James "Jimmy" Nelson had been born in 1901, his father a Ship's Joiner, who clearly moved around for work. In 1905 the family were in Govan, in 1911 in North Belfast. And it was there with junior teams that he took his first steps into football before at eighteen spending two seasons at Crusaders, but still outwith the Irish League. It played in the Irish Intermediate League and it was from there in 1921, so aged twenty, that Nelson, signed for Cardiff City, about to be promoted from the  English second division and having just reached the semi-final of the FA Cup.

Jimmy Nelson was to remain at Cardiff for seven seasons. In that time he formed a tight full-back partnership with Lanarkshire's Jimmy Blair, won the Welsh Cup four times, the FA Cup in 1927 and four caps, always on the winning side. The initial international start was in 1925, incidentally against Wales, at Tynecastle, the first time he had ever played in Scotland. He also took the field that same year against Northern Ireland in Belfast, where a large part of his family still stayed. In 1930 he was to play against France on tour and, of course, he was the senior full-back partner in 1927 at Wembley. 

And, whilst at Cardiff he in 1926 also married a local girl, Doris Noon. They were to have two children, a daughter and a son, both born in Wale's capital. Indeed, their son, Tony, would be a Welsh amateur international before playing professionally, but not before football had taken them as a family elsewhere. When The Bluebirds had been relegated in 1929 Jimmy signed for Newcastle for five seasons from 1930, winning, he as captain, a second FA Cup in 1932. He had then at thirty-four stepped down to the Third Division South for four more campaigns at Southend United, remaining in the town during the War as a policeman and before running a pub there after it. Moreover, once back in Cardiff from 1949 Jimmy would continue in the hospitality trade until his death. He ran the Royal George and Wellington, both in Cardiff itself and, whilst he died in 1965 at sixty-four and in hospital, it was from the Plymouth Hotel in Penarth, survived by Doris by twelve years. She would pass away back in Cardiff in 1977, aged seventy-four.