The story behind Exeter’s nine-fingered photo tradition

You have probably never noticed it, but Exeter’s star players have been paying tribute to one of the club’s former players every year for the past two decades.

Look carefully at the annual team photo of the Chiefs and you will see the ‘Jimmy Nine’.

“I was playing down at Penzance, three or four days before Christmas, and I broke my finger badly,” explains the man whom the salute is named after, Jimmy Tucker.

“Being hard as nails, I didn’t actually realise I did it, played all the match, but fast forward a few months and it turned out it was broken in six places so I took the decision to have it amputated.”

The genial back spent much of his career at Launceston – where he suffered his injury – before a short stint at Exeter from 2003 where the lack of a top half to his left ring finger became the stuff of legend.

“I thought it was a tradition that was from many moons before his age,” says current Exeter club captain Jack Yeandle, who has done the ‘Jimmy Nine’ many times.

“It’s been going since I was at the club.

“It’s been pushed through by the senior players at the time – we’re in the front row and there’s always a mention of Jimmy Nine and ‘make sure you get Jimmy Nine in’. As soon as you start getting towards the front row you’re making sure you do it.

“I’m making sure everyone does it today,” adds Yeandle ahead of the 2025-26 photo.

“It’s an important thing that’s been going on, and if I ever meet the guy I’ve got to make sure I give him a high four-and-a-half.

“It’s just a bit of fun, a bit of a laugh, and it’s good to see the tradition still going.”

Tucker, now 55, is something of a legend of Cornish rugby.

He played more than 350 games for Launceston over 13 years before an 18-month spell at Exeter that saw him score two tries in 29 games.

He played 50 times for the Cornish county side, helping them reach back-to-back County Championship finals at Twickenham in 1998 and 1999, scoring a try in the latter as the rugby-mad Duchy beat Gloucestershire 25-15 to win a third county title.

“Initially the guys at Exeter didn’t pick up on the fact and I didn’t make a big thing of it because I just was trying to focus on playing a bit of rugby,” Tucker says about his missing digit.

“But as with all rugby teams you have a bit of a social afterward, the odd drinking game happens and one fella who was the MC of the game referred to me as Jimmy Nine, and it seemed to have stuck ever since then.

“I scored a couple of tries at Exeter, on the first one I turned around and a big thing up there then was to acknowledge the try, celebrate the try.

“I turned around to see all my team-mates running up, led by the late Dave Sims, coming up giving us the Jimmy Nine, which was very flattering.

“I’d left and a couple of the old team-mates of mine forwarded a photo back in probably 2006 or 2007 and they continue to do that to this day.

Now Exeter’s team manager, Tony Walker was a former teammate of Tucker’s back in the early 2000s, along with current Chiefs boss Rob Baxter.

He is happy to see the tradition that celebrates his old friend continue – even if most of those doing it nowadays have little idea of where it originated.

“It’s been 20 years since the Nine sacrificed his finger for the boys,” he says.

“I know that sounds a little bit funny, but if you actually get the true story out of Jimmy it’s a bit of like ‘really?’ and yes it did happen and obviously he’s got the half finger to prove it.”

And as someone who remembers the original Jimmy Nine, Walker is glad that the tradition lives in, even if the origins may be lost in time by those who do it now.

“One thing I like about it is that the past is always remembered, and I think that’s a massive thing within a club,” he says.

“This is a little bit of the past that we always remember every team photo year, and I suppose when some people move on, the big thing is to make sure it’s handed on.

“So the young fellas have sort of got their first taste of it today and asking the question about why only nine fingers? Well, there we go. If you ever get to the bar and meet Jimmy Nine, have a pasty with him, I’m sure you’ll get the full story and understand.”

With his rugby career behind him, Tucker spends his time working on his farm around Launceston.

But he says Exeter’s players might have had to change their pose had a recent accident had a different outcome.

“Eighteen months ago I had a run-in with a circular saw, and I thought I was hard, but I wasn’t that hard,” he says with a smile.

“I nearly lost my thumb.