Catch A Falling Star (2 page)

Between the ages of five and ten I played for my local school and we won the league four years out of five. Our home games were played on Platt Fields where the Academy is now. I was never academically gifted although bizarrely I enjoyed maths at school and technical drawing – perhaps this came in useful later on when keepers came out to the narrow the angles! To be honest though, I had never had the same passion for schooling as I had for the beautiful game. At secondary school my favourite treat was to be given an hour off on a Friday to line the pitch with sawdust ready for a game at the end of the week. Even the teachers knew it could only be football for me.

When I started playing for my school team at the age of six I used to play centre-half. Now you might be surprised at that but don’t forget I was two or three inches taller than my team-mates and also at that age I could belt the ball the length of the school pitch.

Funnily enough I used to score a lot of goals playing in that position. So from junior school to senior school centre-half was my position. We used to have brilliant matches against
Ducie
Tech because they had some fine young players like Fred Eyre, Bob Smith and David Latham. The latter two signed for United and Fred of course signed for City. Fred used to say it was
Ducie
against Neil Young because I would be all over the field against them.

It was either them or
Rusholme
Secondary who won the league every year. It was ironic that when City played United in the Youth Cup, Bob or David would be playing for them and Fred and
I
for City. We are all still friends to this day.

I even fixed Fred up with his lovely wife Judith. She was working at a shop in
Manchester
called Oasis. One of the first times they went out they danced to the song Rambling Rose. It’s become a bit of a joke now between us, every time he rings up I always say: “How’s Rambling Rose?” and we both have a chuckle.

Fred once wrote a match report when we played a youth team match at
Burnley
where we were 2-0 down at half time. He said: “I have never seen a young player destroy another team like he did in the second half of the match.” We went onto beat
Burnley
4-2. I scored and made two I think. Jimmy Adamson was their coach and he was very generous in his report of how I played that night.

It wasn’t just playing football that interested me – between the ages of six and twelve years old, I also became a bit of an autograph hunter. I would stand outside the main entrance at City with my blue and white scarf on and my rattle waiting for the away team coach to arrive.

Normally it would turn up at about
1.45pm
. Then I would see if I could spot an open window and reach up and dangle my book through it, hoping that one of the players would grab it and sign it for me. If they did I would shout to ask him to pass my book on. “Get everyone else to sign it too!” would be my instruction. If there was no opportunity beforehand I’d wait until all the players were getting off the coach and fling my autograph book in front of their faces so they could sign it then and there.

My mum would get me Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly which always had colour pictures and good football stories in, then once a year they brought out an Annual. That’s how I got to know who all the players were on all the teams. I’ve still got some of the Annuals to this day.

I started sending off pictures to different clubs to ask players for their autographs. Probably my best ones were Tom Finney, Stanley Matthews and Jackie Milburn because they were all forwards and that’s what I wanted to be.

Later, when I became famous, I never refused an autograph because I knew what it was like for a young boy to wait for 45 minutes in the rain and then see your hero walk past you without a second glance. It’s not very nice at all. It’s terrible when some of today’s players can’t spend a moment to sign an autograph and I think that’s very sad indeed.

Seeing all of these famous stars spurred me on. I desperately wanted to be a footballer and I pretended to be Milburn or Matthews in the playground.

I really felt I was going to be a footballer from the age of eight or nine onwards. I built up a lot of momentum in terms of confidence and ability because I was always playing with lads older than myself. This meant when I played alongside lads of my own age I shone out.

At school I enjoyed some happy times. I especially enjoyed athletics, I was a good runner and I was quick for my age. I had long legs even back then and I used to have no problems doing the cross country running which other kids simply detested.

Much later on I became a good long distance runner. I was fast for my age and I was very fit. I had the bug. I developed good stamina. My favourite discipline was running the half-mile for Manchester Athletics Club.

Other than that, break times, lunch times and after school – in fact all day every day would be spent playing football. I’d play a match for the junior school once a week and then I’d play other matches on a Wednesday and a Saturday.

We used to play in
Platt
Fields
Park
but we also used to climb over the iron gates into the car park there and play on the tarmac. I think this is why I developed such good close control at an early age as the ball is harder to control on that particular surface. 

Also I think my mum loved it if we were playing football because it meant we were out of her hair for a while. She’d be working from nine till five and sometimes she’d just want to sit down and relax for a few minutes without us demanding things from her. Often we’d be playing just a couple of hundred yards from the back garden so any time we were having a
kickabout
, it wasn’t far to run home and fill our bottles of water up. Then it was straight out again to continue the game. I used to drink pints and pints of water but I used to sweat it off too.

Then, I’d collect all the bottles of pop from the neighbours and take them to the paper shop to be returned. When you returned a certain number of bottles you could send off for a free football! Like I say I was obsessed! Football was the only thing on my mind!

  We used to have to walk two miles to secondary
school,
today most of the youngsters get a lift in a car from their parents which seems very lazy. I bet none of them would ever consider doing that sort of thing now. Everybody has a car these days but in my day no one at all had a car on our road. Out of forty houses only two had a TV – that’s how things have changed. Most people have two or three TVs these days – some people have 200-odd channels and still complain there’s nothing on to watch!

Anyway, for want of a TV to watch, at the age of ten I became a member of the 39th Life Boys at the
Methodist
Church
on the corner of

Then at the grand old age of twelve I graduated into the 39th Boys Brigade where I learnt how to play bugle in the band. We’d have band practice every Thursday night and then on Whit Sunday we would parade around the area playing our music.

This went on until I was fourteen. I quite enjoyed all that but when it became that or a game of football on a Sunday morning, something eventually had to give and it wasn’t going to be football! What I did not miss
was having
to clean my buckle on my belt with
duroglit
. We had to make it shine so much it made my arms sore. Also getting my bugle so shiny was hard work. We would have to keep them clean as inspection took place before each parade. I was glad when I could stick to looking after my football kit instead.

*

There seemed to be little violence back then. The streets were safe and everybody was out playing in them. There was no fear of people approaching the children and the children themselves would be too busy burning energy to worry about getting into any bother.

We used to know the name of our bobby on the beat and we were scared of him. Back then it wouldn’t be questioned if he gave you a clip round the ear or a whack round the head. There was more discipline. We didn’t have much, we weren’t well off and
Fallowfield
itself I suppose was no richer an area than it is today but I don’t know, standards seemed to be higher all round.

Obviously I was born during the war but my memory begins afterwards. Certainly in that era there would have been a tremendous community spirit, people pulling together to rebuild the country after six years of conflict.  There was a shelter at the end of our garden and a bomb landed on the next street and blew a roof off but I’m thankful that I never saw any of the horrors of war.

Of course, as a child I always looked forward to Christmas, but then again I always knew what I’d be getting – a copy of Charles Buchan’s Football Annual and a brand new pair of boots from the Co-op. I always acted all surprised when I opened them on Christmas Day though – don’t forget I didn’t actually want anything else. They had rubber studs and they’d always be filthy by the time I finished playing. I wasn’t allowed in the house in those boots. There was a bucket at the back door and I had to clean the boots properly before coming in.

My brother and I never wanted bikes or big things like that – it was always the simple things that made us most happy. Expensive toys never came into it. There was never an element of keeping up with the Joneses at our house. I think that made things a little easier for our mum.

I must have cost her a small fortune in shoes though because of the rate at which my feet were growing. Plus there’d be times when I’d have kicked the soles right off my shoes playing football at break time. I was at the cobblers nearly as often as I was at

My mum worked as a shop assistant 
in a greengrocers
called
Dunkerley’s
for 30 years. The owner Ken used to buy turkeys to sell in the shop over Christmas. My brother Chris and I would spend all night, from
7am
to
7pm
plucking them. He would pay us for it and with that money we would buy mum her Christmas present.

She used to love little glass ornaments like
Babycham
figures, that sort of thing.  Every Christmas my dad would smash them up when he’d had a drink or two. In the end we got used to it and every year we’d end up having to buy her a replacement.

*

I wasn’t one of those children who’d go home and read a
book,
I was never interested in that, I didn’t have the patience. I can remember when it
rained,
I would stare out of the kitchen window praying for it to stop so I could go back outside again and play the game.

Even in those days I was conscious of the football season running from August to May and in the summer I found a new hobby to keep me occupied throughout the close season. I used to get out of bed at 5.30 in the morning and go fishing till eight and then head straight to school! I loved going fishing. I think it’s fair to say that at that age I had two real passions in my life - football and fishing.

When I became a little bit older I was lucky enough to be taken on excursions by my brother. We used to take the train from Central Station, now G-
Mex
, all the way to
Northwich
. From there we’d walk on for about two miles to the
Hartford
Stone
Bridge
which crossed the River Weaver.