Whilst was clearly some player it is unfortunate that the first part of his playing career overlapped with that of the last part of Alan Morton's at Rangers, thirty-one caps over twelve years to 1932, and the rest with that of Dally Duncan at Derby, fourteen over five. And it was probably equally so in the main for the Sunderland team, all the time under Cochrane and of which for seven seasons before injury Connor was such an integral part. Despite him It remained resolutely mid-table that is except for three consecutive seasons. In 1933-34 it was sixth, in 1934-5 second and in 1935-36 League Champion. 

After his 1937 injury, aged twenty-eight, Jimmy would be able to recover but he then struggled to get back into the team. It lead to a decision in 1939 at only thirty to take retirement and return to working at what he had been originally trained, a joiner. By then he had married; in 1937 in Sunderland. Hs wife was local-girl Edna Hudson and the following year they were to have one son. 

And at that they would live their lives out on Wearside. Edna Connor would die there in 1961 at the age of just forty-five. Jimmy would outlive her by almost two decades passing away still in the city in 1980, four weeks before his seventy-first birthday.