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Catching up with Jimmy Hibburt: Ruddock cycling in a sauna, a naked Lombardo and death threats in Turkey

Jimmy Hibburt is a former Crystal Palace footballer with a one-sentence Wikipedia page, which meant that when CPFC caught up with the former Eagle, we were armed with nothing but a few comments from a recent interview with his former teammate, David Woozley.

To quote Woozley: “At youth level, Jimmy Hibburt was captain of the England Schoolboys at Under-15 and he was the outstanding player. But for whatever reason, injuries or just growing up, it never panned out.”

Such was Hibburt’s gregarious nature, however, that quote was all we needed and the memories, stories and love for the club came pouring out:

“Everything peaked quite early for me; I was built like a man when I was relatively young, around 13 or 14, and I got into the England U15s/16s schoolboys’ side as captain – in fact Michael Owen was my roommate during that time.