Always Managing: My Autobiography (11 page)

It wasn’t as if Dennis could do much. We only had two footballs between all of us, and often he’d only stand there and watch us all play fifteen-a-side in the playground, but I loved the fact that here was a real professional footballer, because I idolised those guys. Dennis used to single me out and talk to me because he knew I had a chance, and all week I would look forward to being with him. I suddenly learned the importance of staying clean, tidy and fit. When Dennis left, his brother Les, Clive’s dad, who won the Double with Tottenham, took over the supervision. Footballers had to earn money where they could in those days. He was probably paid £1.

If it hadn’t worked out for me in football, I feel sure I would have ended up down the docks. That was where people like me went in those days, and Dad already had my name down. It was all
about family connections. You could only get in if you had a dad or an uncle there but, luckily, my whole family were dockers. My dad, his dad, Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Billy. Sandra’s family were dockers, too. If you had no education and lived in the East End, the docks opened their gates and in you went. Having failed miserably in exams at Susan Lawrence, I can’t even remember taking any at Sir Humphrey Gilbert. I left just before my fifteenth birthday and never looked back. My school wasn’t there to provide education.

Yet that East London schools team proved the making of me. We were really good, and started catching the attention of the professional clubs. One by one, our players began to get picked up. Terry Reardon, my friend from Burdett Boys, was the star and every team in England wanted him. Then one night we played at Millwall, in the final of the Criss Shield, against Wandsworth. We won 4–0 and I did really well. I remember we had the Cup and I felt ten feet tall, and as I came off down the tunnel there was a grey-haired man standing there, wearing a lovely big overcoat. He looked like a million dollars. I didn’t recognise him, but it was Dickie Walker. He’d been a great centre-half for West Ham and the captain of the club, but I don’t think they looked after him very well, and now he was chief scout for Tottenham. ‘Is your dad here, son?’ he asked. He told me who he was and that he wanted to see Dad before we went home. I went running in. ‘Dad, Dad, the Tottenham scout’s here – he wants me to go to Tottenham.’ Just saying it felt great. Dickie arranged for the pair of us to meet him at White Hart Lane the next day. It was the middle of winter, freezing cold, and I had to wait for Dad to finish work. I had no overcoat, just a plastic mac; and we had no car, so it was an
unpleasant walk from the station, but I didn’t care. I was going to meet Tottenham. I had never been so excited. When we arrived, Dickie took us straight in to see Bill Nicholson, the manager. Bill was building the Tottenham team that went on to win the Double in 1960–61, the first manager of the twentieth century to do so, but here he was talking to me. I couldn’t believe it.

To a young teenager, no more than 13, Bill was a very intimidating figure. He was a man of few words and had an immediate air of authority. He certainly didn’t look like the sort of manager who would be up for having a laugh with the lads. ‘Hello, son,’ said Bill. ‘Dickie tells me you’ve being doing all right, he’s seen you play a couple of times. You’re a winger, aren’t you? Tell me, do you score goals?’

I couldn’t lie. ‘No, not me, Mr Nicholson,’ I told him. ‘I don’t score many goals.’

He wasn’t too happy with this. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I only know one great winger who didn’t score goals and that was Stanley Matthews. Unless you’re going to be as good as him, you’d better start scoring.’

And off he went. He was a blunt Yorkshireman and seemed very cold. I can’t say I thought I’d have much of a future at Spurs after that brusque encounter.

Yet despite my lack of goals I did start training with Tottenham twice a week after school. Terry Reardon did, too. We got two trains there and two trains back and then made that journey six weeks straight in the school holidays.

There was a small group of us and, in summer, once the professionals were back at training, we all looked forward to the lunch break when the first-team players would come over and
entertain us with a few tricks. Those names are legend now: Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, John White. Just wearing the same Tottenham kit as them made us proud. ‘Come on, John,’ Mackay would say, ‘show the lads what you can do.’ And White would get the ball, put it on his neck, on his shoulders, let it drop and juggle it. He had possibly the best feet I’ve ever seen, just unbelievable skill, and we all sat there watching in awe. White was a true great. He had this amazing ability to arrive in the opposition penalty area without being detected, and the Tottenham fans nicknamed him ‘the Ghost’. It was such a terrible tragedy that he died so young, struck by lightning on a golf course at the age of 27.

Tottenham were playing the best football in the league at the time and had a fantastic team. Cliff Jones was the fastest winger of his generation, Bobby Smith was a battering-ram striker, and at the back there was Maurice Norman, the first centre-half to go up for corner kicks. Yet White, bought from Falkirk for £22,000, was the pick of them all. Harry Evans, Tottenham’s assistant manager, was John’s father-in-law, and he used to work with the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Before John died, Harry gave me a pair of his boots and they were the most beautiful black leather, the softest I had ever felt.

What a year that was. I watched a lot of the home matches as Tottenham won the Double – Bobby Smith smashing the ball in the net, the goalkeeper petrified – and even an Arsenal fan could see they were special. But my own career was taking off, too. West Ham, Chelsea, they were all in for me.

One evening on the Burdett Estate, we were playing football near the pram sheds and we spotted two men standing in the shadows. It
was too dark to see the football, let alone make out who these shady figures were, but as they stepped into a chink of light I recognised Tommy Docherty, then a young manager at Chelsea. He was there with a scout, Wilf Chitty, to talk about me going to train with them instead. My dad loved the Doc – he was an ex-Arsenal man – and they came up to our flat where my mum made us all a cup of tea and my dad sat around talking football with one of his heroes.

By the time I was ready to sign I had the choice of all the London clubs, even Arsenal. My favourite club, though, was bottom of my list. As much as I loved the Gunners, at that time they had a reputation for buying players rather than developing them, and were by far the biggest London club in the transfer market. Even with Tottenham having such a great team, I still thought I would have more chance with them – but, in truth, the club I had fallen in love with was West Ham. Once they came in, and I got to know the culture there, it was the only choice for me.

I noticed that whenever I went to watch the youth team play, Ron Greenwood, the manager, was present. He really cared about the kids. He didn’t just put in the odd appearance to impress you into signing. He knew you, how you were progressing, how far you had to go. The first team was full of home-grown players; Ron wasn’t always out buying and West Ham was a place where I felt I would get a chance. They were doing well then, too. Tottenham were obviously the best team in London, but although Arsenal was the biggest club, they weren’t streets ahead of West Ham in the league. And Chelsea were relegated in 1962.

Malcolm Allison, a former player, had also made a big impact at Upton Park. He had left by the time I arrived, but his influence
could be seen everywhere, not least in the style of West Ham’s great young captain Bobby Moore. Bobby swore that Malcolm made him, that without Malcolm he wouldn’t have been half as good. Malcolm’s career ended prematurely when he fell ill with tuberculosis and had to have a lung removed, but he would coach the kids at West Ham and took Bobby to training twice a week. Bobby said Malcolm was like the boss of the young players, and when he talked they all listened. I think the staff must have listened to him, too, because he stopped them making one of the greatest mistakes in the history of football. When it came to the end of each season, West Ham only had a limited number of new professional contracts on offer and, one summer, were choosing between Bobby Moore and another boy. It looked as if Bobby was going to be unlucky. The report on him said he couldn’t run, couldn’t head it, had no pace and wasn’t big enough to be a centre-half. Malcolm wasn’t having that and intervened. ‘He’s going to be a player,’ he insisted forcefully, and, fortunately, the others listened.

Bobby used to tell one story about Malcolm that summed up his philosophy – and West Ham’s philosophy at the time. The youth team played Chelsea away at their training ground one Wednesday afternoon. It was muddy, and Bobby was told to mark Barry Bridges. Barry was 17, but he was good enough to have played for Chelsea’s first team the previous weekend, and had scored twice. This was an important game, however, so they had brought him back to the youth team as a one off. West Ham drew 0–0 and Bobby thought he did really well against Bridges. He knew Malcolm had been watching and when he came into the
dressing room he thought his mentor was going to compliment him on stopping such a good player. Instead, Malcolm was furious. ‘If I ever see you play like that, I’ll never talk to you again,’ he said. ‘When our goalkeeper had the ball, what were you doing? You were looking at Barry Bridges. I’ve told you: drop off, get it from the keeper, and then play. That’s your job. Play the ball. Every time the goalie gets it, tell him to give it to you. If he gives it out to the left-back, drop off, make an angle, so you can clip it into the front man’s chest. That’s how I’ve told you to play. Instead, you’ve run around like them all day. You haven’t touched the ball. If you ever do that again, it’s the last time I’ll help you.’

What people thought was Bobby’s unique game was actually instilled by Malcolm. Remember Bobby’s pass that found Geoff Hurst in the World Cup final? That is what Malcolm had taught him to do. He took time to help Bob, to talk to him, coach him, give him good information. True, Bobby was bright enough to take it in, but he always gave Malcolm credit. He said that Malcolm made him a player. And he helped shape Greenwood’s West Ham, too.

Ron was another old-school character, like Bill Nicholson. The manager’s door wasn’t always open in those days. Even senior players wishing to see Ron had to make an appointment. And you had to be in the first team a good few years before you were on first-name terms. Until that point, he was always Mr Greenwood. As apprentice professionals we had to do the chores. We trained in the morning and then returned to Upton Park to get the first-team kit ready for the next day. The laundry would stink with sweat or be caked in dry mud, but you had to make sure it was washed, dried and rolled up ready for use. After that, we were free, but we
were all young and football mad and would often go on to the forecourt for a kickabout. That was the beginning of what would be an outstanding West Ham youth team, although Ernie Gregory, the first-team coach, saw us as more of a nuisance. He came out one day and moved us on, told us he had to get home, and we should go home, too. When Ron found out he gave Ernie the most frightful bollocking. ‘As long as they want to stay out there, as long as they are doing something useful, as long as they are playing football, we’ll stay here with them as long as they want,’ he said. He loved the fact that all his apprentices just wanted to play. We weren’t going off down the snooker hall or into the bookmaker’s, so what was wrong with that? He was a proper football man, Ron.

In my first full season at West Ham, 1962–63, we won the FA Youth Cup. That was some achievement. Three of the players in that team were first-years, like me, and I was 15 for most of those matches. There is a huge difference in physical presence between the ages of 15 and 18, so it was a very unusual success.

We had a good team. The three youngsters were me, Colin Mackleworth, the goalkeeper, and our left-back, Bill Kitchener. Colin played for Burdett Boys and East London Schools, too, and he and Bill were big strong lads who marched straight into the team. By pure coincidence, when they retired from football, they both became coppers. John Charles, our captain, was the first black player to lead a professional team to a major trophy, and he would later become the first black player to represent West Ham in the top division. John Sissons, probably the most enthusiastic participant in our forecourt games, would be the youngest player to score in an FA Cup final, for West Ham against Preston North End a
year later. Our centre-forward was Martin Britt. He was fantastic, another powerful boy who was scoring goals in the first team as a teenager. Martin had some injury problems and lost his place in the team, and the next thing we knew he had gone in to see Mr Greenwood and was off to Blackburn Rovers. Transfers like that didn’t happen in those days, players tended to be more patient. But injury got the better of Martin at Blackburn, too, and he was out of the game at 21. A shame; I haven’t seen too many who could head the ball like him. Dennis Burnett was our right-back, and he went on to play close to 300 games for Millwall. In fact, almost everyone in that team had reasonable careers. I felt sorry for a lad called Trevor Dawkins, who could have been a fantastic player, but I think Ron held him back too long. Then there was Peter Bennett, who played nearly ten years at Leyton Orient and Bobby Howe, who was with me at Seattle Sounders.

Ron Greenwood was at every game we played and would encourage us by fixing up matches against the first team in training. We’d give them a game, too. Our coach was Jimmy Barrett – Young Jim, as he was known, because his father, also Jim, was a legendary centre-half with West Ham before the war. Young Jim was a midfielder and a hard man, like his dad. He looked after us when we played as West Ham’s A-team in the Metropolitan League each Saturday. We’d be up against men’s amateur teams like Chelmsford City or Bedford Town, and they didn’t like 15-year-olds getting the beating of them. They would try to take lumps out of us, at which point Young Jim would put himself on and settle a few scores. No matter the size of the player, he would sort them out. There were more than a few who thought they had got away
with giving some kid a lesson, only to find themselves visited by Jim. He never let a kicking go unpunished.