At least some of the mystery of my new life was stripped away, however, even before the taxi pulled up in Birch Avenue, which was just a few hundred yards from an Old Trafford stadium that was still several years away from its first floodlights and a roof to protect the Stretford End loyalists from the rain. Jimmy Murphy had met me at the station, and he made it quite clear on that short journey from the city centre that quite a lot of what was going to happen was Jimmy Murphy himself.
He was going to happen as the most persistent and profound football influence I would ever know. He was going to happen out on the training field, in what sometimes seemed like a dialogue that would never end and, before long, he was even going to be in my subconscious. One of his sayings would be imprinted there, something to drive you on when you felt maybe you had done enough for one day or one match. ‘Bobby,’ he would say, ‘in all my time in football I never saw a player suffer a heart-attack because he worked too hard.’ In those days I wished fervently I had a pound, even five bob, for every time he said that to me when he suspected I might be reluctant to carry on with a session that had left me weary.
Jimmy was going to treat me, for all my boyish belief that I could play the game, as a work in progress and one that in his mind could never be finished because there was always something new to learn, some fresh adjustment to make.
His voice was untouched by all the years he had spent away from his native Rhondda Valley as a tough half back for West Bromwich Albion and Wales, and then as an army instructor whose ability to draw the attention of a group of soldiers in a wartime camp in Naples persuaded Matt Busby that he would make a most valuable number two. For me this voice would always have an hypnotic effect.
Also, Jimmy was sometimes going to be the most demanding companion for a young footballer who from time to time might agonise over the choice between an early bedtime and maybe a cup of cocoa, or going out into the drinking culture and nightlife that in those days seemed to raise hardly an eyebrow in the hierarchy of even the biggest clubs. He would spare no rage if one of his protégés surrendered the ball too easily in the tackle, or passed it stupidly, but he could also get upset if you turned him down when he invited you for a drink in a pub after special training on Sunday morning, or in his hotel room or a bar on an away trip. Always the conversation would be football, but you couldn’t be so sure about the type or the quality of the drink. Jimmy liked a pint of bitter, but he was also partial to sherry and, most disconcertingly if you didn’t have a sweet tooth, the Portuguese wine Mateus Rosé.
My exposure to this pitfall waiting for anyone who was picked out by Jimmy as worthy of his special attention would only emerge some time later. One of the reasons was that I was still short of my sixteenth birthday. The other was that at the time when he first met me at the station his entire football universe seemed to be filled by Big Duncan – Duncan Edwards. On that journey, Jimmy had said with shining eyes, ‘Bobby, I’ve got a player you will find hard to believe, he is so good. He has everything. He is tall and powerful, but he also has a wonderful touch. Right foot, left foot, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to make him such a player. Just look at him – and then remember I haven’t knocked the rough edges off him yet.’ I had bitten my tongue on the first thought that came into my head, which was, ‘Well, nobody can be that good.’
Instead of challenging Jimmy’s assessment I had thought it would be wise to try to change the subject, however difficult it might prove. I asked him about Old Trafford, where it was in the city and how far it was from my digs. The question brought on another burst of enthusiasm. ‘It’s in Trafford Park, and you’re going to love playing there,’ he said.
Though I had passed quite close to the ground on the day that I had had the Schoolboys trial a few miles across the city at Maine Road, Jimmy’s reference to Trafford Park was reassuring after the shock of first seeing my new surroundings, the big, dirty, alien city. ‘Trafford Park’ had a nice comforting ring, a suggestion of open spaces and clean air, a new Hirst Park. Later, I would boast in many corners of the world about the power and the energy of Europe’s largest industrial estate, but at that moment I preferred a vision of trees and grass and a little bit of tranquillity. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ I thought. ‘It can’t be so bad.’
The big
