A persistent source of complaint, from Jimmy and some of my defensive team-mates, was my eagerness to attempt the big cross-field pass which eventually became one of my trademarks. Whenever I saw a chance, I launched the long ball, often with a good result, but he was merciless when an attempt failed. As a practice game flowed around us, Jimmy would lay down one of his most fiercely upheld laws. ‘If that kind of ball is picked off, you put all your defenders in trouble. The only time you can do it is when you are one hundred per cent certain it will get to where it is intended, and how many times can you be sure of that?’
Sometimes, though, it was impossible to resist the temptation as you looked up and saw a team-mate racing down the wing, but then, if the full back read it and intercepted, your heart sank as you anticipated Jimmy’s reaction. If it happened during a match, you usually didn’t have to wait that long. Once, in a reserve game, I gave up the ball with a long pass and Mark Jones, normally so amiable and supportive, raced up to me and yelled, ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’
Sunday morning was Jimmy’s favourite time for the most intense of our one-on-ones. As I was leaving the ground on a Saturday he would say, ‘Bobby, come down tomorrow morning, and we’ll do some work.’ Often my instinct was to say, ‘But I’ve just played, can’t I get a little rest?’ Invariably, though, I would nod my agreement because, when I thought of it, Sunday morning in the digs held no great appeal. Soon enough, I knew I would be looking for something to do.
As the groundsmen were cleaning up the pitch after the previous day’s game, Jimmy and I would change and go out on the field. Very quickly, he would have me gasping for breath. ‘At the top level you have to lose your breath, and you have to keep playing,’ he would say. ‘Every time it happens, it makes you a little stronger.’ After a while, he would set me a few exercises, usually some shooting practice, and then he would go to shower – and prepare to take me to the pub.
This was yet another branch of my education. I quickly learned that when I was with Jimmy in a pub or a bar or a hotel room, the trick was to talk about football so much that it might create a distraction and cause a pause in the drinking. Jimmy loved to compare players, their techniques and their different effects, and sometimes he became so animated that a glass of whisky or sherry or beer or, best of all, the dreaded Mateus Rosé – whose appeal could only have been the shape of the bottle – lay untouched for a little while. If Jimmy was in his best drinking form, however, this was only a precious respite. You could find yourself spending hours in the smoky atmosphere of the Throstle’s Nest in Stretford or at his home, or, when you were on the road, in some little bar around the corner from the hotel.
There was always a bonus in the company of Jimmy Murphy, though; always a feeling of excitement about the game – and the fact that you had been picked out for so much of his attention. It is the reason why among my most treasured possessions is a little beer mug from a small bar across the street from the Stoller Hotel in Zurich. It was Jimmy’s unofficial headquarters each year when we played the youth tournament. If anyone needed Jimmy, he knew where to find him – but in my case, if a game wasn’t imminent, I would probably be in his company anyway. Even today, I pour beer into the mug and raise it to the memory of the man who taught me everything he knew.
Whenever I see Sepp Blatter, the president of football’s governing body Fifa, he reminds me of the day he played against us for Zurich in that Swiss tournament, and if he introduces me to someone he invariably says, ‘This is Bobby Charlton – we played against each other you know.’ I played in the tournament five successive years and, looking back, I see how important those trips were to my dawning awareness of how a football career could fulfil all those yearnings to travel I had had in those days in the North East when I waited, breathlessly, to see where the England Schools tournament would take us.
Some time ago I had to be in Zurich for a meeting of Fifa’s football committee, and after it was over I said to Norma, ‘Let’s go down to the Stoller for old times’ sake.’ We were having ice-cream sundaes on the hotel terrace when a car suddenly stopped and a man whose face I knew came rushing up to our table. It was Werner, one of the organisers of the youth tournament, and he seemed overjoyed to see us. He said, ‘Every time I drive past this hotel, I wonder if I will ever see a Manchester United player. I do it every day, and always I look across to this terrace. Now today, here you are.’
In five years we seemed to cover every corner of Switzerland, and I often thought that the only place I knew more about was England. We played games against little town teams in the Cantons. The most memorable occasion was when we played in 1954 – the year of Switzerland’s World Cup. The rumour was that the Brazilians were coming to watch us play, but they didn’t appear at the kick off, which we thought was just as well because the Swiss lads
