It was frustrating in the first training sessions that followed the move. When the cries kept swirling in from Jimmy Murphy, ‘Stay on your line,’ my first reaction was, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not sure about this.’ But even though I missed my freedom so acutely, I did tell myself, ‘Well, I’ll adapt, the important thing is that I’m playing, I’m not harmed by injury.’ Though it was jarring to be placed in what felt a bit like a straitjacket, I did meet some early success. In my first game on the wing I supplied the cross for the opening goal from Alex Dawson in a 3–1 defeat of Nottingham Forest, then scored the other two. On the right side Johnny Giles, who like me thought of himself as a midfielder, also had a lively game.
When I really thought about it, it was not so hard to see the point of the decision. I was sharp over twenty yards and I could use my left foot. I scored three more in the next three games and for a little while I was quite mollified. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘it’s not as though I’m out of balance and I can’t use my left foot. I’m playing well, and anyway, I probably won’t be out here for too long.’
It was three years before I returned to what I would always regard as my natural hunting ground, the wide stretches across the middle of the field. Some of the time was made quite hellish by Jimmy Murphy’s voice in my ear. I was so close to him out there on the wing and he was relentless. ‘Stay there, don’t move!’ he would yell, and my frustration often came close to breaking point. Once, at Nottingham Forest, I swore I didn’t touch the ball for twenty-five minutes. It provoked the saying at Old Trafford that you could die of cold out on the left wing waiting for a pass.
However, I never reached the point of complaining officially, despite the prompting from Jackie Milburn, who thought I had graduated to the point where I could make my own demands. Trouble was, I couldn’t have made the argument to Jimmy or the Old Man that I wasn’t playing well. They could have said, ‘Look, you’re helping the team, you’re scoring goals and you’re playing so well you have even been recalled by England.’
In fact I was enjoying the benefit of both my own natural speed and that early education by Jimmy, who spent so many hours teaching me how to ‘throw a shoulder’ and strike when my marker was on the back foot. ‘Just do it straight away,’ he urged me. ‘Throw that shoulder as if you’re going inside and you’ll catch them on their heels and be gone.’
On my way back into the England team I played for the Football League against the Scottish League. They had a little right back called Bobby Shearer, a typical little red-haired Scottish full back of the type that was beginning to go out of fashion. He was a good, hard-tackling pro, but after the game I said to myself that I hoped I would be playing against him when Scotland came to Wembley in a few weeks’ time. He played, we won 9–3 and I lost count of the times I was able to follow the Murphy formula and knock the ball past him. I didn’t score, but did have a very effective game.
Overall, the conclusion had to be that despite the irritation – and sometimes I made it clear to the bench and my team-mates it was more than that – of not seeing enough of the ball, I was still able to make an impact at regular intervals, and a good contribution to the team. However, there were difficult days. For instance, playing against my future World Cup team-mate George Cohen was never an easy challenge. He was at the forefront of the new full backs, quick and hard and unwilling to give a winger an easy yard. Once, during an England game in Peru, I was made angry in a way that summed up so much of the frustration that I carried in my years on the wing. The Peruvian right back just grabbed me whenever I went by him. Each time the referee waved play on. Later, at a reception, I said to the official, who spoke very good English, ‘I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes, but isn’t there a rule somewhere that when a full back is beaten he is not entitled to wrap his arms around the player who has gone by him.’ Straight faced, the referee said, ‘Yes, you’re quite right, but we don’t follow that rule here.’
In a new era of defensive play, with the development of quick and often highly ruthless defenders, it seemed inevitable that my professional life could only get harder. Then a miracle came along and the Old Man and Jimmy Murphy decided that I had served my time on the wing and I could return to the wide and welcoming terrain of midfield. The miracle had a name. It was called George Best.
15
TEAM OF STARS
ON THE FIELD, if not always off it, I understood immediately the meaning of the arrival of first Denis Law, then George Best. In the past I had wondered whether my ideal of
