One by one my new club-mates introduced themselves, the great Duncan, Jackie Blanchflower, Mark Jones, Tommy Taylor, David Pegg, ‘Billy’ Whelan, Alan Rhodes – a full back on the youth team – and two goalkeepers, Gordon Clayton and Tony Hawksworth. With the introductions came an astounding discovery – that the new kid, so wide-eyed when he arrived in this strange and intimidating world, had automatic membership of the gang. If they went to the pictures, he could go too. If they went for a walk, he could join them. All our time would be spent together, and this extended to the hours of sleep. At Birch Avenue we slept two-to-a-bed, which in those days, for a working-class lad like me, was maybe the least of the surprises of my new life. My bed-mate was Alan Rhodes. He would not play for the first team, but at that time he shared all our hopes.
In those first days it seemed that I had, after all, been given access to my idea of paradise. I had the friendship of great young footballers who were ready to accept me and so clearly shared my passion to play the game that had always been an inspiration. The days stretched ahead so excitingly that, some years later, I could only nod in agreement with the football correspondent of The Times, Geoffrey Green, a great character who wore a long leather coat that was reputed to have once been the property of a colonel of the KGB. (There are several versions of how it came into Geoffrey’s possession on a long night in Moscow, but perhaps I should just say that the ones I’ve heard all suggest a man with a tremendous appetite for life.) He said to me, ‘Bobby, when you are doing something you love in the company of people you love, well, every day is Christmas Day.’
Soon enough, though, I learned there were complications in the life of even the most starry-eyed of young footballers. Mine came from my mother’s insistence that I must have something to fall back on. It would not be good enough for me to spin out a year or so as a groundstaff boy before I could sign professional and join my new friends as round-the-clock footballers. I had to continue my education even as I tried to learn the game.
My mother had talked with United and I was told that I had been enrolled in Stretford Grammar School, which was next to Old Trafford cricket ground and, like the football stadium, just a short walk from my digs. This was convenient enough, but right from the start I could see the plan wasn’t feasible. The class work I was given was completely different from that at Bedlington and I struggled to keep up. It didn’t help that I yearned to be with the United lads, living all of every day in football. Looking back, I see that I was still very much a boy who just wanted to play the game and for whom all else was secondary. I lasted three weeks at Stretford Grammar.
The early breaking point came after a football lesson in Longford Park, where the school played its games and where I used to go on Sunday mornings with the lads to watch the local teams. It was the most enjoyable, and important lesson, I would have at the school. They hadn’t seen me play before, and maybe because I was so pleased to be out of the classroom I played with even more than my usual enjoyment. I scored eight or nine goals.
The games master came to me as I was changing and said, ‘You’re in the school team from now on.’ I asked him when we would be playing and was shocked when he said Saturday mornings. I told him I was sorry but I couldn’t do it. I hadn’t come to Manchester to play for Stretford Grammar School; I played for Manchester United on Saturday mornings. ‘Well, you can’t any more,’ he snapped. ‘Your first duty is to your school. You’re in the team for the rest of the year.’ I was terribly dejected. As I fastened the knot in my school tie, I had probably never felt more depressed.
I didn’t speak to Jimmy Murphy or anyone at the club. Instead, I made a phone call to Mum. I imagine it is what most fifteen-year-olds who believe their world has just come crashing down would do. I just said to her, ‘I have a problem.’ She must have heard the desperation in my voice because when I had explained what the games master had said, she asked me, ‘What do you want to do?’ I told her that in my perfect world I would do what I came down to Manchester to do, and only that. I would leave school and play football. There was a short pause and then she said, ‘Yes, OK, Bobby, if that’s what you want.’ I couldn’t remember ever being so happy. A great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I told the headmaster of the family decision, that if I couldn’t play for United at the weekend I might as well have stayed up in the North East. He nodded and said, ‘I quite understand,’ – and as he did so I got the impression that somebody had told him that, while I was unlikely to become a professor of science or a captain of industry, I was capable of scoring eight goals without any great strain.
Now my life would be without any distraction from football; it would all be wonderfully straightforward. I would spend my days at the football ground, cleaning the terraces, the
