Catch A Falling Star (9 page)

At that time Malcolm, as a coach, was probably in the top three in the world. He had charisma and charm, especially with the ladies!

I think Malcolm knew I needed a confidence boost because I wasn’t a naturally confident person. I had all the skills necessary, more so than most, but you need that extra bit of confidence as well.
Summerbee
had it, Lee had it, Doyley certainly had it and they all went on to play for
England
. Plenty of other players like me did not and I wonder if that was the difference between getting a full cap and not. Then again Belly wasn’t particularly confident off the pitch, that’s true enough, but he was absolute class on it, he oozed quality – they couldn’t fail to pick him. For those on the margins of international honours like me, perhaps the X factor was missing.

The first time I saw Malcolm lost for words was when we were playing against
Newcastle
at

I must have run half the length of the pitch with the ball and I could hear Malcolm shouting: “Give It Him! Give It Him!” from the dug out. He must have said this ten times and in the end I thought: “Fuck you,” and I let fly with a rasping shot. In it went, the back of the net shook and I turned round to him, put two fingers up and stared back at him! That’s one of the few times I ever saw him quiet – he was gobsmacked.

When Joe and Malcolm took over at

Our travelling fans used to love going to Old Trafford in those days – we had such a good record there. No matter where we went you always saw blue and white colours in the ground. There is nothing better than seeing your fans in the crowd when you are playing away, especially at Old Trafford.

We used to love taking on United in the derby matches. The atmosphere would be electric as both teams would be fighting for honours on the pitch but we were the best of friends off it, often doing charity work together. One time we even played a cricket match at the real Old Trafford, the cricket ground, and there must have been 20,000 people there. We thrashed them at cricket too, even though
Bestie
played – don’t think he was much use with a bat!

I must mention here that Sir Matt Busby was one of the best managers ever. He paid me a great honour on the way back from the Cup Final in 1969. He was sat with Joe and Malcolm on the train home and they were all talking about the game. Matt turned to me and said: “Well son, I wish you played for us,” which made me feel very proud indeed.

They had some great players too: Law, Best, Charlton, Stiles,
Crerand
,
Foulkes
… but we were becoming the top team in
Manchester
again.

We were a better team all round. I wouldn’t say individually we were better but we were a better team, there is a difference - we didn’t rely on one or two players to win us the matches. In a way, United got all the headlines and it still used to bother us from time to time. Say we lost a game 4-3 the headline in the paper would be: “City Hammered 4-3,” yet if United lost a game 4-3 the headline would be something like: “United
In
Seven Goal Thriller.” I can recall one famous United-supporting journalist laughably describing their 5-1 defeat by City as a “Six Goal Thriller.” That’s the sort of utter tripe they used to come out with and us Blues had to put up with.

We used to say amongst ourselves: “Oh, they’re so lucky,
United
. If they play on a Wednesday night, the sun will shine for them, if we play on a Wednesday night, it’ll chuck it down non-stop!”

*

Gambling or rather ‘playing cards’ was a bit of a favourite with the lads and I suppose always has been in football clubs. The usual suspects were Stan Bowles, Dave Connor, Peter Gardner from the Manchester Evening News, George
Heslop
and
myself
.

To underline the importance of card games to our little group, one night as we returned home from an away match, we were approaching
  my
stop, Wilmslow station and I had an especially good hand. I didn’t want to give up my hand and as the train stopped at the
platform,
my wife was banging on the window encouraging me to get off. Without looking round I shouted through the open window: “Pick me up from
Manchester
,” to the great amusement of the players the train moved on again before she could challenge my decision. I won the hand and she picked me up so all’s well that ends well, eh!

Another memorable night was in
Blackpool
when
myself
, Stanley Bowles and Stan Horne went for a drink and you know what happens when you all get talking. It was after
midnight
before we knew it so we hailed a taxi and when we arrived back at the
Norbreck
Castle Hotel, there was Joe standing on the steps of the hotel. We all thought: “Bloody hell, we’re in trouble now.” All he said was: “I’ll talk to you after the game. Goodnight!” Luckily we won 3-1 and Stan Bowles and I both found the score-sheet. Joe joked that we ought to go for a drink before each away game if that was going to be the reaction. I can’t imagine what he’d have said if we’d lost though!

We used to go to
Blackpool
three or four times a year for training. We went to the
Norbreck
Castle
mainly because the manageress fancied Malcolm! With the rigorous training and fitness regime we undertook, it simply didn’t make sense to go and get blind drunk anyway. I was first in every morning for training for ten years and I always had time for a nice cup of tea with Stan Gibson, the
groundsman
.

Stan would go nuts with us because he’d be out on the pitch preparing it for the Saturday and suddenly Mal would appear from the tunnel in his tracksuit with a ball under his arm and Stan knew that meant just one thing: time to scarper! He’d still have the pitch ready for the match though. 

Talking of which, Malcolm used to have the pitch flooded by the fire brigade at about 10.30 on a Saturday morning to make sure it was nice and zippy for our passing game. Once that backfired though because we had a storm shortly afterwards, the pitch became unplayable and the game had to be abandoned.

Nevertheless Stan Gibson was a true Blue. He must have been at City for forty years. He used to tell people that he cut a six-inch square piece of turf which he called ‘
Youngy’s
pitch.’ He said that was the part of the pitch where I scored most of my goals and he dug it up and planted it in his back garden!

Anyway, my daily routine became one of my favourite things about being a professional. I’d get there before anyone else and every day I would put a skittle at the end of the gym and try to knock it down. I wouldn’t stop until I’d done that. The other players would arrive soon after and take their places for a game of two-a-side or four-a-side head tennis. You were only allowed two touches so we’d have two back men and two men at the net which was about six feet high. Normally the players were Tommy Booth, Glyn
Pardoe
, Colin Bell, Tony Book, Mike Doyle, Derek Jeffries, Malcolm and
myself
.

Normally Malcolm would take one look at the teams and try to get on the best side. He used to hate getting beaten. I’ve known him to stay in the gym much longer if his team were losing.

Most
players
hate pre-season training but I had always been a bit of a runner, a bit of an athlete with Manchester Athletic Club so the training did not bother me one little bit. In fact I couldn’t wait to start after our summer break. Most players would come back a little overweight but I was lucky in that department.

We did a lot of pre-season work at the Silver Wings club in Altrincham, where they had superb pitches, tennis courts and squash courts. So we would spend mornings and afternoons training there. We would concentrate on stamina and sharpness. The one big difference was that everything was done with a ball which, believe it or not, is more tiring than just running because you have to concentrate more when you have a ball at your feet.

Afternoons were spent on attack versus defence, free kicks, corners and my favourite which was shooting. I loved that, Franny and I were probably the best at shooting. We used to finish joint scorers many afternoons. Many a time after training we’d crawl back to

After about three weeks we would start our friendly matches, usually against the likes of
Southport
,
Chester
, Bolton Wanderers or
Rochdale
to get us match fit.
Which was enjoyable enough.
Then we would often go abroad for a few days to
Germany
, or
Sweden
to play a couple of warm-up games – just to get us ready for the next season.

They changed our eating habits. Instead of eating rubbish we would eat steak, chicken or fish before matches with salad. We had to wear a tie when we travelled away, we would have to
arrive
looking smart and there would be no smoking on the coach.

They turned us into a professional outfit in more ways than one. We looked good and played well! We trained much harder in shorter periods. Not run, run, run all the time, we had variety in everything we did. They started weight-lifting in the gym at the club two afternoons a week and we became a super-fit team. There was one day when we couldn’t get in the gym because the doors were locked – it turned out Malcolm was ‘entertaining’ Miss
England
! A super team in every way – we were probably the fittest team in
Britain
.

It showed too, look at our results over that five-year period. We won a great many trophies. We were feared as a team.

Also, the crowd loved it – no wonder we had massive gates every week for our home matches because when we were up there with the
Uniteds
, the
Liverpools
and the Arsenals we were doing superbly well. Then
came
our European campaigns and all because our habits had been changed. The food, the training, our appearance, our attitude – all of those things were different now and we had knitted together as a unit. In fact for four or five years the team very nearly picked itself barring injuries. A settled team tends to be a successful team because everyone knows what is expected of everybody else. Everyone was aware of the standard. We became a very solid outfit and were tremendously hard to beat.

That’s the influence that Joe and Malcolm gave us. They were professional and they made us more professional. They never stopped looking or striving for perfection, a state that I think was reached that night when we played
Schalke
off the park. City were great that night, even if I say so myself.