Banksy (14 page)

Today the pace of the game in the Premiership is such that teams from lower divisions can no longer employ the hustle and harass tactic. If anything, the pace of a game in the Premiership
is speedier than in the Nationwide League. You can’t harass and hustle the likes of Ryan Giggs, Michael Owen, Harry Kewell or Ray Parlour off the ball if you have trouble keeping up with them! The sheer pace of games in the Premiership has altered the tactics deployed by many teams. When a team from a lower division comes up against a Premiership team, they can no longer hope to pressurize them into making mistakes. They have had to alter their tactics when meeting a top side. For example, they will try to play a containing game while concentrating on their own strengths, on a par or better than those of the side from the higher division. For example, dead-ball situations like free kicks, corners and ultra-long throw-ins (used very effectively by Tranmere in their cup runs of recent years).

Playing against Barnsley was very much like going back to my roots for me. First of all, their right half, Bill Houghton, had been a member of the Northern Intermediate League Select XI for which I was reserve goalkeeper for the game against league champions, Sunderland, in 1956. And then there was the environment of Oakwell. Beyond the open Spion Kop terracing to the left of the main grandstand the winding wheel of a pithead could clearly be seen and the wind that swept the ground was permeated with yeast from a nearby brewery. The smoke and smother of the town was reminiscent of the Sheffield of my childhood. The Barnsley supporters too reminded me of those with whom I had stood cheek by jowl on the terraces of Hillsborough and Bramall Lane: men in flat caps the size of Doulton dinner plates whose dark wool overcoats smelled of Senior Service and lunchtime’s best bitter; pale young men with Brylcreemed hair swept into DA quiffs and sporting long sideburns; young and old wearing collar and tie beneath their overcoats befitting the air of what was still seen as a social occasion about a football match; small boys hanging on to the perimeter wall, brandishing wooden rattles painted red and white, their Burberry macs buttoned to the collar, peaked school caps on their heads. No school for them that day. There was no inane
chanting, no puerile songs, just cheering and the occasional collective ‘aaw’ when a shot flashed wide of my goal. A rumbustious tackle from Colin Appleton on Ken Oliver produced a brief but massed hiss, like forty thousand bicycle tyres being simultaneously deflated. Those Barnsley supporters offered constant free advice to the referee throughout the game. Their wholehearted, passionate bias engulfed the ground. Only to end with their silent shuffling off the terraces, in deflation and nervous exhaustion. As the players exchanged muddy handshakes and made for the bath, the suddenly muted supporters disappeared into the murky March evening, heading as I had once done, to welcoming homes with fires roaring up the chimney, the wireless babbling, pots of stew that bubbled like a diver and a wife they called Mother, or a mother they called Mam.

The draw for the FA Cup was made live on radio, on a Monday lunchtime, on what was then the Light Programme. There were only three BBC radio networks in 1961. The Light Programme, as the name suggests, broadcast light entertainment by way of music, comedy and sport. The Home Service provided news, drama and magazine feature programmes and the Third Programme was the home of classical music.

This was our radio drama, especially if we were still involved in the draw. The Light Programme enjoyed a periodic winter boost to its listenership with its broadcast of the FA Cup draw. With each FA Cup draw supporters, players and directors alike would huddle around radios eagerly awaiting the flat voice of a member of the FA to announce their opponents. The draw was one of those small rituals of football that separated the devotees of the game from the passive supporters. Each team was allocated a number, but somehow I could never predict what number Leicester City would be. The Football Association’s system for numbering the little wooden balls that were drawn out of a velvet bag defied logic, and was as much a mystery as the workings of the human appendix. The fact that you didn’t know what number
your team was going to be only added to the sense of drama. The sing-song clunking of the balls when the fickle fingers of fate dipped into the bag to draw one out was somehow comforting. A plummy octogenarian voice (we imagined the wing collars and fob watches) would then announce the number – was this yours? – and a similarly dusty voice interpreted the mysterious number and announced the team. Inwardly (and collectively) you prayed for a home draw, or to avoid the big guns like Spurs or Wolves. When another club was drawn out of the bag to face them, the sense of relief for however brief a time was overwhelming. And all this drama was enacted by people we couldn’t see in we didn’t know where. Who were these people with your FA Cup fate literally at their fingertips?

The draw for the FA Cup today has been stripped of the strange mystery that surrounded it for decades. They now tell you in advance the numbers of the teams involved. No wooden balls or velvet bag. It is now a mirror image of the officials who administer it, impoverished by way of imagination and as dramatically gripping as last week’s National Lottery.

In 1961, unlike now, they didn’t bother to broadcast the FA Cup semi-final draw, which took place on the Monday prior to the replay against Barnsley. They simply announced that the winners of our game would meet Second Division Sheffield United at Elland Road, while Spurs were drawn against Burnley.

In choosing the venues for FA Cup semi-finals the Football Association simply allocated a ground they thought to be halfway between the two respective clubs. As both semi-finals were played on a Saturday afternoon when other clubs were fulfilling their normal league programme, the choice of venues depended either on those clubs that were playing away from home that day, or that didn’t have a game as they had been scheduled to meet one of the four semi-finalists. This situation resulted in our being sent to meet Sheffield United at Elland Road, Leeds. This wasn’t exactly a halfway house in that Elland Road was nearer to Sheffield than Leicester, but the FA announced that should
there be a draw, the replay would be allocated to a neutral ground nearer to Leicester by way of compensation.

Over 52,000 fans turned up at Elland Road to witness a tight and taut goalless draw. Both sides were nervous and there were few scoring chances. Sadly, our outside left, Gordon Wills picked up a debilitating injury that was to sideline him for the rest of the season.

The neutral ground nearer to Leicester selected for the replay was the City Ground, the home of Nottingham Forest. Today the City Ground would be a surprising venue for an FA Cup semi-final. At the time, however, all First Division grounds had ample terracing and were capable of holding good-sized crowds. While Villa Park, St Andrews, Hillsborough, Old Trafford and Goodison Park were all capable of housing far bigger crowds than the City Ground’s capacity of 43,500, the FA were at pains to be fair to all, rather than simply to maximize revenue by selecting a more distant venue. Therefore it was the case that the distance Leicester fans had to travel to Nottingham was more or less equal to the journey made by Sheffield United fans in getting to Elland Road for the first encounter. Conversely, Leicester to Leeds was a similar distance as Sheffield to Nottingham. So fairness was not only promised but seen to be done on the part of the FA.

For the replay, at the City Ground, Nottingham, Matt Gillies brought in Albert Cheesebrough to replace the injured Gordon Wills. The game turned out to be no better than the first. Being one step away from Wembley both sides were fearful of making a mistake and there was little open, fluid football to be seen. Once again, neither side possessed the temerity or wherewithal to break the deadlock and the blank scoreline sent us to St Andrews for a second replay.

The first twenty minutes of our game at St Andrews provided more drama and excitement than both our previous encounters combined. Within minutes of the start I was diving full length to tip away a stinging drive from the United centre forward
Derek Pace and moments later was happy to see a swerving drive from Len Allchurch clear my crossbar by inches. Down at the other end the United goalkeeper, Alan Hodgkinson, saved well from both Ken Leek and Jimmy Walsh. Both teams had set out their stall, both were going for victory – surely this encounter would not end goalless.

After about ten minutes I thought we were going to make the long-awaited breakthrough when we were awarded a penalty. Unfortunately, our centre half, Ian King, rucked his studs in the turf as he struck the spot kick and the opportunity went begging. Fifteen minutes later, however, we did take the lead. Jimmy Walsh, a player who seemed to hang in the air when he rose to the ball, headed in. Just before half time, I thought we had the game wrapped up when the prolific Ken Leek made it 2–0.

Our plan for the second half was to contain the expected opening onslaught and then hope that, with the clock against them, United would become edgy and make mistakes that we could punish. Just when I thought that plan was working a treat, we gifted United a penalty on 65 minutes. There isn’t a lot a goalkeeper can do when facing a penalty other than choose which way to dive. Later in my career I began keeping notes on which side of the goal various players chose to shoot when taking a penalty. At this stage, however, I reacted purely on instinct. Graham Shaw (one of three brothers at the club) stepped up and repaid Ian King’s earlier generosity by shooting wide. Though, let it be said, I went the right way!

Maybe some Sheffield players believed, deep down, that their last chance had gone, because we were comfortably in the driving seat until the final whistle, without adding to our two goals. At the end I looked up to the darkened skies above Birmingham and thanked my lucky stars. Two and a half years ago I was thrilled to break into the Chesterfield first team in Division Three. Now I was about to play in an FA Cup final at Wembley. I had never dared dream of such a thing. Wembley was the stage for the best players in the land, the likes of Stanley Matthews, Nat
Lofthouse, Peter Broadbent, Bobby Charlton, Dennis Viollet and Ron Flowers. Internationals to a man. My mind was fogged. Here I was, a player who a little over two years ago had been ecstatic when picked to make his league debut in Division Three. I’d never won a thing, whether it was at a hand of Pontoon on a building site, a game of bingo at the Chesterfield supporters club, a lucky raffle ticket, or waiting for ‘Ernie’ to pick out the number of one of my few premium bonds. Now I was only ninety minutes away from what every footballer I knew yearned for, an FA Cup winner’s medal. Could this really be happening to me? It could and it was.

In the space of a year my life had changed dramatically. My performances for Leicester City had come to the attention of the England manager, Walter Winterbottom, and during Leicester’s FA Cup run to my delight I was called up for the England Under-23 squad. (In those days the manager of England was responsible not only for the full international team, but also for both the England Under-23 and youth sides as well as being the FA’s head coach.)

I played twice for England Under-23s, against Wales and Scotland. Looking back at the teams that turned out in those two games, nearly every player went on to greater things in the game, which shows the importance of having young talent coming through and being given a chance at the highest level. For the game against Wales, England fielded the following team: Gordon Banks (Leicester City); John Angus (Burnley), Gerry Byrne (Liverpool); Bobby Moore (West Ham), Brian Labone (Everton), John Kirkham (Wolves); Peter Brabrook (Chelsea), John Barnwell (Arsenal), Johnny Byrne (Crystal Palace), Les Allen (Spurs), Clive ‘Chippy’ Clark (West Bromwich Albion), with Alan Mullery (Fulham) in reserve. A line-up that belied the belief held by some at the time that English football was devoid of quality players.

For the game against Scotland, George Cohen (Fulham) came in for John Angus at right back, Mick McNeill (Middlesbrough) at left back for Gerry Byrne, Mick O’Grady (Huddersfield Town) for Peter Brabrook and Peter Dobing (Blackburn Rovers) for John Barnwell. Our opposition for those two games included such stars in the making as the Welshmen Mike England (Blackburn Rovers), Arfon Griffiths (Arsenal), Graham Williams (West
Bromwich Albion) and Barry Jones (Swansea Town), while the young Scots included Pat Crerand and Billy McNeill (Celtic), Alan Gilzean and Ian Ure (both Dundee) and a young blond lad from Huddersfield Town, Denis Law. Crerand, Gilzean, Ure and Law, of course, all went on to make a considerable mark with English clubs, while Billy McNeill became the first British player ever to lift the European Cup when captaining Celtic in their marvellous victory over Inter-Milan in 1967.

Rubbing shoulders with some of the best young players in British football made me even more determined to improve my technique as a goalkeeper. I knew I was still a long way off recognition at full England level, but those two appearances for the Under-23s gave me hope that, one day, with hard work and diligence, I might be good enough. Never for one moment did I think I had ‘made it’. On the contrary. The quality of players on show in those matches made me realize how much I had still to learn.

Looking back now at those names, I’m very much reminded of a term used by John Moynihan, a top football writer of the day, who described footballers as being the ‘Saturday Men’. In essence, that is what we were. Of course, there were occasionally mid-week games, but Saturday was
the
day for football. With limited coverage of the game on radio and particularly television, and press coverage nowhere near the saturation level it is today, footballers emerged from the relative obscurity of a week of training to ply their trade before the fans on a Saturday afternoon. Saturday was the only time the majority of fans saw players in the flesh. It was the one time when we were in the spotlight, when a week’s work on the training ground boiled down to just ninety minutes, the outcome of which would set the mood and emotions of both players and supporters for another seven days. We were very much the ‘Saturday Men’.