by Greg Tesser
‘No, I can’t allow that – goodbye.’
That was that. Looking back, I probably should have pressed it a bit, but Sexton intimidated me, and I always felt – rightly or wrongly – that he ‘blamed’ me for some of what he termed as excesses by Os and Cooke and co.
However, on the positive side, despite Dave Sexton’s rejection of utilising Raquel Welch’s publicity value for the club, the story just ran and ran.
The fact is that without Terry O’Neill’s ‘in’ with Welch and her immediate entourage, none of this Raquel/Peter Osgood ‘love affair’ would have taken off as it did. First and foremost Terry was a Blues fan, and he and I got on very well, so it came natural to him to try to raise the international profile of not only Os, but also the club as a whole. There is a touch of irony in all this, in the sense that since Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea Football Club, the big noises at the Bridge have had an ongoing love affair with America. Such a link today between a star player, in particular an indigenous one, with a US screen icon would have the Chelsea publicity people with their tongues out, salivating.
I never quite understood Dave Sexton’s problem with the show business side of Stamford Bridge. At most home games, the main stand was packed to the gills with glitterati. One such doting fan was hairdresser extraordinaire Vidal Sassoon. I met Vidal on several occasions in the bar at the Bridge, and found him charming. He went on to cut Ossie’s hair a few times, and even attempted to make sense of my unruly locks. I always remember him telling me how marvellous the whole King’s Road scene was and that ‘at Stamford Bridge, you had Peter Osgood – now there’s a man with style’.
Of course, what I should have done was to have just gone ahead and done it, without the manager’s rubber stamp. Of course as it turned out, that professor of self-publicity, Jimmy Hill, garnered all the column inches by accompanying Raquel to the Chelsea v. Leicester City encounter in February 1972 – the early groundwork laid down by Terry O’Neill and myself having been conveniently forgotten.
But even though Hill hit on the Raquel Welch stunt for his own reflected glory, the photographs taken of the lady herself, looking radiant in full Chelsea regalia – Os’ No. 9 shirt, the lot – were all the work of Terry O’Neill. And soon these photos were wending their way around the globe.
Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final day first leg: 14 April. Stamford Bridge was electric once more. Just 48 hours before, the Blues had sneaked a 1–0 home win over Liverpool, grateful for an own goal from full-back Alec Lindsay, he of the receding blond hair and Pickwickian mutton-chop sideburns. However, any thoughts of a tilt at the title had long gone; both Arsenal and Leeds were dogging each other’s footsteps at the summit, but Chelsea had shown what might have been with a scintillating 3–1 home win over Leeds on 27 March. Over 58,000 packed into the Bridge saw Houseman grab two and Osgood the other as the old foes from Yorkshire were summarily dismissed.
But on the whole this was not the free-flowing Chelsea of the previous campaign. The old problem of superb one week and poor the next was very much the order of the day, yet when it came to a fixture that really mattered or a one-off contest, Os and his pals were capable of testing the best there was.
The first game with Manchester City was no classic, and Chelsea’s ranks were depleted by the loss of both Bonetti and Osgood through injury, but Derek Smethurst’s strike one minute after the break was enough to give them the slenderest of advantages to take to Maine Road a fortnight later.
Derek Smethurst: It is not a name that trips off the tongue when the conversation comes round to extolling the virtues of the King’s Road kings. Yet, his short and undistinguished career at the Bridge did have this one magic moment. A South African – he was born in Durban in 1947 – he signed for Chelsea in 1968 from Durban City, and made eighteen appearances for the club before being transferred, at his own request, to Millwall for £35,000 later that year. His contribution to Chelsea’s European glory gave him the unique distinction of being the first overseas-born player to win a European winner’s medal in England, as well being the first player from abroad to score for the club in Europe.
Yet despite his limitations, he proved an acceptable substitute for Osgood, and he was called upon for more action in the second game. Once more it was cagey and edgy and nervy, with City keeper Ron Healey, a stand-in for the regular custodian Joe Corrigan, handing the Blues a 1–0 victory with an own goal. The Cup-holders were out, and it was to be another final for the Stamford Bridge faithful to enjoy. On this occasion it was to be opposition just a shade more glamorous than the lads from Leeds; it was to be Real Madrid, a name synonymous with all that was enticing and extravagant about European football; premier purveyors of the beautiful game.
Alexanders; Alvaro’s; Barbarella; Meridiana; Mirabelle; Quaglino’s: I could go on. These are just a few names of eating houses frequented by the great and the good, and indeed Chelsea footballers, during that unique era of change. On a personal level, I must have spent literally hour upon hour at these places day-in-and-day-out. How I ever got any work done remains one of those unsolved mysteries, but somehow I did. And I know for a fact that Os enjoyed one particular lunch at the world-famous Mirabelle in Mayfair.
Roy Stewardson was the chairman of Cheshunt Football Club. A large man – he was built a bit like Stan Flashman – he was, according to sources, a multi-millionaire. He possessed an impressive mop of black hair that would shine when the sun was out, nourished no doubt by dollops of Brilliantine. He had an expansive smile, and like most people, the thought of meeting a footballer of such national celebrity as Peter Osgood thrilled him in the manner of a kid getting his first autograph.
His aim was to make something of his club, an amateur outfit playing in those days in the Athenian League. Roy had big plans for the club, and he wanted Ossie involved in some way to try to further his grandiose ideas. At the time Cheshunt sold literally hundreds of copies of The Amateur Footballer; he even booked a series of adverts in the mag for some of Cheshunt’s off-field enterprises – its restaurant and conference facilities etc. I used to visit the club on numerous occasions, and often Os would accompany me to games. Roy seemed to like me, and he loved the company of Ossie. After one such evening game, Roy’s manner became even more over-the-top in its conviviality as he pitched a few ideas at us.
‘I’d very much like Peter to be involved with some of our plans,’ he announced; his voice booming like some massive drum. ‘Why don’t we all three meet up for lunch somewhere very soon.’
‘Fine by me,’ I said. ‘Maybe in the West End somewhere?’
‘Oh, I thought I’d take you both to lunch at the Mirabelle in Curzon Street,’ he responded with a grin. ‘The best in the world, they say.’
He was not wrong. Opened in 1936, by the 1950s and ’60s it had become probably the most fashionable eating-house in Mayfair. Sir Winston Churchill was a regular. Royalty loved it too, with Princess Margaret being an oft-seen diner. Now, the restaurant would have the pleasure of greeting the King of Stamford Bridge in tandem with his long-haired, moustachioed agent!
In 1998, Marco Pierre White bought the restaurant, but sold it nine years later. It was closed in 2008 for refurbishment, and has remained closed ever since.
It was a sumptuous meal, beginning with shrimps on solid silver hooks attached to a burnished silver Georgian display that was shaped like a miniature Marble Arch. The sauce, served in miniature Regency-style tureens was both delicate and fragrant. We had vintage wines, some as old as 1945 – a famous year. During the meal, the ebullient Stewardson kept saying how much he would like Osgood to be part of his business operations. It all looked as rosy as the elegant flowers on our table; the money would be sloshing all over the place, or so we both thought.
The place was by no means packed, and we were waited on in the manner of Upstairs Downstairs. Orson Welles was holding court a few tables from us, his immense frame seeming to mask the whole table.
Richard Burton was there as well. He looked mo
rose, but only for an instant. His large round face, cratered like the moon, then broke into a broad smile, which must have been difficult as he had a cigarette glued to his top lip. I said to Os and Roy that he was ‘probably staying at his regular place, The Dorchester, just round the corner’. This small slice of showbiz knowledge seemed to impress them, which was nice. I tried not to stare; after all, staring is rude, I was told as a kid, but in a place like the Mirabelle in the 1970s, staring was almost unavoidable.
Having lunched well, and with the mellowness and ‘Goodwill to all men’ feeling growing by the minute in our alcohol-addled brains, Stewardson shook hands and said, ‘don’t worry, I’ll be in touch’.
He kept to his word, and thanks to his initial enthusiasm, we were able to take advantage of his wealth – how rich he actually was I never discerned – but like so many aspects of life, the whole thing fizzled to nothing.
After the Stewardson nosh-up, the Mirabelle became a favourite haunt of mine. I escorted all manner of people through its elegant portals, only putting a stop to it when the dollars ran short. But looking back, this very first meal there in Osgood’s company was certainly the most memorable.
Another lunch of note with Ossie was in the company of Terry O’Neill and Adam Faith. Terry was really pally with Faith; in fact they had known each other for years. The first time I was meant to meet the ‘What Do You Want’ star (the disc topped the charts in 1959), it was with Rodney Marsh, but he failed to appear. On this occasion, however, he was on time, and the lunch was yet another liquid affair, with everyone round the table heaping praise on Osgood’s exploits on the pitch.
It is a funny thing, how life can go round and round in seemingly never-ending circles. Take Adam Faith. Here I was drinking Chablis or whatever at a five-star watering hole; having as a thirteen-year-old watched him on TV in the pop show Drumbeat, having even bought a record or two of his. He didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him. But later in the 1970s he was to be one of the stars in the hit movie Stardust, written by Ray Connolly, the same Ray Connolly who had interviewed Os for the Evening Standard on the eve of the 1970 Cup Final. I will always remember Os glancing up at him, and Faith smiling and saying that ‘you really bring entertainment to the football pitch’.
Later, in 1987, Faith was part of a consortium, led by Terry Venables that failed in a bid to buy Queen’s Park Rangers from owner Jim Gregory.
Adam Faith: lovely name, and in many respects, rock music’s very first thinker. I remember seeing him on TV in the very early 1960s discussing sex before marriage with the Archbishop of Canterbury. At one stage his was the voice of disaffected youth. Yet having achieved fame and fortune, he somehow managed to lose it all, and he was declared bankrupt. He died in 2003, aged just sixty-two.
It has been said that Chelsea’s three supreme entertainers, Cooke, Hudson and Osgood, courted publicity everywhere they went. And whilst it is certainly true to say that in those times they were undoubtedly flattered by all the attention and praise heaped on them by – for all intents and purposes – bigger celebrities than they were ever likely to be, it is also (from my experience anyway) true to say that the actors and singers and models just loved being in their company. One such star was actress Jane Seymour, and Hudson remembers their meetings at the Red Lion pub on the Fulham Road well.
‘It would always be about 5.15 in the afternoon, after a home game, of course,’ he outlined to me recently. ‘A load of us players were there, and there was one particular day – she had just been chosen to star in a James Bond film, Live and Let Die, I think – and the atmosphere was really good. I used to see a lot of her at the Red Lion.’
The part Alan was talking about was that of ‘Solitaire’, and she co-starred with Roger Moore. The theme song was a massive hit for Paul McCartney and Wings.
The connection between beautiful Jane, Alan and his mates was obvious. In 1971, she married theatre director Michael Attenborough, son of Richard, who was of course Chelsea vice-chairman. Unfortunately, their marriage was a short-lived affair, as two years later they divorced.
Another Chelsea fan was Michael Crawford; probably bluer than most. He was a regular presence in the stands at Stamford Bridge. His rise to the top was very much part of ’60s culture, and during the 1970s his name and that of his wife Gabrielle became linked with the club as their marriage fell apart.
Crawford had married Gabrielle in 1965. At the time she was working at the Pickwick Club, the same club where, in 1964, I had dined in the company of photographer Jeremy Fletcher after organising a publicity shoot for Larry Page’s band The Pickwicks with Harry Secombe. As I have already written more than once: in this sort of environment it just goes round and round, like some Kafka-esque never-ending circle.
They divorced in 1975, Michael later citing the following reasons: ‘I acquired a business manager who lost all my money through bad investments.’ In 1971 he got a plum part in No Sex Please, We’re British. ‘I went into the theatre at 12.30 in the afternoon. I needed the feeling of being there, but Gabrielle wanted me home.’
Gabrielle was having an affair with Blues striker Tommy Baldwin – known as Sponge. They were undoubtedly what is termed today ‘an item’. Alan Hudson referred to Sponge when reminiscing about Chelsea’s epic battle with Bruges, stating his nickname derived from the way he ‘soaked up as much work as he’d ever done’, other Chelsea players of that era maintained at the time that this moniker was all about his ability to absorb alcohol! He even used to arm-wrestle hellraiser and Hollywood superstar Richard Harris in nightclubs: no mean test of endurance, considering the Irish actor’s ability as a rugby player – he represented Munster at both junior and senior level.
Tommy once summed up his whole Chelsea experience like this: ‘It was a good time at Chelsea and we had a good time too. We were down the King’s Road every night with all the actors and actresses. We had a real showbiz team: we had Ossie and Charlie Cooke and Alan Hudson. Boy, we used to entertain. The players don’t seem to be having the same sort of fun now. We used to go to the local boozer after games and see the supporters. They would tell you if you’d had a good game or not. Nowadays, they go their own way after matches. There’s not the same camaraderie.’
Tommy was a terrific player, and in my view never quite received the accolades and plaudits he deserved. Signed in 1966 from Arsenal by Docherty in part-exchange with George Graham, he remained at Stamford Bridge until 1974. By then the wheels had come off down the Fulham Road, but for any Blues fan of baby boomer age, those cavaliers of the King’s Road would have been far less potent without the donkey work and vital goals of Sponge. Charlie Cooke said Baldwin was ‘the perfect foil for Ossie’. And Os himself once told me that he and Tommy ‘worked really well together’. Nice understatement, there, Os: in my book you were like caviar and champagne!
The tabloids made hay while the sun shone over Baldwin’s relationship with Gabrielle, but frankly by the standards of today’s red tops – phone hacking and all that – it was comparatively small beer, despite being emotionally disturbing for all the ‘actors’ concerned in the drama.
As I say, Crawford was Chelsea through and through, and even shared a flat in Kensington with FA Cup hero Dave Webb at one point.
Moving away from Stamford Bridge for a minute, it should not be forgotten that I was also knocking my pipe out plugging Rodney Marsh. Marsh was big, but unlike Ossie he was a gargantuan fish in the small pond that was QPR and Loftus Road. His skipper at the club was the shrewd midfielder with a cheeky chappie, almost Max Miller persona, Terry Venables.
Terry had made his name at Chelsea, and critics have maintained that he never quite fulfilled his true potential. As a precocious teenager he was compared by some pundits to the late and truly great Duncan Edwards, who so sadly died in the Manchester United Munich air disaster of February 1958. He was a character, and he also possessed a razor-sharp brain.
I used to regularly hang out with Venables (and Rod Marsh) at the Pizza Express in De
an Street, Soho. I did a few interviews with him for various football magazines, and the odd ghosted piece as well. At the time he was developing into quite the author. Writing in collaboration with Gordon Williams, he penned a whole procession of Hazell books in the 1970s, these volumes later spawning a hit TV series.
Now aged seventy-nine, Williams’ writing career has been quirkily varied. Like that other creator of unique detective fiction, Belgian-born man of Paris, Georges Simenon, he began his working life as a journalist, in his case on the Johnstone Advertiser. After National Service, he returned to the Advertiser before moving to south-west England and the Poole and Dorset Herald.
It was during the 1960s that his career path took a turn into the world of football, a game that had always been one of his prime passions. Having ghosted a series of autobiographies for some of the sport’s heavyweights, most notably Tommy Docherty – whose story he once described as ‘a stream of consciousness on a par with Ulysses’ – and Bobby Moore, he went on to become Chelsea’s commercial manager.
I first met him in 1971, soon after the publication of They Used to Play on Grass, a futuristic football novel written in conjunction with his old mucker, Terry Venables. Williams’ most famous – some would say infamous – book, The Siege of Trencher’s Farm, had been published two years before. The film version, Straw Dogs, starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George, was about to hit the screens, and to put it mildly, create quite a stir.
Williams himself described Sam Peckinpah’s film as ‘utter crap’, and to this day remains utterly embarrassed that, despite refusing to write the script, his name is associated with the cinematic end-product. Initially, Roman Polanski was to direct the movie, but in the end the gig was given to Peckinpah, a man Williams obviously overtly loathed. In fact he has gone on record as saying that, in his view, ‘the man (Peckinpah) was sick’.
