Catch A Falling Star (13 page)

Then, one sad but bizarre night, our chairman really lost the plot. The former president’s brother was shot dead and someone ran over to our chairman and said: “Have you heard the news? Bobby Kennedy’s been shot,” to which Albert Alexander replied: “What the blazes was he doing out of his hotel room, stupid boy!” In a crazy moment he phoned
England
and told the newspapers that our right back Bobby Kennedy had been shot! It wasn’t until our trainer Johnny Hart explained to Albert that there were two Bobby
Kennedys
that the penny finally dropped. Johnny had to phone home and explain what had happened!

*

It was a noisy place,
New York
. We could hear the police sirens all day long and we’d been warned not to take more than twenty dollars out with us or we’d run the risk of a mugging! One night we had a truly fantastic experience when we went to a Playboy club! Don’t forget this was 1968 and I hadn’t heard of this Playboy club concept before. I’d seen the gambling rooms, the men-only clubs and the cabaret clubs but never a ‘bunny’ club.

It made for an interesting experience.
Bestie
would have liked it in there. Girls were walking round with numbers on their costumes. You just wrote the number of the girl you wanted to speak to and she came right over! All the effort has to come from the woman – brilliant!

Out of all the places I have visited with
Manchester
City
I would pick out
San Francisco
and
Amsterdam
as the best.
Amsterdam
was a very pretty place with its cobbled streets, canals and coffee bars. It’s a good place to take the girlfriend - it’s very romantic when it’s all lit up. They say you should not go back to a place you’ve already been as invariably it’s never the same however I wouldn’t mind going back there again. If I was a bit younger and had slightly more energy to burn I’d have enjoyed the nightlife.

Some of the women in the windows looked fantastic. When we played over there in a friendly we all went for a walk round the famous ‘Red Light District.’ Funnily enough it was more of an attraction for the lads than the
Anne
Frank
Museum
! None of the team went in and sampled the local hospitality but we all had a good look. Some of them are very nice you know. Anyway – back to the football,
which is where the trouble started on this trip.

We were playing the Scottish side 
Dunfermline
and the game was about twenty minutes old and I had the ball at my feet when their full-back slid in on the greasy surface and in a split-second I moved the ball to my left and he caught my left shin. I played on for about five minutes and then all of a sudden I experienced a tremendous pain in my leg.

When I looked down, my sock was torn to shreds, there was blood everywhere and all I could see were veins hanging through my sock. “Jesus,” I shouted, waving to Johnny Hart on the bench. I am not going to tell you what Johnny said but I learnt a few more swear words that day.

Anyway we finished with nine men in that game, Stan Horne did his Achilles tendons and Mike Doyle, who had just flown in that morning from the England Under-23s, played three minutes and was sent off! So Malcolm played one man up and seven back in defence and we drew the game. The crowd loved it – Malcolm got into a fight, it was complete chaos but we survived!

There was no doctor on duty at the stadium so they rushed me in a taxi to the nearest hospital with an ice pack wrapped round my leg. It took us about fifteen minutes to get there and by that time my leg was completely numb – I couldn’t feel a thing.

The doctor took one look at it in this cubicle and said: “I’ll need $40 dollars from you!” Well I didn’t carry any change in my football kit and Johnny was still in his tracksuit. So he had to rush back to the ground for some money so that I could receive treatment! I was stuck in this
poxy
cubicle with a sodden bloody towel round my leg waiting for what seemed like an eternity.

In the cubicle next to me a drunken Irishman was swearing like mad – it seemed that somebody had stabbed him in the back during a pub brawl and he was shouting: “Stitch me up, stitch me up so I can go and get the bastard!”

In the meantime, Johnny returned to hospital with the $40. The doctor must have put about ten needles all round my gash then inserted forty-eight stitches. When he put my giblets back in I must be honest, I really felt my career was over because he said I might have to have a skin graft.

All in all it was a miserable experience because once I went back to the hotel I was stuck in my room while all the other lads were splashing about having fun by the pool. Not long afterwards I was forced to go home rather than carrying onto
Mexico
. So once again I went off to see Dr Rose who in the end took the stitches out of my shin.

The doctor who stitched me up in
America
actually came over to
England
and was invited to watch a match. It was nice to see him again in better circumstances. “That’s not bad,” he remarked of my injury, “less than a dollar a stitch!”

So after just three weeks over there Stan Horne and I were forced to fly home. I felt
so
low as the rest of the squad had flown on to
Mexico
while I received treatment.

Anyway we were in the airport and Stan got me a wheelchair. So there we were with Stan in plaster up to his kneecap and me with a big bandage to protect my forty-eight stitches. We decided to go to the duty free department but we were forced to leave the wheelchair outside the shop. We were both hobbling around and totally forgot about time. Suddenly we realised we had twenty minutes to get to our gate. We went out of the shop and blow me, someone had
knicked
the wheelchair. So there we were, two very fit sportsmen, hopping about for ages to get to our gate and by the time we made it, we were pouring with sweat.

I must admit the air stewardesses were very good with us during the flight. It was in some of the papers that I was travelling home early and Dave Connor’s dad, who worked at the airport, was waiting with a wheelchair for me when I got off the plane. I never went through customs, he just wheeled me round the building straight into a taxi and off home I went. I picked up my case the next day.

Another strange thing I remember about travelling back then was that on the plane home we couldn’t get our duty free goods out until we were halfway over the
Atlantic
. You got a ticket from the duty free shop and you produced it on the plane to get your goods!

As a result of that injury I missed out on another chance of international honours. Jimmy
Armfield
, manager of the
England
‘B’ side, said he wanted me to go on their tour to
Mexico
which was to take place just before the start of the season. I think he wanted people to experience the conditions there with the World Cup just two years away but I thought: “I’m on my way back from the States now and even if I get fit I can’t bloody well fly back again!” My main focus was to concentrate on getting myself back in contention for the start of the season, so it was probably a final opportunity of international honours missed.

I feel I was very close to making the 1970 World Cup squad. I turned down England on that occasion and as a youngster when City were fighting relegation I was pulled out of an England Youth tour so now that was twice that I’d not gone onto further glory with my country – I suppose they were sick of me knocking them back, they never asked again!

Martin Peters was the striker on that tour and I would have played alongside him. When I think of what happened to him in ’66 it made me think once again of what could have happened to me. Peters wasn’t a prolific scorer by any means, but he was a London-based player and I think that counted for a great deal. The likes of Johnny Haynes, George Cohen, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Jimmy Greaves were all based down there and won a lot of caps.

It was funny because a few newspaper reporters told me you’ve always got a better chance of getting a cap if you play for a
London
club. Some even said that Sir Alf couldn’t be bothered driving
up
the M6! 

On one occasion I scored the only goal in a win at
Derby
County
and Malcolm told me that Sir Alf Ramsey had come specifically to watch me. But I didn’t have a particularly effective game, even though I scored the winner. He knew what I could do though.

Both Joe Mercer and Bobby Charlton recommended me to Alf Ramsey but as it turned out I watched the 1970 finals on TV at home thinking what might have been. Then again, the oppressive heat, those sweltering conditions – that would have been one hell of a place to perform at the highest level but what a challenge!

*

Joe Mercer was a huge influence on my career. He was like a father figure to me. He was full of good advice and we all respected what he had to say. Now there are a good few stories I can tell you about Joe that only serve to underline his standing.

For instance, one year I was on holiday in
Italy
visiting relations when I ran out of money. I was in
Milan
, so I sought out the British Consulate. I was talking to this gentleman and after a few minutes I felt I wasn’t really getting anywhere until he asked me what I did for a living. As soon as I mentioned that Joe Mercer was my manager, the official’s face lit up: “How much do you need? Joe is a good friend of mine!” That’s how much he was liked and respected as a manager and as a man.

As another indication of the type of guy Joe was, once I left City I didn’t see him for over a decade. Then I invited him to my second wedding but had no reply. I assumed he must have been either very ill or very busy when to my astonishment he turned up at my reception with his dear wife Norah and it was just fantastic to see him.

Anyway back to the start of the 1968-69
season
and, following Joe’s masterminding of the previous season’s successful campaign, we had qualified for the European Cup and soon learned that we were to face Turkish champions
Fenerbahçe
– a tie that has gone down in City’s history for all the wrong reasons.

In all honesty we could have won that game 10-0 at our place. We could and should have gone in 4-0 up at half time. Even at full time, when we’d drawn 0-0, we somewhat arrogantly assumed that if we played like that over there, we’d wipe the floor with them. And I think arrogance was part of the problem in this tie. I think it came from Malcolm – he was over-confident, he didn’t even have the Turks watched and you always have to respect the opposition. Three of their players were in the
US
for the first leg but they returned for the second game because they knew they still had a chance to go through.

Nevertheless we were well looked after by the Turks in our hotel on the banks of the
Bosphorous
, however Joe was hopping mad one day. He ordered his usual plate of bacon and eggs but they didn’t really know how to serve it so they half-cooked a piece of bacon and then cracked an egg over it and presented this to Joe. “What the bloody hell is this!” he shouted and, as we turned round to see what was happening, Joe was marching into the kitchen to show them how it was done!