Catch A Falling Star (10 page)

Just as my training routine became almost religious, so my match day routine took on a life of its own. I was up and about by 9am on a Saturday for home games, I’d have a spot of tea and toast, unwind with a brisk walk to try and take my mind off things but I’d end up thinking about what I’d like to happen during the match.

Then I’d come back
in,
watch a bit of Grandstand while eating a bit more toast and a packet of minestrone soup. I couldn’t eat much before a game, I’d be too nervous. Then I’d set off about
1pm
and drive down to the ground, going the same way every time. It was a superstitious thing but it made me comfortable.

Thinking back, our team talk on a Friday must have been the shortest on record. Joe used to pop his head around the door and just say: “Same again as last week, lads!” and that would be it. Maybe there’d be a little advice for Harry Dowd, to tell him what colour the opposition would be playing in but at this stage we were so confident that we didn’t need complicated instructions.

*

I don’t care what anybody says, nerves start to jangle before a match and everybody has different ways of overcoming this. In my mind, if you don’t have nerves before a game then you’re not going to play well.

About fifteen minutes prior to a game was the worst time: Ken
Mulhearn
or
Kossack
Ken, as we christened him, would be at the mirror, spraying on his
Kossack
hairspray. His hair would be spiky and rock hard – he was a good looking lad and from what I remember, a very big lad in every department, if you know what I mean!

When he first signed I went to pick him up at his house in
Cheadle
on his way to the ground for his debut. I went to the front door and his wife opened it and she just said: “Ken is in the living room feeding his pets.” I thought: “Okay, seems normal enough.”

As I strode in I remember thinking that we’d better get a move on because it was already
2pm
and we had to be at the ground by twenty past. So I sauntered into the living room and there was our new ‘keeper stark naked feeding his pet piranhas! He was lobbing these unfortunate angel fish into this massive tank one by one. “Stick your finger in
Youngy
,” Ken laughed. “Not bloody likely!” I replied. Still, Ken was a tremendous bloke with a great sense of humour – last I heard he was a landlord in
Shrewsbury
.

Picking up Ken was a break from my usual routine but it probably helped that we were running a bit late because there was nothing worse than that tense half hour before kick-off.

Back in our dressing room Tony Book would be getting a massage on his weary legs while Glyn
Pardoe
would sit very quietly in the corner. Of course, Doyley would be ranting and raving and Big George
Heslop
would be tanning his boots off and on, off and on, over and over again.
Oakey
would be oiling his massive thighs and
Summerbee
would be at his hyperactive best shouting and screaming and waving his arms everywhere. Belly would sit there as motionless as a ghost and Franny seemed to be the only one of us without any obvious nerves. He always seemed relaxed but he was probably masking the same nervousness as all of us with his laughing and joking.

There were some of us who couldn’t stand the tension and normally TC (Tony Coleman) and I would slip into the bathroom and have a quick cigarette like two naughty boys behind the bike sheds. If Harry Dowd was playing he would be in there as well throwing a ball to lessen the nerves. In a way it’s probably worse for a ‘keeper because he can’t run around so much to get rid of that nervous energy once he’s out there.

So this was the team and the personalities who would sweep all before them in the coming seasons – the best team in the league and
all the
world… as the song goes.

It was also around this time that I went to see Joe to get a better deal. Neil Young, the kid from next door, had been the leading scorer in our promotion bid in the second division. I was happy at City but I felt that at 24 I had already been a pro for seven years and deserved a rise. Let me tell you that
was
quite a long time for a player to be at one club. Signing for another three years would have taken me up to ten years’ service.

Yet, when I think back to when I signed that contract I should have asked Joe to put a clause in my contract for a Testimonial game at the end of my playing days at City. Well it’s easy to think of that with hindsight but that sort of thing was unheard of in my day.

I went to sign a new contract and I was very nervous because this was all new to me. Remember players didn’t have agents back in those days. I went down to Joe’s office and I didn’t really know what to say or what to ask for. Joe, in his polite manner, said: “You’re on £20 a week
now,
I’ll give you £45 a week!” I thought: “Bloody fantastic!” I leapt up and headed for the open door and he said: “Come back, I’ve not finished with you yet!” I thought: “Oh no, now what?”

He said: “What about
your
signing-on bonus?” Now I did not know what that was and looked appropriately nonplussed.

“I’ll give you £2,000 signing-on bonus,” Joe informed me, “but that is taxed so you’ll get about £1,200 in your hand.” Well I was over the moon because I would have signed an extension whatever they’d have offered me.

Like I say, I was still the kid next door. I never quite got the opportunities that a player transferred in would have received. By that I mean that the club appeared to value some players more highly than others, especially if they’d fought tooth and nail in the transfer market for their signature. A signed player would also get a handsome share of the transfer money when they signed – something that someone who
signs from apprentice just doesn’t
get.

*

At about this time City were like one big happy family. From the tea lady to the chairman it seemed that we all had one aim in mind, to further the cause of Manchester City and have a good laugh while we were doing it. A case in point came during the pre-season press day, when the papers send down their photographers to get snaps of the players to use throughout the season. There were individual shots and then a team photo.

Without fail, whenever Peter
Blakey
, our physio, got to hear that it was photo time he would rush from his treatment room – it didn’t matter who was on the table or how injured they were, he wasn’t going to miss his moment of glory – and who could blame him?

What we did once, just as the photographers were about to take the team photo, we all dropped our shorts at the same time. Everything was dangling in the wind! We all got a copy but because one player was a very big lad we decided not to publish it. Can you guess who that was?

We had some good laughs. You meet some great people and personalities when you are in the world of football. Whenever we visited
Luton
, Eric Morecambe would come in and have a joke with us. That zany character Freddie Starr used to come to City all the time and he’d always do his Elvis and Tarzan act before we went out to play a match! The broadcaster Stuart Hall used to try and train with us but we would lock him in the sauna. If you saw him the way we saw him when he’d just come out of the sauna, you’d think how on earth could this bloke get a job in television? One of the funniest guys was Eddie Large, I played golf with him a few times but it would be almost impossible to hit the ball because he’d have you in stitches all the time. He is a true Blue.

I remember once I filled in a questionnaire for an article in the Charles Buchan Monthly I used to read as a kid. One of the questions was: “Who is your favourite artiste or pop group?” and I answered Johnny Mathis. Later on, much to my surprise, he came to watch us because he was a City fan and he was appearing at the Free Trade Hall in town. He actually left me two tickets to go and watch him, but we had a match that night so Mike
Summerbee
, who was injured, went along instead. I was pig sick at that!

5. Kings
Of
England

Of all the most important moments in my career, the 1967-68 title win still gives me the most satisfaction. The best team always wins the league and the 4-3 win at
Newcastle
was a thrilling climax to an unforgettable season.

All the way through that season Malcolm had brought a bottle of champagne to training and in league matches he even sat there with it in the dug-out! He used to tell us we could have it on the last day of the season when we’d won the championship. Well it worked. After the game at
Newcastle
he got out the champagne and boy did it taste sweet!

We didn’t start that season too well, taking one point from the first three games. We drew 0-0 with
Liverpool
then lost on the road at
Southampton
and Stoke. In our fourth game we played
Southampton
again and Belly and I shared the goals between us in a 4-2 win. 

We went on a good run from there until December 9th which was of course the ‘Ballet on Ice,’ a televised game against a fine Tottenham side that really brought us to the attention of the general public.

They were still sweeping the snow off the pitch until an hour before kick-off and the match itself was in doubt until just before kick-off time. Of course, these days they wouldn’t let teams play in those conditions, mind you, things would never get so bad what with
undersoil
heating and the like. In the 60s we played on pitches that resembled those you’d find in a park; we were used to playing knee-deep in mud but the ice that day was unbelievable.

Boots were not inspected by the referee in those days so we stuck little nails in our studs to help us retain some grip on the ice, yet we were still slipping about even with them in. I think we managed to cope better with the conditions than Spurs although they scored first.

I’ve watched a copy of that video many times since and you know
,
I was unlucky not to have scored four goals! I scored one,
then
I hit the right post, the left post and the bar. Even Kenneth
Wolstenholme
in his commentary made a point about it: “This boy Young,” he said, “there’s only two posts in a set of goals and he’s hit them both!”

I remember falling over when we had to stop and turn and the longer the game went on, the more slippery the conditions became. The final winning margin could have been far greater had it not been for their magnificent keeper, Pat Jennings. Our passing was superb that afternoon, anybody who was there or anybody who played in that game will never forget it. We were playing to feet all the time and created so many good chances. The whole team was on song.

Nowadays modern
stadia
have pitches like bowling greens and, of course, we had the old leather balls complete with laces, whereas these days it’s a much lighter ball. In my eyes, there can be absolutely no excuse for poor control because you don’t get an uneven bounce anymore. It’s a completely different game today – more of a two-touch and movement sort of game where in my day it was more about individual skills – attackers against defenders. You don’t see enough dribbling skills anymore – that’s why people rave about players like Zola, Di
Canio
,
Kinkladze
and Shaun Wright-Phillips, they’re exciting players, the kind who can change a game and who the fans love to watch.

Yet there were so many games
during that 1967-68 season when City really turned it on
. Malcolm installed in us a belief and confidence to try different
things,
he also made us better all-round players. We had been moulded into a unit, a proper team. We all trained together: defenders, midfielders and forwards. Malcolm wouldn’t separate one particular part of the team from another – we were all in it together. This showed in the banter among the team and the little get-togethers we had, at home and abroad, helped cement that team spirit.

A good example of this was when we played
Hertha
Berlin
. Of course we visited the wall which was a big symbol of the divided
Europe
of the time and you could see people trying to get from one side of the city to the other. The whole experience was a real eye opener – all the guards, all the tension.