Keep Fighting (5 page)

‘My gut instinct was to prove right and it wasn't too long before I was told that I was being given a run-out in the reserves at Deepdale, Preston. It was a midweek game. I felt fantastic and on a real high. If only Tommy had waited he would have been lining up alongside me. For the first time in my football career I felt that I had actually achieved something for myself.

‘Even though it was only the reserves, I fully intended to treat it as importantly as any game in which I had ever played. I thought I did alright; I kept it simple, and always made the easy pass. Because I was generally smaller than many of the players on the pitch that day, I was quickly on the receiving end of a few rough and unfair tackles. At first I looked for the sympathy of the referee, but found my protestations to him ignored. So I thought to myself, “Right Bill, it's sink or swim time, you have to keep fighting.” Pretty soon I was holding my own and then started to impose myself on the game. It wasn't pretty or beautiful, but it worked for me that day. When we came off at the end, the staff were really pleased with me and told me I was the best player on the pitch. I felt great, but my legs ached and were covered in cuts and bruises as a result of the rough treatment dished out by the Preston boys.’

Billy continued to work hard at his game. However, with the undoubted quality of the Leeds first team, he remained very much a reserve-team player. Manager Bill Lambton, who had been handed the post in December 1958, resigned just three months later. By May 1959, rumours were rife that Lambton was to be replaced by Headington United manager Arthur Turner. For whatever reason the move didn't happen and Jack Taylor, then manager of Queen's Park Rangers, joined Leeds as manager instead.

The managerial merry-go-round was giving cause for concern to those within the club, including Billy:

‘It was a bad time for everyone at Leeds; players were unsettled and team tactics were all over the place. I was really fed up. It was great playing regularly for the reserves but after a while I wanted more, I wanted a place in the first team and that didn't look very likely. I would have accepted a move back home to Scotland; I was becoming more and more restless at the lack of opportunities and felt I was never going to get the chance.

‘With Bill Lambton gone, I wondered whether I would slip completely out of the first-team picture. I would often talk over my worries with my cousin Issy and my mate Alex Smith. They were excellent pals, and told me to keep at it, to stay focused and to take the opportunity when it came along. They would remind me how grim life in Raploch could be, and how I was gifted and had a chance to make something of myself.’

Billy had little need for concern, as it wasn't too long before the new manager called him into his office for a quiet chat:

‘I had a couple of conversations with Jack Taylor. He had showed some interest in keeping me on the fringes of the first team, but he didn't feel I was yet capable of holding down a regular first-team position. So I told him that I felt I should have broken into the first team by now, I was consistently performing well for the reserves, yet for whatever reason it hadn't happened for me – I was being overlooked. I told him I was thinking about getting myself a move back to Scotland. I was surprised to hear him say that he knew every club in Scotland and many in England would want me. He listened to me and understood my frustration. His parting advice was that it would be in my best interests not to seek a move away from Leeds but to stick it out, as bigger things awaited me while he was manager. I wasn't at all sure what he meant, but he was a Yorkshire man and seemed genuine enough. He was experienced in the game and had a great playing record behind him at Wolverhampton Wanderers and Norwich, so I decided to wait a wee while before formally asking for a transfer.’

3

MARCHING ON TOGETHER

The moment Bremner had waited so patiently for arrived on Saturday, 23 January 1960. Winger Chris Crowe was forced to drop out of the first team through injury and Billy Bremner was added to the first team to play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge:

‘I thought, “Christ what a coincidence, making my debut against a club that had shown a bit of interest in signing me before Leeds had come in.” It was also a club who said I was too small to make it in the professional game in England. A comment I was not to forget.’

Jack Taylor selected his first eleven: Wood, Ashall, Hair, Cush, Charlton, Gibson, Bremner, Revie, McCole, Peyton and Meek. It was the vastly experienced centre forward Don Revie who roomed with the young Bremner the night prior to the game and whose advice and guidance were to be so influential on him:

‘Don the player was professional and sincere; he was grateful for possessing football ability and did his utmost to make sure he was fit and ready for every game. He insisted on getting an early night, and told me that a good night's sleep before a game was extremely important if you were to perform to the best of your ability. I had a lot of respect for what he had achieved as a player so listened to him and acted on a lot of what he said. We did have an early night but it didn't matter as I didn't sleep a wink. I was so excited and couldn't wait for the game and to get out onto the pitch.’

In the Leeds dressing room, as he pulled on the number seven shirt, both Wilbur Cush and Revie advised the youngster to play it easy and to stick to the easy option, two-touch football:

‘Don Revie was with me all the way, he told me how Stamford Bridge had a shit hole of a pitch when it was wet or evenly mildly damp. Wilbur said that the Chelsea fans were an unsporting, noisy and abusive lot and I was told to ignore anything they yelled at me or the team. Neither were wrong, Chelsea, not just the pitch, was a shit hole, and over the years I was to find that with the slightest rainfall, puddles would build up on that surface, causing the pitch to cut up until eventually it resembled a ploughed field more suitable for keeping pigs than for football, an environment that would be like home to their fans!’

Prior to kick-off, heavy rain fell, and the Stamford Bridge pitch began cutting up during the pre-match warm-up; huge divots of turf were present across all areas of the pitch. The more experienced Leeds players knew how physically exhausting ninety minutes on that surface could be. Neat passing football was totally out of the question, hard work and determination were needed if any kind of result was to be ground out. The rain continued to fall throughout the game and it was surprising that an attendance as high as 18,963 turned out in atrociously wet conditions.

Some of the Chelsea staff and players mocked the diminutive ginger-haired Leeds winger making his debut, crudely referring to him as the ‘ginger-haired dwarf-kid’. It was to be a game that Billy would never forget:

‘It's difficult to know what to think when you make your first-team debut; the pitch was dreadful. I thought other teams would be as professional as we were, but instead I found that Chelsea would stoop to any level to intimidate and bully. It riled me and ensured that I was all the more determined to get one over on them.

‘All I wanted at the start was to get my first touch of the ball out of the way. Fortunately this happened fairly quickly and when I laid a pass on to Don Revie I immediately settled down into my game. Wilbur Cush constantly reminded me to ignore abusive and foul comments made by the Chelsea players and their crowd. He reminded me that the abuse should be taken as a
back-handed compliment, as it meant they saw me as a threat and that I was playing well. By the end of the game I was being nasty to the Chelsea players who had been having a go at me and they didn't like it one bit!’

With Revie and Cush playing alongside him, Bremner displayed composure and finesse with his possession and passing. The two experienced professionals literally nursed him through the game, ensuring that simple passing options were always available. In fact he almost snatched a goal. When a misplaced Chelsea clearance fell to him he at once turned this into a Leeds attack, pushing forward at the Chelsea defence, before shooting at goal. The press reported of his performance: ‘The lightweight boy came through well; he used the ball speedily, generally accurately and always intelligently.’

It may not have been the most spectacular of debuts, but Billy Bremner had not looked out of place. He had achieved what he wanted, to get one over on Chelsea. Leeds had been too good for the west London outfit, and had comfortably won the game by three goals to one. Afterwards, he was to recall:

‘It was excellent, everybody congratulated me on having a good solid game. I had been rattled by the abuse, but first and foremost stayed focused on my game. It was nice to walk off that pitch a winner and letting the Chelsea losers know the utter contempt I had for them.’

The following week Billy made his Elland Road league debut, at home to West Bromwich Albion, and again he was wearing the number seven shirt. The thrill of a winning start to his first-team career disappeared before 23,729 despairing Leeds supporters, as the home side capitulated against an unusually rampant Albion, who ran out winners by four goals to one.

‘Oh Jesus,’ Bremner recalled, ‘it wasn't a game I can recall with any fondness. That day, if I am to be honest, West Brom ran us ragged, and the Leeds crowd really got on our backs, which made us all a bit nervous. I couldn't assert myself on the game and struggled to get into any rhythm. The Albion boys were fighting for every ball. I wasn't ready for it and it was a relief
when the final whistle sounded, to get off the pitch, albeit to a chorus of booing and angry swearing of discontented Leeds supporters. In the dressing room afterwards there was absolute silence. We were shit; we played like shit and felt like shit. It was horrible and I vowed that never again would I want to endure such bad emotions and an awful dressing-room atmosphere.’

With Chris Crowe again fit, Bremner found himself dropped from the first eleven for the following two league games:

‘When I was dropped I asked the manager and players if I was being blamed for the result against West Bromwich. He told me I wasn't to blame, and that I had to realise that a player of Chris Crowe's quality couldn't justifiably be left out of the first team. I was disheartened. I knew inside that I was being made the scapegoat for the defeat. I also knew that I hadn't made enough of an impact to prove myself a capable alternative. I knew that I was a better player than Chris Crowe but opted to keep my own counsel on that belief and to keep fighting to win back a place in the first team.’

Within the space of a few weeks, Chris Crowe was sold to Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £25,000. The club accepted the bid as they knew that in Bremner they had an all-round better player. Finally, the youngster from Stirling had secured a regular first-team place, making a total of eleven league appearances during the remainder of that season and scoring two goals. His euphoria at breaking into the first eleven was dampened by the club's relegation from the First Division:

‘It was an awful feeling. Being relegated is the worst feeling in the world. The mood throughout the club was miserable and I have to confess that I still missed Scotland and was looking at sounding out a move to Stirling Albion. My mate Alex Smith put me straight on that one and told me not to be so bloody stupid and to give Leeds a chance. Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing to me – give Leeds a chance.

‘Jack Taylor must have realised how I was feeling, not that it was any kind of secret, because he went out of his way to make me feel comfortable about everything at the club and assured me
that I had a bright future in the first team at Leeds. Going into the summer I felt fairly confident about how my career was mapping out. I believed Jack Taylor was going to be instrumental in that career. I was very wrong.’

Despite Taylor's apparent warmth towards him, Bremner made just two league appearances in the first thirteen fixtures of the 1960-61 season:

‘I had taken a knock or two in training and needed some treatment – nothing too serious, but enough for Jack Taylor to drop me from his plans. I was really pissed off about it but continued to train hard. I often stayed behind after sessions to try to build up my fitness and body strength. Still Jack Taylor ignored me.

‘It got to the stage where I had to take the bull by the horns and confront the manager. In straightforward language I asked him why I wasn't playing in the first team. It was my first glimpse of a manager under duress. I was expecting a blazing row but, instead, he told me I had been dropped because it was character building, adding that I would be back in the first team for the next game and it was up to me to prove that this was where I should be every game.’

It goes without saying that he did impress as it marked the start of an ever-present run of thirty-two consecutive first-team outings.

‘Despite everything else, I still missed the comfort Raploch offered; I went home as often as I could to see my family and mates. On one trip back I went out for a night to the Plaza in Stirling. Issy, Alex and a couple of other mates were there too. I saw this lovely looking girl and asked Issy if she knew who she was. Issy told me that she was known as Vicky Dick, and that she had won a John Player Beauty Competition. I wasn't surprised, as she was a real stunning-looking girl and still is. I was reluctant to approach her so I did the cowardly thing and asked Issy to ask her to go out with me.’

Isabel takes up the story: ‘Billy asked me to ask her to go out with him and I told him not to be daft and to ask her himself. A
short time later I went to the toilet to get myself ready to go home and Vicky came in. I spoke to her and she asked me if I knew anything about the young lad with reddish-coloured hair from Raploch who had asked her out. She said he had given her some story about playing for Leeds United and owning his own car. She didn't believe him as no one from Raploch owned a car – if they needed one they just stole one. I put her straight and told her that he did own a car and he did play for Leeds United. It didn't impress her at all. Eventually she relented to his advances and they became a couple, and a really nice couple too. After a short romance they married in November 1961. Both of them were nineteen years old when they wed. Alex Smith was Brock's best man on the day. I couldn't make the wedding ceremony as I had joined the forces and wasn't allowed leave to attend. I was really upset at missing it.’