For an example of the risk levels, even many years after I became a pro a cartilage problem still meant your chances of survival in the game could be rated no higher than 50-50. The operation was primitive and was more than anything an act of faith and optimism. They cut into your knee, removed the loose bits of cartilage, drained the fluid and then, when you came right down to it, they hoped for the best. It was a lottery that my mother, for all her passion for football, was not prepared to play on my behalf – and if this threatened to be a serious problem for me when she insisted, for a little while, that I continued my education even as I tried to establish myself at Manchester United, there is no doubt that she was acting as a responsible parent. For me, however, anything that got in the way of football was something between an irritant and an outright nuisance.
The first time the football-versus-education issue arose seriously, however, my mother, with the support of Tanner, fought hard to make sure that my natural talent for the game was not allowed to dwindle in the wrong environment. The problem came when – somewhat surprisingly for a pupil who, no doubt like my brother Jack, would spend a lot of time gazing out of the classroom window daydreaming about football and, in his case, that and other outdoor pursuits – I won a place at Morpeth Grammar School. It was a fine school, but for me it was utterly unsuitable. Morpeth was a rugby school.
My mother enlisted the help of my primary school headmaster Mr Hamilton, who had given me the crimson shirt as though it might have been the Holy Grail. My mother said, ‘I’m delighted Bobby has passed for the grammar school, but there is no question about one thing – he just has to play football.’ Mr Hamilton agreed and said that he would petition the local education authority. He did so successfully, winning me a place at football-playing Bedlington, and it is something that I’ve always appreciated, along with my mother’s determination to do the best she could for me.
Sometimes the enthusiasm she displayed in supporting my progress as a young footballer of local celebrity could be embarrassing, but I realised that she was from a footballing family and that the game was in her blood, and that however aggressively she went about it, she always had my best interests in her heart.
I wasn’t going to break any academic records, but I thrived at Bedlington through the football. It gave me confidence in the new, big school and, if I had doubted it before, the regard of those schoolmates who lifted me on to their shoulders when I scored that winning goal at St Aloysius. However, such a celebration of my football prowess was not always shared in the headmaster’s study, where I was refused permission to leave school early to travel to Wembley when I was picked for England Schoolboys. Normally, I was able to fit in my football without too much difficulty. On that critical occasion, however, I had to be saved by the Bedlington games master, George Benson, who took it upon himself to drive me to the station for the London train. His faith in my ability was rewarded quickly enough. I played with great confidence for the England Schoolboys; I was sure of both my talent and my ambition, partly because Manchester United had already made it clear that they wanted me.
I had the feeling that my whole life had turned into a great adventure and that was intensified when I waited for cup draws. I always wanted to be drawn away, and that wish came true when my team, East Northumberland, beat South Northumberland in the English Schools’ Cup. When Hull Boys came out of the hat, my first thought was not that they were a formidable team but whether the journey would be long enough for us to stay in a hotel.
We lost to Hull, 2–1, but we did stay in a hotel and for me that was the greatest thing I could imagine. When I graduated to the England Schoolboys team and, all in one year, stayed in London, Cardiff, Leicester and Manchester, I might have been travelling on a magic carpet. The future was golden and without horizons, far more glamorous than I had suspected when I spent those summer weeks in Chesterfield with my Uncle George, which had been such an important part of my early football education. Then, even though I was entranced by seeing professionals at work, I had been a little homesick. Now, though, I thought of myself in the Marco Polo league of travellers and had absolutely no qualms about the days when I would leave both school and home.
One day Harold Shentall, the chairman of Chesterfield and the Football Association, was getting a rub-down from Uncle George, and as he lay on the board he nodded to me and said, ‘Has this lad signed for us yet?’ and when I shook my head he said, ‘Well, at least you can sign our visitors book.’ So I did. Later, we ourselves had a visitor, one among many, at home in Ashington, who announced he was a scout for Chesterfield. He said, ‘You know you’ve already signed for us – now wouldn’t you like to do it properly?’ I said that it was impossible. I had given my word to someone else. I had done it earlier in 1953, on 9 February, when I was fifteen years and four months old.
Joe Armstrong, the twinkling little man who had made a great reputation for himself as chief scout of Manchester United, had come up to me after I had given what I thought was a very ordinary performance for East Northumberland Boys at Jarrow. The conditions had been nearly impossible with the pitch frozen into ruts. Later, though, Joe would say that he had been certain about my ability that day. He would give Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy a rave report, but here he was, straight after the game, showing the force of his conviction. He said to me, ‘My name is Joe Armstrong and I’m from Manchester. I want to know if you would like to play for Manchester United when you leave school this summer.’
In a few months’ time, after I had had my spree with England Schoolboys, and scored twice at Wembley against Wales, it seemed league scouts were never away from our door. In all, eighteen clubs made me an offer. They all had different stories, reasons why they were the clubs I should join. The man from Wolves made the most novel pitch, though I have to say it was among the least convincing. He handed me a match programme which had a drawing of the Molineux ground on the front. It wasn’t even a photograph, but he pointed to it and said, ‘Look, you must join us – you will be playing on pitches like that.’ Arsenal came into the running late, but I have to say they did have a lot of appeal for me. They had a wonderfully classic image and so many names that were part of the football legends I had embraced so hungrily: Cliff Bastin and Alex James, Eddie Hapgood and the Compton brothers.
Sometimes there would be two scouts in the house at the same time. One would be in the front room with my father, another in the kitchen with my mother, and I was having to go between the two. Even though I was telling everyone I was going to United, I still had to listen. It was strange because, as far as I knew, there was no money flying around; every player got the same reward in those days. Sometimes I shake my head when I think how it was that someone like Stanley Matthews played for a club like Blackpool for so long.
Naturally, some overtures were more exciting than others. When I played for England in the schoolboy trial at Manchester City’s ground, Maine Road, the residing star of City and an England player, Don Revie, spoke to me as I came up the tunnel after the game. I was tremendously flattered because Revie was one of my heroes. I had watched him play and been fascinated by the way he worked with the goalkeeper Bert Trautmann. Revie always made himself free to receive the ball from the goalkeeper – and Trautmann always threw it to him. Revie had tremendous craft and you could see his football intelligence in everything he did. He asked me, ‘How would you like to play for us? I know you’ve maybe promised Manchester United, but you have seen our great stadium and we do have great plans for the future. You could be a big part of that.’
It was perhaps enough to turn a young boy’s head, but Manchester United did not neglect to develop their advantage. Joe Armstrong was a man of great charm, and in all the comings and goings of rival scouts he was a regular presence around our house, arguing persuasively that Manchester United had the greatest of futures and that it was at Old Trafford that my talent would best be developed. They had so many fine young players coming through and this was where the club had invested most s
eriously.
His case certainly did not lack support that day of the England Schoolboys trial. After the game we were taken to lunch in Sale and afterwards, on the way to the railway station, we passed along Chester Road near Old Trafford. I craned to take in the scene as the fans flooded down Warwick Road for that afternoon’s United match. There was more than the usual excitement because Tommy Taylor was making his debut after being signed from Barnsley, Busby fixing the transfer fee at £29,999 because, it was said, a little strangely I thought, that he didn’t want his new player to have the additional pressure of becoming football’s first £30,000 player. What was in a single pound note, I wondered, but more pressingly I wanted to jump off the bus and join in the excitement. However, it did occur to me that I had some time to savour the prospect. All I needed was a little patience. I would be part of this scene by the summer.
It was also true that in me Joe had something of a captive audience. I had lost a little of my heart to his club in 1948 when they beat Blackpool in one of the classic FA Cup finals. I had played with the school team that morning and one of the lads invited us back to his house for his birthday. We were kicking a ball around, inevitably, but the radio was on and we were listening as we played. Everyone was shouting for Blackpool and the great Matthews. No one admired him more than me, but I also liked United and I wasn’t convinced that this might be his last chance to win a cup-winners’ medal. Anyway, I thought a cup final wasn’t just about one man. Twenty-two players had fought to get there, including eleven of United, who ever since the resumption of the league after the war had been playing beautiful football. They had men like Johnny Carey and Jack Rowley, Johnny Morris, Charlie Mitten, Jimmy Delaney and a fine and subtle scorer-creator in Stan Pearson.
I had followed the course of that team with great interest, watched them reach a peak and then noted how Busby was indeed unafraid of introducing new young talent when he felt the timing was right. His boldest move came soon after I had agreed, verbally, to Joe Armstrong’s proposition on that freezing day in Jarrow. Busby felt that his ageing maestros were beginning to lose their edge and his reaction was both a dramatic and a swift vindication of Joe’s view that youth should not be allowed to grow frustrated, and still less old, on the Old Trafford vine. It was a huge story when he dropped half of his team and picked youngsters like John Doherty and Eddie Lewis. Many predicted humiliation for United, but the new blood flowed strongly, and United announced that they were on the point of launching a new empire. The memory of those exciting days flared again recently when I laid a time capsule in the new quadrant at Old Trafford, fifty years after the team that would forever be known as the Busby Babes won their first championship without the help of the great old players of the post-war years.
When I read about the Old Trafford revolution in the newspaper I felt a great surge of excitement. Not only were they blooding so many talented young players, already they had at the heart of the team somebody who was being described as a phenomenon. He was Duncan Edwards and he was just sixteen years old. I had never been short of confidence, or excitement about my possibilities as a professional, but this seemed like a new dimension to my dreams. Could I be part of this? Could I play alongside this superboy Edwards?
After it became apparent, if not quite official, that this would be the challenge facing me, and when all the rival scouts from other clubs were beginning to accept that indeed I saw my destiny at Old Trafford, I had a visit from the famous relative who had become a huge and inspiring part of my life. Wor Jackie said he was obliged to make the case for his club Newcastle United, but he also said he was doing it without conviction. Newcastle treated their young players without care or thought, he reported. They didn’t have a development policy. Instead they operated a kind of lottery. Maybe a young player would survive it, maybe not.
For quite some time Jackie had made me his young companion as he travelled about the North East, making presentations, opening events. He introduced me as ‘Our Bobby’, saying, ‘I’ve brought a coming football star, one of the England Schoolboys’ – and when such a job was done he would hand me four shillings. I protested, saying I was just pleased to tag along with him, but he insisted, ‘You’ve come with me, you’re part of the show, take it.’
When he died, in 1988, I saw clearly the impact he had had on the community in which he had played out his life. After the funeral service in Newcastle Cathedral, I was walking through the crowds who thronged the street when Bob Stokoe, the old Newcastle centre half who managed Sunderland to their shock 1973 FA Cup victory over Leeds United, stopped his car and told me to get in. I was very upset. Jackie’s death took away a pillar of my life, someone in whom I had grown to feel the deepest pride and affection. He had taken me everywhere. I had even played cricket with him. He had told me about the game, not just the detail of it but how you should approach it in your spirit as well as your talent.
When United had me playing on the wing for a while, he had known I was restive and he once said, ‘When are you going to play centre forward?’ I said, ‘Well, it really isn’t up to me.’ He replied, ‘Well, Bobby, let me tell you something – you are Manchester United, and you can tell them what you want to do.’ He wasn’t being mischievous. He was trying to make me feel good and better aware of what I had to offer. Now, on that drive after the funeral, Bob confirmed to me that whenever Jackie had something to say to a team-mate it was always encouraging, always a lift of the spirit.
As I drove along with Bob I noticed how solemn were the people lining the route between the cathedral and the crematorium in the outskirts. They were showing respect, of course, but I felt there should also be celebration of a great life – I wanted to hear applause. I said, ‘If you do something good in life it is surely a matter for cheers, not just sadness.’ A few years later I was delighted to see that other people were beginning to feel this way as bursts of applause accompanied the funeral cortege of that other great hero of mine, Stanley Matthews.
When Jackie had come to our house on behalf of Newcastle he could not have been more honest, but after saying how poor Newcastle’s coaching and youth planning was, he also had to tell me the club had promised to get me a job on the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. When, at my mother’s insistence, I had considered alternative careers, becoming a sports reporter was always high on my list. The job had one supreme advantage. You got a free pass to see the games. It was also something you could do if the worst happened to you, if you broke a leg and had to make a career outside the game. That was always the point being hammered home to me, and not just by my mother. It made me impatient, possibly because if you are ever going to be optimistic, and immortal, it is probably around the age of fifteen. But a boy had to listen to his elders, even if, in the privacy of his own thoughts, he rejected what they said. You could always make a compromise satisfactory to yourself. One of mine came when I asked a relative, a greengrocer, how much it had cost him to set up in business. His answer was very reassuring. He told me it was around £2,000. That made everything quite straightforward. If I played for twenty years I could easily put away a hundred a year, and then I could face the second half of my life selling apples and oranges. The idea did not fill with me with joy but, as everyone said, you had to plan for the future.
First, though, you had to take the best of what life had to offer and that’s what I believed I was doing when my mother dressed me in my sea-green mac and put me on the train to Manchester. I was leaving my brothers and my uncles, and my friends and all that was familiar, including a girlfriend at Bedlington Grammar, who was named, prophetically, Norma – Norma Outhwaite. She was a nice girl, but I was not a victim of young love. We had been good friends but I was a football man and I had to go about my business. At that time of my youth no girl could compete with football. It was both my greatest love and my obsession.
4
A NEW LIFE AND A NEW WATCH
WHEN THE TRAIN came to a halt in Exchange Station, and I looked out through the billowing s
team and saw the black buildings and the busy platform, I said to myself, ‘Well, Bobby, this is your adventure starting and you don’t know what’s going to happen.’
For so long I had assumed that my talent for football would give me all that I wanted, take me to fancy hotels and the carefree life that was so appealing in those summer days at Chesterfield when I had my Uncle George to put his arm around my shoulder if I felt a little homesick – but here was the reality, a new world filled with strangers and, for the first time, a sudden feeling of uncertainty. At Chesterfield’s Saltergate ground I had known that soon I would be going back to my little empire in the North East, where everyone who knew me patted my shoulder and said, ‘You can play, Bobby.’ Now, I couldn’t be sure of what was going to happen to me. Yes, I could play, but well enough to keep standing out, well enough to survive in this new environment without my own people all around me?
At least some of the mystery of my new life was stripped away, however, even before the taxi pulled up in Birch Avenue, which was just a few hundred yards from an Old Trafford stadium that was still several years away from its first floodlights and a roof to protect the Stretford End loyalists from the rain. Jimmy Murphy had met me at the station, and he made it quite clear on that short journey from the city centre that quite a lot of what was going to happen was Jimmy Murphy himself.
He was going to happen as the most persistent and profound football influence I would ever know. He was going to happen out on the training field, in what sometimes seemed like a dialogue that would never end and, before long, he was even going to be in my subconscious. One of his sayings would be imprinted there, something to drive you on when you felt maybe you had done enough for one day or one match. ‘Bobby,’ he would say, ‘in all my time in football I never saw a player suffer a heart-attack because he worked too hard.’ In those days I wished fervently I had a pound, even five bob, for every time he said that to me when he suspected I might be reluctant to carry on with a session that had left me weary.
My Manchester United Years: The Autobiography Page 5
