He didn’t know much about football, but he did know how a man should tackle life. He couldn’t be an idler. He couldn’t slack, and as he saw it this was as true whether a man clocked on at Old Trafford or Elland Road or the pithead. Absorbing this truth was something that Jack and I always had in common. It was underlined every time our father came home to Beatrice Street with his scars from the colliery, or brought home some coal after walking with his little horse down at the shore.
2
BEACONS IN MY PAST
THERE ARE DAYS you know you will always keep in the sharpest and warmest of memory, days, it is reasonable to believe, that have contributed significantly to who you are. They stand out like beacons in your past. One of them came to me when for the first time I saw Stanley Matthews performing, in the flesh rather than on some grainy film, skills which pushed back the boundaries of the game I thought I already knew.
One moment he was just another footballer of great reputation in the tangerine shirt of Blackpool. In the next he was utterly separate from any player I had ever seen before. He had taken my breath away, created an aura that I knew, instantly, would never die as long as I ever thought about football.
His movement was both mysterious and thrilling in a unique way and it was a major reason why on at least one issue Jack and I were always united: the importance of earning enough money to go to Newcastle and Sunderland to see the masters of the game.
These were more than day trips: they were the pilgrimages that brought the greatest excitement to our lives. The importance of making them came before any other fleeting pleasure or the chance of free time to laze around. It was in our blood to work at something, and to play football, and so nothing made more sense than trading a little effort for the chance to see the best of the game we loved.
We did odd jobs, most profitably delivering groceries for Donaldsons’ shop. There was an old bike that had a tray fixed in front and we rode it through the rain and the wind on a rota that depended on our various commitments: for both of us playing for our teams, and for Jack the hunting down of wildlife. We told the shopkeeper, ‘There’s two of us, so we can get the job done between us.’ Those deliveries were never neglected because they were an investment in colour and glory and adventure on a Saturday afternoon.
It was such a thrill to get on the bus to Newcastle – the fare was two shillings – and, when the journey was over, to choose between the cafe at the Haymarket bus station where we could get pie and chips, or the Civic restaurant for a wider menu but still cheap rates. Finally, there was the mounting anticipation that came with the walk up the hill to St James’ Park. We clutched the shillings that would take us into the ground – and guarantee the greatest bargain a young boy could imagine.
Where we went in the stadium depended on the names that dominated the cast list of that day’s theatre. If there was a great goalkeeper on show, a Bert Trautmann or a Bert Williams, we would tend to go behind the goal. That might also be the strong temptation if a Tommy Lawton or a young Nat Lofthouse was leading the visiting attack because that decision would be justified for at least one half of the game by our own Jackie Milburn stretching every defence he faced with the pace that made him a Powderhall sprinter and with one of the most dynamic instincts for striking on goal.
There was one demand above all others, however: to be somewhere near the corner flag if the greatest of them all, Matthews, was playing on the wing. You went to the corner because of the certainty that at least once or twice he was going to be really close to where you stood. Tom Finney of Preston North End was a compelling rival attraction and there were some who pointed out that he headed the ball more often than Matthews, certainly tackled more and that he was just as fast off the mark – but I never thought that last claim was quite true. The genius of Matthews, it was evident to a boy, was that he dominated with his sense of timing, and his awareness of the vulnerability of a defender. This was his supreme gift as he launched himself from a stooping gait. He wrote his own agenda in a language which only he truly understood.
Some years later the greatest teacher of football I would know, Jimmy Murphy, would unlock those parts of the Matthews puzzle that I hadn’t worked out for myself. He did it during the several years I spent, reluctantly, on the left wing of Manchester United. Murphy said that, if you had genuine pace, the key to everything you did was the moment you chose to truly challenge the defender. You had to take control, you had to show who was dictating the terms. ‘The defender has to turn,’ said Murphy, ‘and that is your great advantage. You have to exploit it from the moment you knock the ball past him. He’s off balance, and if you put it in the right place at the right time you are gone.’
That was the essence of Matthews and it was something I never forgot when I played wide. I thought of what Murphy said but, mostly, I remembered what Matthews did.
As I stood with Jack on the terraces I could not have imagined that one day I would be invited to be president of the National Football Museum in Preston; infinitely more predictable, certainly, was
