This was never more so than when 1957 turned into 1958. At last the club had given me reason to believe that I could bring to an end the phase when I was just the boy who could fill in for established stars like Viollet and Whelan and, looking back, I see that I produced exactly the right response. I scored in three of the four games against Leicester City, Luton Town on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and Manchester City, but this was no more than a relatively gentle prelude to a break-out against the formid able Bolton Wanderers defence of Tommy Banks, Roy Hartle and John Higgins in mid-January. I scored a hat-trick and had never felt so confident on the ball, a mood I took into the fourth round FA Cup tie with Alf Ramsey’s Ipswich Town the following week, scoring both the goals at Old Trafford. One of them was of the spectacular variety with which I was being increasingly linked.
Going into the Highbury game the following week, Busby had a choice between a fully fit Whelan and me, and when he announced the team he was also saying that I had achieved another rite of passage. Nine goals in ten games had earned me the Busby nod in my own right.
As the game unfolded, Arsenal simply couldn’t cope with the level of our confidence or our touch. Duncan scored after ten minutes, from twenty-five yards. He bounded across the muddy surface before giving the fine Welsh international goalkeeper Jack Kelsey no chance. As was so often the reaction of opponents when Edwards exerted himself so powerfully in the early going, you could see Arsenal heads drop and this was a particular encouragement to our left winger Albert Scanlon.
Albert was a quirky character, brilliant one day, indifferent the next, but this was one of the performances of his life. Invariably he would concern his marker with his pace, but it could be said that his last ball wasn’t always his best. However, this day he touched perfection. I could only feel sympathy for my namesake, Arsenal’s right back Stan Charlton. The defender was tortured by Albert’s speed and trickery. It was as though the boy from Salford, who spent so many hours watching the latest Hollywood offerings in the city-centre cinemas, had woken up with the conviction that this day he would be in a film of his own. It was classical wing play: quick, functional, and totally committed to the final act of supplying a deadly cross. After thirty-four minutes he laid on the second goal, passing the ball to me after a seventy-yard run down the wing. ‘It’s easy, Bobby, lad,’ he said when I gave him a hug. Then Tommy Taylor scored our third just before half time.
Fifteen minutes into the second half David Herd, who would join United a few years later, smashed a shot past Harry Gregg, and in a few more minutes Jimmy Bloomfield scored twice. Cheers rolled down from the stand as we contemplated the bleak possibility that our run back into the title race – we had reached third place and were just six points behind Wolves, who were due to arrive at Old Trafford the following Saturday – was suddenly in danger of being halted.
It was an excellent test of our nerve. After the game we would be flying to Belgrade for the second leg of our European tie with Red Star of Belgrade. We had heard stories of how ferocious the Serbs were on their own soil, and we had had a taste of their force and skill at Old Trafford, when we’d had to battle to our limits to gain a 2–1 advantage, one of our goals coming from a Scanlon cross which I was able to hook home. Everyone said, from Busby down, that we would have to redouble our efforts if we were to survive. Now, here at Highbury, we were having something of a dress rehearsal. Duncan, as always, took Arsenal’s recovery as a personal affront, and from Roger Byrne there was the usual cool leadership. He wasn’t a shouter but he had a great presence. It was clear that we faced the kind of examination that we couldn’t afford to fail; it might just shape the rest of our season.
Dennis Viollet pushed us back in front from another cross by Scanlon in the sixty-fifth minute, four minutes after Bloomfield’s equalising strike, and then, after another seven minutes, Taylor scored his second goal from an angle which Kelsey must have thought impossible. The 5–3 lead seemed like an invitation to cruise home. Arsenal, and their ecstatic fans, had been swiftly subdued. At least it was a pleasant idea for the five minutes it took for the Welsh international inside forward Derek Tapscott to pull his team back into the game.
Nine goals might point a finger towards poor defence, but the quality of play was sustained, and was as thrilling to be involved in as it apparently was to see. We beat back waves of
