Chelsea FC in the Swinging '60s

by Greg Tesser

  The press gave the tie the big build-up, and it all revolved around Marsh v. Osgood. Okay, so Rangers were Second Division, but the gulf in those days of flared trousers and flair on the football field was nothing compared to the current era of the Premier League and Middle East money and Russian oligarchs. There was also the interesting subplot of Terry Venables captaining Rangers against his former club, and another former Chelsea favourite Barry Bridges starting in QPR’s line-up.

  Rangers had accounted for the Brian Clough/Dave Mackay axis at Derby County at the previous hurdle, and given the fortress nature of Loftus Road, many pundits had predicted a torrid afternoon for the King’s Road glamour boys. But it was not to be. Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris marked Marsh out of the game, and Ossie claimed a superb hat-trick in a 4–2 victory.

  After the game, I wandered across the pitch – and boy was it muddy – in the company of a relaxed Charlie Cooke. I was dressed in a chocolate brown suit, recently purchased from a King’s Road boutique for a pretty packet. Charlie stared at my new brown, buckled wet-look shoes, and with a twinkle in his smiling eyes, waxed lyrical about them. Talking to him, you would never have thought he had just been through a gruelling ninety minutes of blood and guts football during which he had had to deal with tackles that in this day-and-age would have a referee flourishing red cards like some manic magician on speed!

  Soon after my chat with Charlie Cooke, I approached an acquaintance at London Weekend TV, and the long-and-the-short-of-it was that Ossie was required the following morning for a recorded interview in The Big Match studios in Dean Street, Soho.

  Soho on a cold, crisp Sunday morning in late February 1970 was a somewhat eerie place. There were still some remnants of Saturday night excesses, with sartorially elegant young men and women looking bleary-eyed and zombie-like as they made their way home after a rave or whatever. In the Victorian alleyways there was more unpleasant evidence of a ‘good night’ going wrong in the shape of piles of multi-coloured vomit – there was even the odd discarded syringe secreted behind a sad-looking dustbin.

  The bars and cafés were either open, or in the initial throes of opening their doors. The strip clubs looked bleak and unwelcoming without the neon lights highlighting the large colour photos of well-endowed young women in various states of undress.

  One thing that has never changed in Soho is the morning smell, which smacks more of Paris or Brussels than it does of dear old London Town. It is doughy and at the same time sweet, the freshly-baked brioches and croissants mixing with the slightly acidic aroma of alcohol plus just a whiff of waffle. Forty-two years ago there was the added stale tobacco smell; it was everywhere, in every human pore and every nook and cranny of every building, big and small.

  I met Ossie outside the small unprepossessing studios; we were both just a shade fragile after quite a celebration the night before. Upon entering the inner sanctum, we were greeted by that doyen of football commentators, Brian Moore, who for so many years graced the airwaves with his understated style. Think of that shouter-supreme Jonathan Pearce, and then imagine the opposite – that was Brian. Cool, suave, but above all very English and normal.

  Moore was a true gentleman, and I remember meeting him for the first time at Chelsea’s Mitcham training ground. He came up to me, smiling broadly, and without in any way sounding rude said something like: ‘You are Peter Osgood’s agent, aren’t you?’

  Peter’s interview on The Big Match went well – he always made a perfect interviewee, and as his fame grew, not unsurprisingly he appeared more and more on the show. I remember another occasion in particular when he was the guest in tandem with one of the ‘Lisbon Lions’, the marauding Scotland international full-back Tommy Gemmell, who by 1971 had left his beloved Celtic to sign for Nottingham Forest.

  I introduced Ossie to Gemmell, and you could see almost immediately that my man was star-struck. Later, Ossie built up this façade of being arrogant, and some would say cocky, but rest assured, much of this was an act, in my view anyway. Upon meeting Gemmell, he was as humble as any fan.

  So, after a few standard ‘goodbyes’ and the odd ‘see you later’, we eventually left the studios. Ambling along Dean Street, I passed Sunset Strip, the oldest striptease joint in Soho, famed during the 1960s for a performer of Italian origin with the unsubtle stage name of ‘Busty Bernicci’.

  Since the beginning of the ‘Me’ decade, the 1980s, Soho and its immediate environs have taken on a cleaned-up air. It is now safe and sanitised and all the wonderful crazies and delightful eccentrics of past decades have all but evaporated; a bit like football itself really: now gentrified, the players all uber-fit, living Howard Hughes-like existences in a world of muesli, minders and masses of moolah.

  Charlie Cooke stated recently that some of his behaviour as a player – the excessive drinking for example – was ‘unprofessional’. Maybe so, but if Charlie, Ossie and Alan Hudson et al had not indulged in some serious Dolce Vita would they have been so entertaining and as exciting to watch? I don’t think so. After all, the threesome didn’t leave burnt-out wreckage in their wake; they just lived their own particular versions of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

  If you were young, musical and British in the 1960s, rock ’n’ roll was an irresistible career path. At the same time, if you were young, could make a football talk and were British, pro soccer also represented an enticing career road. And with George Best at the helm and several of the Stamford Bridge buccaneers plus Rodney Marsh not far behind, living out the rockstar lifestyle in the beautiful game was available as never before. For already, for just a few, the bling culture had arrived, but without the wags and all the tacky folderol of the new millennium.

  As has been quoted on numerous occasions, England manager Alf Ramsey was heavily into industry and sweat – deft artistry or extravagant élan were never on his compass. So, selecting someone with Peter Osgood’s supposed playboy reputation – no matter how unwarranted – was never likely to appear on his agenda.

  However, I had other ideas, and in the Daily Mail, and more specifically the paper’s sports editor Charlie Wilson, I had a leading media organisation and a respected journalist and man about Fleet Street who, like much of the football-watching population (and indeed beyond), had fallen in love with Dave Sexton’s Chelsea, and in particular their charismatic centre forward Peter Osgood.

  So, one day after a brief visit to the treatment room, I sat down in a typical ‘greasy spoon’ of the period with Ossie and told him in no uncertain terms that it was now time for an all-out newspaper assault, with ‘Osgood For England’ as our war cry.

  Charlie Wilson, who later climbed the Fleet Street ladder to edit The Times, was an ebullient Scotsman, full of genuine enthusiasm. He was also extremely loyal to the people he liked and respected. He had a particularly close rapport with Charlie Cooke. In fact so much so, that the three of us could often be seen downing cognacs in the Tudor-beamed bar of The Wig and Pen situated almost bang opposite the Royal Courts of Justice. It was evident during these afternoon sessions that the journalist Charlie and the football Charlie had more in common than just a love of the round ball.

  In 1968, Wilson married fellow journalist Anne Robinson, later of course to gain national prominence as the fearsome frontwoman of the BBC’s The Weakest Link. Early in her chequered career, she suffered the indignity of being given the heave-ho by then deputy news editor Wilson at the Daily Mail because of a bizarre custom that forbade married couples working in the same office!

  Wilson remained by far our staunchest ally, as did the paper’s sports news editor Peter Moss. During the latter part of ’69 there was a cartoon on the Mail’s back page featuring an archetypal trainer – as the breed was called then – with the legend ‘Osgood Ltd’ emblazoned on the back of his tracksuit. Underneath were the words: ‘It’s Alf Ramsey’s company you need to be in’.

  Then, through a combination of subtle PR, plus the fact that all the guys at the Mail were anti-Ramsey – whether in Charlie Wil
son’s case it was that the tight-lipped manager had guided England to the World Cup, and being Scottish he found this hard to stomach I never quite fathomed – but from everything that I had garnered from the embryonic beginnings of our relationship, it seemed that whereas Chelsea FC was groovy and hip, Ramsey was definitely old news.

  How it came to pass that Wilson got us on the front page of the Daily Mail was never fully explained. But aged just twenty-three and a few months, whatever came along I just accepted as the norm. Now having said that Ossie and Chelsea were hip, it was soon decided that to try to ape George Best was not a clever move, so the John Steed/Avengers look was adopted.

  Photographs of Ossie donning a bowler complete with City suit and umbrella dominated that day’s front page forty-two years ago, in conjunction with a full story about him; how much he could make; quotes from me, the whole piece ending with the line that ‘Pele earns £100,000 per year’ – big bucks in 1970; well, it certainly put Peter’s pounds’ potential into context!

  Mentioning the ‘M’ word brings me on to the saga of Ossie’s Daily Mail column, which not only almost caused a full-scale strike at the newspaper, but later resulted in a rap on the knuckles from the Football Association and boss Sexton for some of his more controversial and forthright comments and opinions.

  Having bored Charlie Wilson to death on an almost daily basis about Ossie ‘writing’ a regular column for the paper, it was finally agreed that we should meet the managing editor, the legendary Fleet Street figure E.V. Matthewman to discuss the idea.

  Being in the presence of Matthewman in his office, all leather and telephones, power emanating from every corner, made me feel very young indeed – it was a bit like a trip to the headmaster’s study for six of the best!

  He looked forbidding, sitting there, master of all he surveyed. Charlie Wilson was there, but I didn’t feel it was vital for Peter to make an appearance. There was talk and all kinds of questions were levelled at me about content and how it would be written. It was all very deflating.

  Matthewman never smiled, and this made me even more nervous. I thought about ‘The Wig and Pen’ round the corner and how pleasant it would be to be sitting there now with an extra-large cognac and nothing to worry me; just thinking about how I could enjoy myself and milk my youth for all its worth.

  Then – and it was just like a dream – Wilson asked me something, and I replied, and Matthewman started talking about a contract and £80 per week. This was music to my ears, and I visibly relaxed without need of a brandy.

  We then shook hands, and Matthewman – or was it Wilson? – said something about contracts in the post and signatures and other such minutiae. As I left, I smiled at Matthewman, but he just stared. I was indeed out of my league.

  Ossie was understandably ecstatic about the Mail column: apart from the tantalising prospect of a substantial (in those days) improvement in his income, he fully realised that it would help to spread the Peter Osgood Ltd gospel of ‘Osgood for England’.

  Several days went by, and still no definite confirmation of a start time for his first piece. By this time I was becoming edgy. ‘Why the delay?’ I asked Charlie Wilson. Eventually, I got to the bottom of the problem, and boy what a bombshell that was!

  Believe it not, the prospect of a regular Peter Osgood column in the Conservative-supporting, right-leaning Daily Mail had caused the National Union of Journalists to, shall we say, adopt an intransigent stance.

  ‘Peter Osgood is not a journalist,’ was the kernel of their argument. ‘If he writes for the newspaper, we’ll call our members out on strike!’

  This was serious stuff. Even though I had always been a firm believer in the general ethos of Trade Unionism, I thought the attitude of this group of newspaper scribblers was just a tad over-the-top and definitely picky in the extreme.

  Another conflab was arranged at Matthewman’s inner sanctum in order to try to untangle this web of what, in my opinion, was a bitter stance adopted by people still trying to live a pre-war life.

  The Mail’s managing editor sat behind his desk looking unusually benign. The desk seemed even more grandiose than since my last visit, and his bank of telephones had surely grown, hadn’t it?

  In essence, the conference was all about diplomacy and meeting our ‘adversary’ halfway. The experienced combo of Matthewman and Wilson assured me they had the answer, and once explained, it was simplicity itself.

  ‘We’ll get Brian James to interview Peter Osgood each time,’ I was told. ‘And Brian’s byline will appear at the bottom of each column. This should solve the problem.’

  James was the paper’s chief football writer, and one of the most respected journalists of his generation. I found him reserved and unapproachable, but having said that, when it came to reliability and quality he was definitely your man.

  The plan was put to the NUJ Chapter, and rather reluctantly, it was accepted. As far as Ossie’s column was concerned, we were back in business, but this was not the end of controversy.

  Peter Osgood was a true child of the post-war era. The 1950s had witnessed Jimmy Porter in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger on a personal rant against British society and in particular that bugbear of Charles Dickens, hypocrisy. But essentially, the 1950s were all about the status quo. Certainly, as far as sport was concerned, life had not altered since the 1930s. In fact, the only professional footballer to coherently articulate dissatisfactions with aspects of his profession during the ’50s was, the elegant Northern Irish Spurs skipper Danny Blanchflower. But he was very much a lone voice.

  Sportsmen and women had to do what they were told, but late on in the 1960s, this altered as freedoms of all kinds were embraced. Footballers became more and more frank in print, and Ossie was at the forefront of this sea change. So, when he made a few disparaging remarks about Derby County boss, the equally controversial and vocal Brian Clough, the stuff really hit the fan.

  Both Chelsea manager Dave Sexton and the Football Association gave him a rap on the knuckles, but in my book, it was more grist to our publicity mill. He was fast developing into an archetypal 1960s anti-hero, and the media salivated en masse in the manner of a first-timer at Paul Raymond’s Revuebar.

  Having conquered the threat of a strike in Fleet Street, and having assured those in the corridors of power within the game that Ossie would be good boy from now on, it was now time to develop not only his potential as a footballer selling traditional products such as boots and the like, but also to nurture the whole fashionable side of the football club. But, first things first: now was the time to get Peter Osgood’s face and name on products, and my first stop was that prestigious British sporting goods manufacturer, Bukta.

  TEN

  ENDORSEMENTS AND

  THAT CUP FINAL

  It was a clammy day in Chelsea. A fidgety wind kept rustling the skeletal trees, so that in spite of the thin sun and the mild air London was filled with a sort of unease and the threat of a storm.

  At Stamford Bridge, the pitch was caked in pudding-like mud. Ossie was in his Chelsea colours, kicking a ball left and right as a fawning photographer snapped incessantly. ‘I’d like Peter to head a few balls into the net,’ said the man with the camera in a reedy voice.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What would you like Peter to do?’

  ‘Well, if he could stand near the penalty spot, could you send in a few crosses from the corner flag?’

  I swallowed, and the butterflies in my stomach took on a life of their own and went on a rampaging dance.

  ‘Well, I’m not really dressed for kicking a football,’ I moaned. ‘Surely you can do without me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said the reedy voice. ‘Just do your best.’

  Now, I was almost neurotically fastidious in those days about my sartorial appearance. And the thought of giving a football a host of heavy whacks from the corner flag quadrant filled me with horror. You see I was dressed in yet another King’s Road suit, complete with the same wet-look buckled shoe
s that Charlie Cooke had commented on after the QPR Cup-tie.

  ‘Can’t somebody in the club office fix you up with some gear?’ enquired the reedy voice.

  ‘No, don’t worry,’ I replied. ‘I’ll have a go.’

  By this time I was more than just a shade embarrassed by my obsession with my clothes, and God knows what Ossie thought of me. This was hardly the stuff of a macho man, but he took it all in good spirit. After all, the payback was several hundreds of pounds in endorsement lolly from the Bukta people, plus the promise of more work in the future.

  I felt a lonely figure as Ossie handed me the ball, and I placed it by the corner flag at the end opposite The Shed. My first effort was far too low for the Chelsea striker, but once I forgot about my trendy suit and my ultra-expensive footwear, the corners just flowed, and there was Peter heading in left and right as the man with the camera became more and more animated.

  At the end of the session, Ossie was effusive in praise of my corner kicks. ‘How nice he is,’ I thought. ‘Always so generous in his praise of people.’

  After a few inane pleasantries, the Bukta photographer left, no doubt to constantly regale his friends and family of his Stamford Bridge exploits.

  As for Peter, he changed back into his civvies, I attempted to wipe mud off my shoes, and we went off for a cuppa at a local café.

  The irony of the whole Bukta photo session was that, despite taking seemingly endless snaps of Ossie heading home my corners, the majority of images used in the company’s major advertising campaign revolved around the Chelsea star looking supremely elegant just kicking a ball! But at least I could include in my CV that I had crossed a ball to the great Peter Osgood and he had deftly headed it home!