Sometimes there would be two scouts in the house at the same time. One would be in the front room with my father, another in the kitchen with my mother, and I was having to go between the two. Even though I was telling everyone I was going to United, I still had to listen. It was strange because, as far as I knew, there was no money flying around; every player got the same reward in those days. Sometimes I shake my head when I think how it was that someone like Stanley Matthews played for a club like Blackpool for so long.
Naturally, some overtures were more exciting than others. When I played for England in the schoolboy trial at Manchester City’s ground, Maine Road, the residing star of City and an England player, Don Revie, spoke to me as I came up the tunnel after the game. I was tremendously flattered because Revie was one of my heroes. I had watched him play and been fascinated by the way he worked with the goalkeeper Bert Trautmann. Revie always made himself free to receive the ball from the goalkeeper – and Trautmann always threw it to him. Revie had tremendous craft and you could see his football intelligence in everything he did. He asked me, ‘How would you like to play for us? I know you’ve maybe promised Manchester United, but you have seen our great stadium and we do have great plans for the future. You could be a big part of that.’
It was perhaps enough to turn a young boy’s head, but Manchester United did not neglect to develop their advantage. Joe Armstrong was a man of great charm, and in all the comings and goings of rival scouts he was a regular presence around our house, arguing persuasively that Manchester United had the greatest of futures and that it was at Old Trafford that my talent would best be developed. They had so many fine young players coming through and this was where the club had invested most seriously.
His case certainly did not lack support that day of the England Schoolboys trial. After the game we were taken to lunch in Sale and afterwards, on the way to the railway station, we passed along Chester Road near Old Trafford. I craned to take in the scene as the fans flooded down Warwick Road for that afternoon’s United match. There was more than the usual excitement because Tommy Taylor was making his debut after being signed from Barnsley, Busby fixing the transfer fee at £29,999 because, it was said, a little strangely I thought, that he didn’t want his new player to have the additional pressure of becoming football’s first £30,000 player. What was in a single pound note, I wondered, but more pressingly I wanted to jump off the bus and join in the excitement. However, it did occur to me that I had some time to savour the prospect. All I needed was a little patience. I would be part of this scene by the summer.
It was also true that in me Joe had something of a captive audience. I had lost a little of my heart to his club in 1948 when they beat Blackpool in one of the classic FA Cup finals. I had played with the school team that morning and one of the lads invited us back to his house for his birthday. We were kicking a ball around, inevitably, but the radio was on and we were listening as we played. Everyone was shouting for Blackpool and the great Matthews. No one admired him more than me, but I also liked United and I wasn’t convinced that this might be his last chance to win a cup-winners’ medal. Anyway, I thought a cup final wasn’t just about one man. Twenty-two players had fought to get there, including eleven of United, who ever since the resumption of the league after the war had been playing beautiful football. They had men like Johnny Carey and Jack Rowley, Johnny Morris, Charlie Mitten, Jimmy Delaney and a fine and subtle scorer-creator in Stan Pearson.
I had followed the course of that team with great interest, watched them reach a peak and then noted how Busby was indeed unafraid of introducing new young talent when he felt the timing was right. His boldest move came soon after I had agreed, verbally, to Joe Armstrong’s proposition on that freezing day in Jarrow. Busby felt that his ageing maestros were beginning to lose their edge and his reaction was both a dramatic and a swift vindication of Joe’s view that youth should not be allowed to grow frustrated, and still less old, on the Old Trafford vine. It was a huge story when he dropped half of his team and picked youngsters like John Doherty and Eddie Lewis. Many predicted humiliation for United, but the new blood flowed strongly, and United announced that they were on the point of launching a new empire. The memory of those exciting days flared again recently when I laid a time capsule in the new quadrant at Old Trafford, fifty years after the team that would forever be known as the Busby Babes won their first championship without the help of the great old players of the post-war years.
When I read about the Old Trafford revolution in the newspaper I felt a great surge of excitement. Not only were they blooding so many talented young players, already they had at the heart of the team somebody who was being described as a phenomenon. He was Duncan Edwards and he was just sixteen years old. I had never been short of confidence, or excitement about my possibilities as a professional, but this seemed like a new dimension to my dreams. Could I be part of this? Could I play alongside this superboy Edwards?
After it became apparent, if not quite
