, many of them not even born when he was setting the goal scoring records alight during his first spell with the club.
Sadly, Joe died in 2003 but he will never be forgotten by those who were fortunate enough to have seen him in action.
A portrait of Joe, commissioned by the Trust, can be viewed in the HHT Gallery.