The fact is that there has been some repairing down the years, and today, with my mother and father gone, Jack and I have rebuilt our relationship in a way that works for both of us. Maybe we are quite different characters, but a brother is a brother. We have the same blood and have made similar journeys in life. I’m proud of what he has achieved, both as a player and a manager, and I know that he has always been generous about my ability and my dedication as a player. We shared something when England won the World Cup that few families could ever dream of, but then if brothers are brothers, families are families; blood, no doubt, is thicker than water, but sometimes it does not flow so easily.
Now, in this my own story, the priority for me is that, with regard to Norma, the record is put straight, because of her character and the love that she has always given to my daughters and me. She has been a wonderful partner and mother, and I cannot shake the view that for some time she was badly treated by some members of my family.
If I reach for a word to describe her it is invariably the same one as all those years ago. The word is ‘sensational’. She has travelled with me all around the world – and always I have been proud to have her at my side. If she comes with me to a match or some public occasion and we get separated, whenever I look for her I find her surrounded by people, this still young person – young to me – and I get a flush of never-changing pride that so many people agree with me, that she is so bright and lovely and so interesting.
There has never been an edge to Norma. She has also been very strong at times when I have had to make difficult decisions. She has always been at the forefront of such conversations; never dominating any discussions, but always making her points, always presenting a full picture of our needs as a family. She can be very tough. She doesn’t mess around if she disagrees with me – or anyone else. She says what she thinks, but not in any abrasive way, and certainly she puts me in my place if she suspects, almost invariably correctly, that I’m getting a bit carried away with myself. One of the criticisms of Norma that Jack aired publicly, and I found most hurtful, was that she put herself up above other people. It has never been so in my experience – and certainly not when she found herself caught up in the company of characters like Jimmy Murphy and Bill Shankly.
When Jimmy was keen on having one of his sessions, Norma would be invited with me to join him for a few drinks, and she would listen attentively to all his theories about football. Once I remember her saying, ‘Now, Mr Murphy, what do you think of the 4–3–3 formation?’ and of course the old football man was charmed. That, too, made me proud; for Jimmy, football was the centre of the world, and no question could have been more guaranteed to take any awkwardness out of the situation of a young woman being drawn into the alien world of football talk fuelled by beer and whisky or, if you were unlucky, Mateus Rosé.
Once, when we were newly married, my mother-in-law Nora, who lived with us after Norma’s father Tommy died soon after the wedding, reported early one morning that a strange man was lurking in the garden. Did we have a stalker? We were living in the Cheshire village of Lymm, where a lot of football teams, including the Brazilians of the 1966 World Cup, stayed at a nearby hotel when they were playing in Manchester. On this occasion it was Liverpool, and the man in the garden was Bill Shankly. He had been told I lived in the village and, as always, he was restless on the day of a big game. He had come to seek me out for some football talk, so I said to Norma, ‘I’m sorry, love, but I think you’ll have to put the kettle on.’
Norma was such a perfect hostess, talking about football with Shankly in a way that I found a little stunning, that I became a mere extra in the scene and soon enough I made my excuses and prepared to leave for the game. They were deep in conversation when I left. When I returned Norma explained that the Liverpool team bus had eventually pulled up outside our house, summoning the manager with a toot of the horn.
I do not wish to make any unfair and, still less, any unflattering comparisons between my wife and my mother, but plainly they were different people, different characters, and my hurt was that right from the start it was clear they would not get on. Any son will tell you how important it is for his wife and his mother to have an easy relationship; anything less than that, and there is an immediate
