Jimmy Wray, who had Football League experience, signed for Exeter City from Chorley in 1923 but did not make a first-team appearance. He remained in Devon for the rest of his life until his death in 1963.

From Didsbury in Manchester, and son of a chimney sweep, he is likely to have worked as a solicitors’ clerk on leaving school alongside playing at centre-forward for Norman Athletic, a club which he helped to great success in Manchester football.

On the outbreak of war in 1914, he served in the Royal Flying Corps as a  motorcycle dispatch rider and signed forms with Bolton Wanderers before appearing for Manchester City during the latter stages of the war. He then moved to Reading in 1919 remaining with the club for two years as, in common with Exeter City, it transferred from the Southern League to the Football League.

Jimmy returned to Lancashire to join Southport for the debut season of Division Three (North) in 1921/22 but, after a disappointing season, switched to Chorley of the Lancashire Combination where his progress was hampered by serious illness.  

Now aged twenty-nine, he was given another chance in the professional game by Exeter City in advance of the 1923/24 season. Making an immediate impression, he scored twice in each of the pre-season practice games but, in those days before substitutes when opportunities were especially limited for forwards, was unable to dislodge either Harold Kirk or Jack Davis from the first-team. Still managing to finish as top scorer for the reserves in a strong Southern League he moved on to Ottery St Mary and Chard Town before having to give up football with the advent of Parkinson’s Disease in his early thirties.

Settling in Sidmouth, he became a market gardener and greengrocer before his illness worsened in his sixties leading to a loss of sight and a sustained period of hospitalisation before his death in East Devon aged sixty-nine in 1963.