Catch A Falling Star (7 page)

When the ref pointed to the spot Mal leapt up from his touchline seat and threw his huge hat high into the air. What happened next was probably his tactical brain working overtime again. The spot kick was pushed forward two yards and a
Plymouth
player came thundering into the box and slammed it past our ‘keeper, Alan
Ogley
. That was the signal for Mal to jump up and turn to the crowd like a great warrior and throw his hat into the crowd. Down at
Plymouth
he was a showman with a top-of-the bill act and the crowd squealed with delight.

Joe and Malcolm between them bought and moulded the players they wanted into the best team
Manchester
City
has ever produced. They produced a pure footballing game, derived from two-touch football. We also had a supreme advantage when it came to fitness. A lot of players didn’t enjoy the training but I found it a breath of fresh air.

As an example, during pre-season we used to have six days of training at
Wythenshawe
Park
and then have six days off again, then six days on and so on. Monday mornings were the killer sessions. I saw players throwing up on the sidelines because they were struggling to attain the fitness levels to play in our team. However we used to murder sides in the last half-hour of a match because we’d just be getting our second wind. With our skill and fitness teams could not live with us.

Almost as soon as he arrived, Joe announced he was bringing in a world-class mile runner called Derek Ibbotson and a 20-miler called Joe Lancaster to give us some extra stamina.

I have never seen so many players faking injury on arrival to that training session. It all paid off though because as I say, in the last twenty minutes of a game we were undoubtedly the fittest team in
England
.

I had played under McDowell and
Poyser
before the arrival of Joe and to be honest they were much of a
muchness
. We would go training everyday and just run, run, run! No ball work, just running, so no wonder when Saturday came around and we had the ball at our feet, we all suddenly thought – what the hell is this thing here?

When Joe and
  Malcolm
coached us we hardly ever trained without a ball and I believe this was another secret behind their success. In the end Malcolm made ordinary players into very good players and turned promising players into absolute world-beaters.

Take Joe Corrigan for example. When he first arrived at

Allison was ahead of his time when it came to dietary advice. Nowadays nutritionists favour chicken, pasta, fresh fruit and vegetables but back then Malcolm instinctively knew that we should be eating sensibly, sticking to routines, not going mad with the booze, staying disciplined and looking after your body. Malcolm was doing quite well at
Plymouth
. As far as I can recall he was a popular figure with a team on the up before he took the chance to join City.

Yet
us
players didn’t think we would be transformed by this new partnership. No one could have predicted that we’d be Champions of England within a few years although we could see we were going places and that made us committed and drove us on even more.

In particular, the new training regimes were beneficial not only to our physical wellbeing and ability to stay the course of a match but to the development of a tremendous team spirit. In the second division promotion season we’d all go to the cinema together and only have the one pint afterwards. After the
Southampton
game on the last day of the season we invented a new tradition –
  going
to the pub after every game! Malcolm wasn’t very happy about it at first but we kept on winning so what could he say? Team bonding worked for us!

Another thing that also helped was our support. We had one of the biggest crowds in
England
and we were in the Second Division, which is really something because it has been well documented that City’s crowds were down to 8,000 for three games as the fans were staying away in protest against the club. When we were promoted with five games to go, the average attendance was right back up again. The
Kippax
lads were fantastic. I always felt I knew most of them because a lot of them came from the back streets of
Fallowfield
just like me.

The optimism among our fans grew not least because all our local rivals – Everton,
Liverpool
, and United – had won the title while we had struggled along with an ageing squad and outdated training methods. City fans soon realised that just as our rivals had
Catterick
,
Shankly
and Busby now we had our own wizard – Joe Mercer.

Another obvious factor was that between 1963 and 1965 we didn’t sign any really good players. Good managers attract good players so not longer after Joe’s arrival we were making progress. This optimism soon spilled over into the pubs and clubs – before Joe’s arrival our few fans would have plenty of room travelling back from away games, the coaches would be half-empty and I suppose only the masochists enjoyed watching us
underperform
. But within half a season fans would be struggling to secure a place on the coach, our away support grew and the encouragement obviously made away games a lot easier from the player’s point of view.

In 1965-66 we won the second division title with 59 points. I scored a hat-trick in the 5-0 routing of Leyton Orient. The other goals were from Mike
Summerbee
and Johnny
Crossan
.

Another memorable game came at
Notts
County
, the scene of my first ever goal in the FA Cup. It came to me on the volley and sailed straight into the back of the net and everyone clambered on top of me.

The FA Cup gave us a chance to play first division sides at a time when we were in the lower division and it showed just how
much
the fans missed those big games.

We knew we were coming back as a team and as a club when we played Everton in the quarter-final in 1966. Over 57,000 supporters packed

Johnny
Crossan
was our captain in that era and he was magnificent in our promotion year. The lad from
Londonderry
bossed our midfield and I feel he was unlucky to be one of the ones to make way when we moved up a league. Perhaps Malcolm thought that because he turned thirty, we wouldn’t get much more out of him at a higher level.

Of course by May 4th we were promoted following a 1-0 win at 
Rotherham
courtesy of a Colin Bell goal – as the song goes: “We were back into Division One.”

Belly had slipped in almost unnoticed by this stage but he really was one of the most important pieces in the jigsaw because prior to his arrival we had nobody who could help the forward line. Our strikers were lethal but we needed that fully fit midfield dynamo to chip in with vital goals.

As an illustration of Colin’s personality, our first meeting with him took place at the
Lilleshall
training camp where we having a break for a few days. Belly met us all for the first time but he was so quiet that the lads just could not believe it – was this the midfield dynamo talked about by the management?

The rest of the squad ‘introduced’ themselves by tying some sheets to his bed and pulling him into the corridor when he was asleep. Instead of waking up with the rest of the team he woke up all on his own! You see,
Wimbledon
’s ‘Crazy Gang’ were nothing new – although I’ll admit we didn’t burn anyone’s tracksuit...

Colin was a real gent, he wasn’t one to swear much and I don’t ever recall him using the ‘F’ word but he soon became one of the lads. In the coming seasons this mild-mannered midfielder was undoubtedly one of the prime factors behind our success. I like to think that if he’d had my left foot as well as his right he would have been the best player in the world but his left foot was mainly for standing on. Then again I think that his right was enough on its own – he could open a can of beans with it!

When Joe first arrived his first signing was not a success in the Colin Bell mould. 
Ralphie
Brand had performed well up at Rangers but down in
England
he didn’t cut the mustard.

However Ralph managed to hang around long enough to play golf with the rest of the squad down at Ashton-on-Mersey where we had a four ball – Doyley, Roy Cheetham,
Ralphie
Brand and I. We were standing on the 11th, an elevated tee right next to the
Mersey
and Ralph started practising with his driver and on his fifth swing the club slipped out of his hands, flew about ten yards and plopped right in the middle of the
Mersey
. We were in stitches but Ralph didn’t see the funny side. Mind you, he was Scottish and they tend not to enjoy throwing away perfectly good golf clubs!

We won that game of golf and Doyley had bet me a golf ball on the outcome. I thought: “Great!
A nice, new, shiny golf ball.”
 Doyley, being Doyley, didn’t quite see it that way, he certainly didn’t appreciate being on the losing side. So he rooted around in the back of his car and came back with this ruffled old thing – that was my reward for winning! 

Mike Doyle was such a big part of our team; he was very strong defensively but he’d chip in with some vital goals. The media picked up on his hatred of United but in all honesty we all hated United. We simply detested them. We wanted to beat them all the time. Funnily enough, Doyley’s best mate was Brian Kidd, United’s great striker. They’d play golf together, so it wasn’t a personal animosity, he just hated the club!

Then again as a Blue I could understand exactly where Doyle was coming from. He played it up and, in a
way, that
took the pressure off the rest of us. Although some of his statements had to be taken with a pinch of salt, quite often he was merely saying what everyone else on the staff and in the support were thinking.

Joe’s second signing was slightly more successful than our butterfingered Scot – it was Mike
Summerbee
. Enough said. Then Joe brought in Stan Horne from his former club Aston Villa and he was City’s first-ever black player. There weren’t many black players around in that era. Everyone remembers Clyde Best, of course, but Stan never had any trouble with the City supporters. Even then I think the attitudes of City supporters were better than those at some other clubs.

Funnily enough, that promotion-winning season hadn’t started off well for me. As a club we were gearing up for a promotion bid and as a team I thought we looked great. The first game on the fixture list was away to
Middlesbrough
. I left home about 8am, reported to the ground and sat down in the dressing room having a good laugh with all the boys when all of a sudden, ten minutes before the coach was due to leave, I started shaking like mad and went very hot indeed.