Catch A Falling Star (11 page)

The stadium itself was where Hitler used to hold his mass rallies. We drew 1-1 but the thing I particularly remember was that on the way home Mike Doyle bought a Blue Spot radio for his car. These little radios were supposed to be the best and naturally Doyley had to have one. Anyway, he slapped it around his midriff so he wouldn’t have to declare it and as we were walking through customs, we shouted: “Mike, turn the radio on!” and he went bright red! You could see he was going mad with us. The funny thing was when he fitted it in his car it only played German music – we really did rib him for that!

Team morale was brilliant. The squad was full of zany characters. We had a golf day at
Northenden
once and most of the first team players came along. It was a great social occasion. It was also memorable because of an incident that happened to big Joe Corrigan. He had splashed out and bought himself a brand new set of clubs together with a new bag and golf shoes. A few of the lads had teed off already and it came to Joe’s turn. He stood on the first tee holding his shiny new driver – which looked like a tooth pick in his massive hands.

Clearly attracted by the potential talent on display, members of
Northenden
Golf Club began to gather in the clubhouse window about twenty yards from the first tee – there must have been about ten of them waiting for Joe to give a demonstration of his awesome firepower. So Joe had a few practice swings and he looked pretty good – he calmed down, addressed the ball, swung and hit the ball with such power that it flew just over the clubhouse window. How it missed I’ll never know.

Anyway he picked his tee up, put his hands above his eyes as if he had hit it straight down the fairway, put his driver back in his bag and walked down the first fairway, casually dropping a ball 200 yards down the fairway. It was funny, we were all in stitches because Joe acted so nonchalantly on the spot, everyone in the clubhouse thought he had hit a great drive. Nice one Joe!

Funny things happen in games from time to time. One day at Maine Road Mike
Summerbee
was giving it
mouth,
he was giving me some real earache because I didn’t pass the ball to him. He went on for ages laying into me and eventually I ran out of patience with him. “Hey you,
Summerbee
, you fucking playboy, shut that big mouth of yours!” He just stood there in amazement. He was stunned because normally I was very quiet. It was all forgotten in the dressing room and we both had a good laugh about it but his face was a picture.

Like I say, in the first three games of that season we only took one point from the first three games but as a unit we were confident in our collective abilities and sure enough things soon clicked into place. We knew wherever we played that if they scored two, we could score three. Or as the case was proved at St James’ if they scored three, we’d score four!

To get that end product, it’s not just 42 energy-sapping games which tire you mentally and physically. It’s getting up every morning, training five days a week and working hard every single day to get
yourself
into peak physical condition. The bonding exercises of golf days, cross-country runs and a few nights on the tiles all helped to produce a squad spirit second to none – the good results were just the end result.

I must admit to loving the training regime at City in this period. As I keep reiterating playing for the club was all I ever wanted to do, so it was never a chore for me, I was in my preferred working environment. I was never ever late for
training,
in fact I was often the first one to arrive. There were exceptions of course, if we had two games in the one week we would hardly train and playing was much more enjoyable than training. However, I always gave 100% in training and I could see what Joe and Malcolm were trying to achieve every step of the way.

I’ve mentioned a few times that we were a very fit team and that we used to murder teams in the last quarter of a game and I think in such a tight title race as 1968, fitness gave us that advantage, although the little tactical ploys and repetitive actions we’d go through on the training field were often repeated out on the pitch. This is how I knew I could beat anybody because we’d practise moves until they became second nature.

For example, in training Doyley would be marking me. I’d run at him and when I’d beaten him I’d then have to beat
Booky
. Doyley would then go behind
Booky
and if I beat
Booky
I’d have to beat Doyley again. It’s repetition but it works. Then I knew that if I had to beat two or three players in a match situation I had the confidence and ability to take people on.

Lots of aspects need to be right for a team to finish top of the league after a long hard season. Ability is one thing, but a positive mental attitude and good training are equally important. I think we all looked forward to training under the Mercer-Allison regime because it was five-a-sides every day of the week.
Attack against defence plus shooting practice which, as you can probably guess, I absolutely adored.

You also need a happy camp. In any squad of players you are bound to have cliques developing and our squad was no exception. Normally you’d have
Booky
, Mike
Summerbee
, Franny and Malcolm all sat together. I would be with
Oakey
, Glyn, Doyley,
Boothy
, George
Heslop
, Tony Coleman, Dowdy and
Kossack
Ken
Mulhearn
. As a squad though we were all together, we all got on very well and in seven years or so we never really had any major bust-ups in the dressing room. We did have a couple of rows, but nothing major. I suppose if you are getting great results on the pitch, harmony tends to follow off it.

  The only person who would have a word in your ear from time to time would be the captain. That was
Booky’s
job and ‘Skip’ as we called him did it ever so well – whether it was a reminder to mark someone in a game or to keep your full-back occupied or that their ‘keeper looked a bit dodgy on crosses – he’d put his point across and we listened because we respected him.

Nevertheless it wasn’t just a case of eleven players winning the league, there were a few others who made us fight for our places. When we first signed Tony Coleman (or TC as he became universally known) he made his debut against Wolves at

So as it was a Saturday night, we all went out for a drink and got back to the
Norbreck
Castle
at some ungodly hour. It was at about this point that TC noticed that there was an exhibition of three-piece suites in the conference room. Well true to form, he fell asleep at about three in the morning and when we came down for breakfast he was still there sprawled out on one of these settees with cigarette burns all over it. Well they went mad!

Malcolm calmed things down with the sponsors and I think City paid for the damage but it was quite a good debut for Tony. It was the first time he had been out with the ‘Dirty Dozen’ as we called ourselves. He was such a nice lad, I used to love having him on the wing next to me – that way if I was ever in any trouble I always had an outlet wide of me. He had a great left peg as well. Tony Coleman scored a few vital goals and was a brilliant and valuable member of our squad.

Everyone knows how Tony Coleman had to go to Christie Hospital to get a tattoo removed from his hand before the 1969 FA Cup Final and how he grabbed Princess Anne after the match and said: “Give my love to your mum and dad!” which resulted in a telegram back from the Queen. Well, he was a good character, TC but not many of you will know that he once got the birch in the Isle of Man. He was always a bit of a wild man and they’d only ever give you the birch for something serious. He never told us what it was for but he still had the scars across his backside years afterwards!

Another valuable squad member was Bobby Owen, a good kid who never really got a look-in because he was reserve striker. He did well in the 6-1 Charity Shield win over
West Brom
, scoring twice. He was known as ‘Bungalow Bill’ because he had nothing upstairs! A player I felt especially sorry for was Ian Bowyer, a talented lad who got his chance with
Nottingham
Forest
and went on to win a couple of European Cups under
Cloughie
.

Then there were the first team regulars who perhaps didn’t receive the limelight they deserved. A prime example is Alan Oakes, he was Mr Consistency. He never gave less than 110% and there many times when
Oakey
and
Booky
used to kick-start the team by winning tackles and you’d see everyone pick up a gear and find that extra yard. Tommy Booth is another who would have had a stack of
England
caps in any other
era,
he was a superb defender who gave magnificent service to the club.

Finally a mention for Glyn
Pardoe
who was “off to
Mexico
” as the song went… until that cruel injury struck at Old Trafford. It was a real shame for the lad because he was a truly superb ambassador for the club. Once we all got going as a team and clicked into place we felt unstoppable. So like I say, there were others at

Back to 1968 and we were moving along nicely in the league and in the Cup, after we beat
Reading
7-0 at
Elm
Park
, their PA at the ground said: “You have just seen the finest football team in
England
,” and he was right, everything was just starting to click.

As the season staggered towards a close finish,
ourselves
, United,
Leeds
and
Liverpool
were all in the hunt for the title crown. Then we went to Old Trafford and beat United 3-1, a result that in those days was almost unheard of. You’d have thought that would have given the impetus to drive on but we slipped up at Filbert Street, losing 1-0 to Leicester before back-to-back home wins over Chelsea and West Ham. Both Doyley and I were among the goals on those occasions.

Then came two tricky away games – we lost 1-0 at
Chelsea
and then drew 0-0 at Wolves and with four games to go we were in danger of throwing it all away. The next fixture saw us beat
Sheffield
Wednesday 1-0, an own goal separating the sides. Then
came
the last home game of the season against Everton. A 2-0 win provided another night to remember with the City fans serenading us with a song they still sing today, to the tune of Hey Jude by The Beatles: “Na,
na
,
na
,
nananana
,
nananana
, City!” It was ringing round the ground and it was music to our ears. On the same evening, United lost 6-3 at
West Brom
meaning that the pendulum had finally swung in our favour. I think the crowd sensed we had the impetus back that night, the atmosphere was electric even by City’s high standards and the
Kippax
was going crazy.

We came off the pitch at

Next we had Tottenham at