by Greg Tesser
It was a lavish affair, and much wine was quaffed. Sexton, displaying surprising friendliness and warmth told me I could sit down with the Chelsea squad at the Downton Abbey-type dining table, laden with all kinds of sumptuous goodies, in one of the hotel’s largest private rooms.
Considering all the nastiness that had gone before, the dinner was all sweetness and light. Each Chelsea player was given a couple of gifts each. Whether the Greek football powerbrokers knew who I was, I wasn’t sure, but my place setting was empty – no gift. However, Ian Hutchinson put that right.
Hutch was a hard man on the field of battle. He never shirked a challenge, and after retirement his body was testament to all the bashings and beatings it had taken. However, off-stage, so to speak, he was a softly spoken ‘nice guy’. He always struck me as someone whose sensitivity could be taken advantage of by some sweet-talking, smooth operator. Anyway, seeing that I had been left out of the gift stakes, he smiled at me and, handing me a bottle-shaped wrapped parcel, said: ‘Here, Greg, you take one of mine.’
We all unwrapped our parcels like some mass Christmas Day Morning present-fest for children, and inside ‘mine’ was a bottle of Metaxa Greek brandy, which proved a good friend to me for the remainder of this strangely surreal trip.
How much food we ate, and how long this dinner lasted; all these facts are now buried in the mists of time. But, having put on a good show of British diplomacy and phlegm, we slowly but surely left the room for more hedonistic pleasures,
I teamed up with Ossie and full-back Paddy Mulligan. I didn’t really know Paddy at all, but he was good fun and an extremely matey guy. What we were going to do, I hadn’t a clue, but somehow Osgood had been given some info about a nightclub in downtown Salonika.
A bit about Paddy first: born in Dublin, he was signed by Sexton for £17,500 from Shamrock Rovers in 1969. He made 58 appearances for the Blues before moving on to Crystal Palace in 1972. He was a regular in the Ireland national team, winning 50 caps; in his day he was a buccaneering type of right back, but he could also be inconsistent. He was comparatively short, with long, luxuriant dark wavy hair that had the look of a perm about it.
After hanging up his boots, he was on the short-list for the Ireland manager’s job in 1980. The list was eventually whittled down to two candidates: Limerick City boss, Eoin Hand, and Mulligan. Hand won by a solitary vote, and later one Irish FA committee member explained why he had voted against Paddy. It seems this official thought he was the player who once tossed a bun at him on an away trip!
So off we went, this trio of disparate human beings in a taxi, to this nightspot. I must admit I was very sceptical about the whole thing. In a country in which long hair and moustaches and Dylan were banned, I didn’t honestly think that the nightlife would be anything to write home about. How Ossie knew exactly where to go remained an unfathomable mystery to me; maybe he just asked the driver or someone in the hotel for a nearby bar with bit of oomph – who knows!
Arriving at this neon-lit, seedy establishment, I was struck by how empty the streets were. No one was abroad it seemed. Mind you, the junta’s ban on late night assemblies by the populace undoubtedly had more than a tad to do with it.
The bar itself was virtually customer-less – I later described it as ‘gruesome’. There was a shabby counter with a small, dark woman, looking unerringly like the Italian actress Anna Magnani, obviously in charge. She greeted us with a smile that would have gone down well with the director of the latest Hammer production. Opposite the counter, which was in desperate need of some good spit and polish, was a small, poorly-lit stage, on which pranced a squat young woman, fondling her ample though pendulous breasts. Her movements were gauche: the same ridiculously simple steps over and over again. In the far corner there was a little fat man, lit up by too much ouzo, showing his appreciation by making lascivious noises. I must admit it was about as erotic as painting a wall with white emulsion.
I ordered a brandy – Metaxa – and Ossie stuck to lager. As for Paddy, he tried to order a particular beer – I think it was Guinness – and in attempting to describe his poison to the Anna Magnani clone, he managed to utterly confuse her. We three thought this was the funniest thing ever, but we were by this time in that limbo world between being tipsy and just plain drunk.
Ossie was always good company, whatever it was; wherever it was; and even if it was all just bloody awful, he somehow managed to see the positive side and enjoy himself.
By the time we had advanced to our third libation, another lady was on stage. She was slightly better than the previous one, but thinking about my meeting with the King of Soho, Paul Raymond, I don’t think he would have gone on his hands and knees to put her under contract.
Despite the time – it was now well past one in the morning – we were still game for more, so having hailed a taxi, which was some kind of miracle in itself, we arrived back at the hotel, with one aim in mind – the next drink.
Once in the hotel I dashed to my room and threw some cold water over my face. Relaxing once more in the hotel bar, attempting unsuccessfully to look languid, I encountered Charlie Cooke, who had obviously ‘had a few’. Ossie had gone off somewhere, so I sat down with Charlie, and we both ordered our favourite tipple – large brandies. At about 3.30 a.m., I started to feel ravenously hungry, as did Cooke, so we managed to find a waiter, and gave him our order: eggs and bacon!
How he managed to understand our English, uttered as it was with the thickness of Devonshire clotted cream, but he did, and within what seemed only a matter of a few minutes, our early bird breakfast arrived. I tell you what, it tasted absolutely superb – you couldn’t have found better at The Ritz!
And so to bed, and not to ‘perchance to dream’, well not for long anyway, because the following day we had to catch the plane back to Blighty, but not before a couple more chance encounters with some of the locals.
Little shuteye, tongue like sandpaper; but who cared, we were young and invincible – in fact we were immortal. Plenty of coffee, a pill or two to get the body and brain at full throttle again, then off into town with Ossie. We found a café, and with the sun still beating down relentlessly, we ordered a couple of refreshers. The café itself was pleasant, but there was one major drawback: it was literally opposite a sort of open-air butcher’s shop, which had a whole collection of un-plucked chickens hanging from hooks in long lines and completely open to the elements.
The proprietor, a tall, wide-hipped middle-aged man, wearing spectacles, came over to us and within a few minutes started chatting in competent, though somewhat eccentric English. He immediately made it clear he was a football man, and he recognised Osgood straightaway – his mugshots were all over the sports pages of the Greek dailies. He then went on to say that the people of Greece were extremely fond of the British. His compliments were mainly in reference to the Second World War, but believe it or not he managed to bring Lord Byron – who many Greeks regard as the saviour of their country – into the conversation. I didn’t have the heart to mention Byron’s liberal credentials.
I think he was trying as hard as he knew to convince us that everything in Greece was hunky-dory, and that the Government was doing its best for the people. The fact that I obviously didn’t believe him, and that all right-minded people would never believe him, and that apart from about fifty Fascist politicians in Italy, nobody in the West would ever accept what he was imparting to us as gospel, made me smile, and I tried to change the subject.
As a boiling hot wind began to swirl and the humidity increased to around 100 per cent, so did the smell of the dead birds. The aroma was positively pungent and, as my stomach was still on the fragile side, I glanced at my watch and said to Ossie that it was about time we got back to the hotel. He laughed, and at the same time he rose, and we left. So my date with Fascism was all but at an end.
The flight back was a real anticlimax, for by this time all I wanted to do was to go to bed. My conversation had dwindled to the odd pleasantry and my smi
le could only be described as an apology. I also knew that Basil Jawett, accountant for Peter Osgood Limited, had a major project he wished to discuss with us at his office in Fleet Street, and that it all revolved around fish. However, a combination of Hammersmith Council and the Arab-Israeli Conflict combined to scupper our plans.
A few days after our Greek odyssey, I was wandering down Fleet Street in the company of Peter Osgood. We had just enjoyed a good lunch, steaks as usual, salad and chips. As we entered No. 54 Fleet Street, Peter asked me about his taxes. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Basil Jawett will sort it all out: he’s a dab hand at these sort of things.’
Fleet Street forty-three years ago was a wondrous place. The newspaper offices of the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and the other nationals dominated a street that in so many ways was like a tatty Toff – elegant, yet at the same time needing a clean and a press and a spruce-up. El Vino’s, that bastion of pre-war sexism, where even during the early 1970s a lady could not order a drink at the bar, was always, even by noon, packed with a mixture of journalists, barristers and solicitors, imbibing glasses of vintage reds and whites. The Wig and Pen was another watering-hole for journalists and lawyers – its beamed façade conjuring up images of Charles Dickens, sitting with glass in hand, holding court as he regales his companions with outlines of new stories. Opposite were the Royal Courts of Justice, built in 1882; then, further down, going towards Ludgate Circus, a small alleyway called Gough Square and the famous ‘Cheshire Cheese’ eating house, once the home of Doctor Johnson, who used to feed his cat Hodge oysters. Indeed a romantic place.
Behind No. 54 Fleet Street, it is but a short walk to the Inns of Court, unchanged since Georgian times. It was a London that had somehow miraculously survived the Blitz, not quite intact, but it still retained every aspect of the old London that, thanks or should I say no thanks to the madcap architects of recent years, is slowly disappearing.
We walked up the stairs into the offices of Berman, Abrahams and Jawett, Chartered Accountants. We went into the reception area, and there were Basil’s trio of typists banging away on their keys. ‘We’re here to see Mr Jawett,’ I informed one of the secretaries. ‘If you’ll wait here, I’ll tell him,’ she said, smiling insincerely.
After a matter of seconds, Basil called us in. He smiled in his standard ingratiating way, for he loved meeting Ossie; it was all about reflected glory, I guess. I think he was a Spurs supporter, and he loved his golf, going off each and every spring to Augusta, Georgia for the Masters. But Peter Osgood was the ‘in thing’ at the time, and Jawett was the sort of person that thrived on name-dropping – it made a good topic at the Golf Club and all those Rotary Dinners that such a man would be obliged to attend.
Jawett was always dressed in the manner of the typical City gent. He had style, and the cut of his cloth reeked of quality, but he was never flashy. He wore stylish glasses, which gave him the look of an American corporation vice president. His facial expression was always on the grim side, and my mother, who never liked him, once told me that he had the ‘look of a shark about him’.
Without further ado, Basil came to the point – an unusual occurrence for accountants and solicitors. ‘How do you both feel about a fish and chip restaurant not far from Stamford Bridge utilising Peter’s name?’ he announced.
‘Sounds great,’ was my very obvious response. And even Ossie, who I don’t think ever quite trusted the accountant completely, also displayed in obvious terms his unbridled enthusiasm for the idea.
‘Yes,’ continued Jawett, ‘we could give it a name like “Ossie’s Plaice”. I think I have just the man to back the idea, so the next thing is for me to arrange a meeting.’
He then went on to explain in more detail his overall business plan, and after a few more questions to Ossie about football matters, we rose and left, but not before Ossie had signed a few autographs for some of Basil’s female employees.
The idea was a sound one, and after what seemed like interminable meeting after interminable meeting, a property in the Hammersmith area was found. The backer, an Arab, was a pleasant individual, but unfortunately his relationship with Jawett was an edgy one. This was all down to the various conflicts and wars that had taken place, were taking place and were going to take place between Arabs and Israelis. You see, Basil was a Jew first, and an Englishman second. If he felt Israel was under threat, his patriotism would always be geared to that country, and not the country of his birth.
It has to be remembered that the famous – or should I say infamous – Six-Day War was still fresh in the memory. The war, which involved Israel and much of the Arab World, but primarily Egypt (known at the time as the United Arab Republic), Jordan and Syria, proved to be a military success for Israel. As a result, they captured the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.
Despite being so short in duration, it was extremely bloody, and for the Arab countries as a whole it proved a disaster. The war made a star of Israel General Moshe Dayan, he of the black eyepatch, but it was, in essence, a human tragedy. As such, relations between Jews and Arabs were at an all-time low.
Basil Jawett was forever telling us that this ‘Jew/Arab situation didn’t matter’, but it obviously did; why did he keep telling us day-after-day?
There were more meetings with the council, who out of the blue decided that our fish and chip emporium would be ‘too noisy’ for the particular part of Hammersmith we had selected. No one, neither Basil nor the backer, fought our corner with any conviction, so the whole deal was given the big heave-ho. What a waste of time!
Chelsea’s league form during the early months of the 1970–’71 season was patchy to say the least. They remained unbeaten for six games, but this included three draws, and it was their old adversaries, Leeds United, who ended this far from convincing run on 6 September with a 1–0 victory at Elland Road, witnessed by over 47,000 fans.
From a personal point of view, it was Ossie’s goal tally – or more accurately the lack of it – that was causing me concern. Thankfully, on 26 September, his drought was ended with a goal in the 2–1 home success over Ipswich Town.
The second leg with Aris Salonika came four days after the Ipswich win, and Chelsea made light of the opposition on this occasion, John Hollins and Ian Hutchinson netting a couple each in a 5–1 score line as the Greeks completely caved in. As Hudson quipped to me many years later: ‘Aris were like Greek yoghurt – runny everywhere!’
Next up was a trip behind the Iron Curtain, and CSKA Sofia on 21 October. A 2–1 win at Derby County on the Saturday before the Bulgaria trip was just the confidence booster that Sexton’s men needed.
Tommy Baldwin put away the only goal of the game in Bulgaria, 2 minutes before the break, so the second leg looked a formality.
It was then that, during a conversation with Terry O’Neill, the idea of a footballer actually being featured in an upmarket magazine came to me. At the time to most people, such a thought would have made them laugh hysterically; ‘football was not classy enough’, they would say. But I knew they were wrong, as indeed did Terry, who, like me, fully realised that football, George Best-style anyway, was throwing off its 1950s dress and shackles and replacing it with a swanky new suit from a top-of-the-range tailor. And whereas at Manchester United it was all about Best, at Chelsea it was about the team as a whole. ‘It’s just like another branch of the rock business,’ I said to Terry, and, believe it or not, he didn’t laugh – not a titter.
The plan revolved around Charlie Cooke, and to get him to pen a feature on what it was like in the Stamford Bridge dressing room before a big match: what was required were real insights, and not just ‘the usual ghosted rubbish’, as Cooke so aptly described most of the footballers’ literary output in those days.
It was Terry who suggested Vogue as the outlet for Cooke’s undoubted writing talents. My brief was to help him write the thing, but before any thoughts of pen being put to paper, I had to mak
e contact, via Terry, with a senior member of the Vogue magazine editorial team.
Terry’s prowess, plus his international reputation as one of the leading photographers on the planet, was going to be used as an extra carrot to entice the people at the magazine into agreeing to this idea.
Terry’s enthusiasm knew no bounds, and he offered to take some shots of Charlie in action, so I arranged for a photographers’ pass for him for the European Cup Winners’ Cup second round second leg tie at Stamford Bridge on 4 November. This would, I thought, be the clincher.
Another added bonus for us was that Vogue had begun a ‘Men In Vogue’ section, and Charlie’s efforts would, therefore, be a perfect fit. The next edition of this supplement for men was due out during the middle of March, and following a few subsequent meetings at the Conde Nast headquarters in Hanover Square, this off-the-wall idea was finally given the green light. Charlie Cooke, Chelsea FC professional footballer in Vogue; ‘had the world gone stark staring mad?’ would surely be a question emanating from the mouths of many.
When I lived in Maida Vale, DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman lived in the penthouse flat above me, and I remember telling him about the Vogue article (we were in a taxi at the time). He actually said to me that I had broken new ground – ‘football will never be looked at in the same way again’, he said. Needless to say I was flattered.
Terry O’Neill’s Charlie Cooke pictures were just extraordinary. They not only captured the grace and movement of this special player, but somehow he had managed to bring into focus Charlie’s facial expressions when on the ball – the contractions, the grimaces: the lot.
The match itself was a cagey affair, with Chelsea doing just enough – Dave Webb scoring the only goal five minutes before half-time.
Having broken the ice with the Vogue ensemble, and armed with Terry O’Neill’s pictorial treasures, now was the time for me to sit down in the secretary’s office at Stamford Bridge with Charlie and attempt to write something that was not just the standard football stuff, so enjoyed by the readers of Shoot and Striker and the other soccer comics of the day, but a new take on a footballer’s pre-match mental state and all the rituals that he goes through prior to any big contest.
