8
UNDER THE SPELL OF EUROPE
DURING MY NATIONAL Service, when a plane flew over the camp I would look up longingly in the belief that maybe it was the boys flying off again into the new world of European football that had suddenly become the most glamorous place in the world. I imagined them joking and playing cards, and all of them filled with that zest for life you feel so strongly when you are doing something new and exciting. Those were my down days in khaki. Big Dunc, who had been such a great companion, almost a guardian, had already done his time and was at the front of the European campaign, and some days I would mutter to myself, ‘The army is really useless for me.’
My salvation, in the absence of Duncan, was Company Sergeant Major White, known to me only as Chalky. He was a great football fan, had a car and was eager to make a deal. ‘You get the tickets, Bobby, and I’ll get you the leave passes and drive you up to Manchester whenever United have a home game in the European Cup.’ Chalky, like so many who played or just followed football, felt that Europe was a new dimension to the game, a place of excitement beyond the old trenches of league and cup warfare.
Stan Cullis, the hard man of Wolves, the manager who became legendary for the demands he made on his players, was always seen as a dour figure in the game, but he commanded the greatest of respect from Matt Busby, not least for his understanding of the potential of European competition. The floodlit friendly games Wolves played against Spartak of Moscow were like electric currents running through English football and the rapturous reaction of the fans who filled the Molineux ground convinced Busby that this was part of the future. However, Alan Hardaker, the secretary of the Football League, notoriously, did not agree, and when the reigning champions Chelsea applied for permission to compete in the new European Cup he persuaded the league chairmen to turn them down flat. Busby was incensed at such narrow thinking and when United succeeded Chelsea as champions he made it clear that he would not tolerate such a restriction on his and his club’s ambitions.
Hardaker argued there was already enough competition, and that the European Cup would be an unnecessary distraction from the league and the FA Cup, but United were the flagship of English football and Busby had a vision which could not be obscured. It was inevitable that in the end he would win the battle. In the aftermath, Hardaker almost immediately pushed through a new competition, the League Cup. It made a nonsense of his resistance to Europe, and soon enough he must have felt like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the hole in the dyke as European football came in on a flood of anticipation.
Chalky duly drove me to Manchester to watch United’s first home game in the European Cup, that 10–0 dismantling of Anderlecht, and there were times when we looked at each other, shook our heads and murmured, ‘Unbelievable.’ It was a wet and dreary night and the Maine Road floodlights had feeble candlepower, but my club-mates created a glow of their own. Dennis Viollet could not be contained as he scored his four goals and David Pegg simply ravaged the right side of the Belgian champions’ defence.
Before leaving camp in Shrewsbury, I had run the usual gauntlet of NAAFI canteen debate. In the army you live with so many different kinds of people – and so many varieties of football support. The fans of Liverpool and Manchester City, Arsenal, Celtic and Rangers were all questioning United’s prospects in the new arena of Europe. ‘You may be the champions of England,’ they said, ‘but this is going to be much more difficult. This is Europe.’
Even though I said, ‘Well, why don’t we wait and see,’ I had my own concerns. For this game, United had a 2–0 lead from the first leg in Brussels, but Belgium was one of the weaker European nations. Reports and flashes of film were showing that leading clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain and Juventus, Milan and Internazionale in Italy were operating at a much higher level than most of the opposition they were facing from other parts of Europe.
Much of this worry melted away in the rain of Maine Road, however. I knew that Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor, Dennis Viollet, Eddie Colman, Roger Byrne and Johnny Berry were excellent players, but this was probably the time I realised quite how good they truly were. As Chalky drove me back to the army along empty roads – there were so few cars in those days you never had to worry about traffic jams, even after the biggest games – my head was filled with the future. United had produced more than a spree of goals. They had played with a power and a majesty which was quite stunning, especially when you considered the age of the team. The ‘veteran’ captain, Byrne, was still just twenty-seven, and Duncan, the best player, the one who was already providing evidence that he might soon be the greatest in the world, was still short of his twentieth birthday.
When we returned to the camp in the early hours of the morning, I could hardly wait for breakfast, not just for the bacon and eggs but also the chance to enjoy massive bragging rights. Naturally, the jocks and the scousers, the geordies and the cockneys were keen to rubbish the quality of Anderlecht – ‘What kind of team gives up ten goals, man? What kind of bloody game was that?’ was the reaction of most – but I pointed out, as coolly as I could, that what Chalky and I had seen was
