An old South American player said, ‘But, Bobby, don’t you think, as a professional, that if we can get away with creating an advantage for our own side, we really should be applauded?’ Sepp Blatter steered us away from a confrontation, saying, ‘Let’s stick to the rules,’ and moved the discussion on from a subject that was guaranteed to cause major division, and possibly a serious row.
We can be sure the late Jock Stein would not have been surprised by the exchange. He tried to persuade his friend Matt Busby to abandon the idea that United should follow in the footsteps of his Celtic team, who twelve months earlier, and after their brilliant European Cup victory over Internazionale Milan, had been involved in two riotous games with the South American champions Racing Club of Buenos Aires. Stein railed against the kicking and the spitting his players had been exposed to, with scarcely a hint of protection from the referee. The Old Man valued hugely the opinions of Stein, but in his ideal of a world of football that flew beyond borders, and prejudice, he was still unshakeable. Even after a scouting mission to Argentina which proved to be terribly uncomfortable – he picked up a bug and spent almost the entire flight home locked in the tiny toilet cubicle – Matt Busby was emphatic. The adventure must go on. Unfortunately, the adventure was almost exclusively an ordeal, both in Buenos Aires, where we played the first leg, and then at Old Trafford.
Nobby Stiles was ranked second only to Alf Ramsey (following the manager’s charge that Argentina had played like animals against England in the World Cup) as a leading public enemy in the view of fanatic elements of that football-mad nation, and he bore the brunt of the hostility when we arrived in South America. As he has ruefully recalled down the years, the Argentine fans had produced a series of banners for their greeting to us. One said, ‘Denis Law – El Rey [the King]’. Another declared, ‘George Best – El Beatle’. Nor did I have any reason for complaint. My banner said, ‘Bobby Charlton – El Campeón [the Champion]’. Nobby was much less pleased when he saw, ‘Nobby Stiles – El Bandido’.
Nobby growled, ‘Fucking charming,’ as he climbed into the team bus to a chorus of catcalls and boos. He knew, like the rest of us, that Jock Stein’s reservations were almost certainly about to be confirmed. It wasn’t as though the World Club Championship was exactly a glittering prize; it was a novelty then, and it is still something quite marginal all these years later. Still, the Old Man insisted we could get through it successfully, and that if we helped to give the trophy some significance, it would in the end be for the good of the game. My feeling was, ‘Well, the boss seems to want this, and if we’re involved we might as well make the best of it – and win another trophy.’
I hadn’t been to Argentina before and so many people who had were telling me, ‘You’re heading for the most hostile place any footballer could go.’ But then I thought, ‘It’s something we’ll get used to.’ Soon enough, though, we realised that this would not be a formality. I had to have three stitches after a kick on the shin from a defender we had christened Dracula but, as anticipated, the real nightmare was Nobby’s. He acquitted himself with great discipline, and application to the play, despite all kinds of provocation, including a head butt from Carlos Bilardo, who would later coach Argentina to their World Cup win in Mexico in 1986.
The way the script was shaping it was probably inevitable that Nobby would be sent off, though in the event the circumstances were quite shocking. The dismissal was a complete injustice in view of all that had gone on before. The referee didn’t give us any protection, and nothing in the way of 50–50 decisions, and Nobby no doubt reached breaking point in the second half when he made a perfect run through an offside trap to pick up a pass from Paddy Crerand. Though the linesman’s flag stayed down, the referee immediately blew for offside. Nobby protested and gestured towards the linesman, then turned to me and said, ‘We’ll get nowt out of this.’ The referee called Nobby to him and asked him what he had said. It was then that my friend sealed his own fate. He said in my direction, ‘He can’t fucking see and now it turns out he can’t hear.’
On the journey home it seemed fair to congratulate ourselves on bringing away a deficit no worse than a single goal and, even though we would be missing Nobby in the second leg, we had to be confident that we could outplay them at Old Trafford.
This belief was supported by some striking circumstantial evidence. It seemed that the transatlantic flight had worked a remarkable transformation on the disposition of Estudiantes. They were staying near my house in Lymm and all the locals seemed to be agreed: the Argentinian players were perfect gentlemen. They posed for pictures with local schoolchildren, and waved and smiled whenever they left their hotel. One Lymm resident wondered, ‘What’s all this nonsense about them being thugs and animals – really, they are lovely.’ One of them came round to my house with a photographer from the Manchester Evening News. He suggested that it would be good for the match if we proved that really the players of both sides were, despite what happened in Buenos Aires, quite the best of friends. I posed for a picture including Norma and the girls as we received a ‘delegation’ in our front garden. We were presented with flags. It was all so amiable there might have been a temptation to forget, at least to some extent, quite how hard it
