Catch A Falling Star (8 page)

I had a temperature of 102 degrees so the doctor told me to go home. There was nothing I could do, certainly there was no way I could travel and play on the day so off home to bed I went and by Monday morning I felt really great again. So I resumed training ready for our midweek match when I felt cold again.

At first I thought nothing of it, but down in the dressing room I started shaking again as soon as I started getting changed. So the club doctor was called in again and after checking me over he told me that I had a temperature once more, so here was another game I had to miss.

Luckily enough one of our players, Matt Gray, was in the stand as he’d come along to take in the game. The tannoy announcer asked him to report to the dressing room and on arrival Joe ordered him to get changed. You can imagine how perplexed and worried I was by now. So they sent me off to a specialist in
Manchester
and it turned out that I had tonsillitis. So off I went to the Pressure Pit hospital run by nuns to have my tonsils and adenoids out.

I was in there for a full week but one good thing about it was that I was bathed by nuns every night and believe me they use bad language! I was out again after a week and ready to play for my club once more.

We played some great stuff that season and the crowds came flocking back to

By this stage I was really enjoying my game and I couldn’t wait for a Saturday afternoon to come along. That was the chance for me to put on that number 10
shirt
and take whatever opportunities came my way.

That summer we all sat back and watched
England
win the World Cup on television. Joe Mercer, our manager, brought more prestige to the club by being one of the television pundits during the tournament.

Yet in my opinion one of the worst things that ever happened to the English game was winning the World Cup without wingers because for donkey’s years they had been an integral part of the English game. So everyone started copying this ‘successful formula’ and wingers all but disappeared from the game. Even today we don’t play with wingers. We play with wing-backs. Is he a winger or a full-back?

They work hard in that position, they cover a lot of space, don’t get me wrong, but what annoys me is that more often than not a wing-back will get himself into a great position and then won’t be able to cross it properly. They can’t get it over the first man. It kills me that, it absolutely kills me. When a player can’t get it out to the far post – when it gets cut out with ease or whenever you get a player who can’t get the ball over the first man at a corner I really pull my hair out. The first thing you get told as a schoolboy is: “When crossing the ball, don’t put it anywhere near the ‘keeper.” If schoolboys can do it, why can’t a professional footballer?

Anyway by the summer of ’66 we were back in the top flight,
England
were champions of the World and like I say things were on the up. There was only one dissenting voice – he was a supporter who used to vilify me every time I touched the ball. He sat in the Main Stand – Row
A
, Seat 3. If you’re reading this, you know exactly who you are!

4.
From
The Shadows

Looking back,
Manchester
City
were
ready for take-off in the mid-sixties. By that I mean that we had the raw materials, namely talented local lads committed to the cause but just needed the leadership and guidance to take us on to the next level.

I suppose I was typical of this group and, as an Aquarius, I am supposed to be a champion at whatever I do. Mind you the stars also reckon that Aquarians are great lovers! I’m on the cusp of being a Pisces as well which means I need to be led. I believe I became a champion footballer thanks to the efforts of Joe and Malcolm. As you might have gathered, like a great many footballers, I am very superstitious.

Our first year back in the top flight was a season of consolidation but we started off like a house on fire. Our first home game of season 1966-67 was against 
Liverpool
. 50,320 spectators saw the clash between second division champions and first division champions and we came out on top 2-1. From then on I knew that our first season back in the big time would be much more successful than our last. In the end we finished a lowly 15th but we were playing with style and getting better all the time.

The 60s was a magical time in
Manchester
as far as music was concerned. The Beatles were a huge influence from down the road but we had the Hollies, Herman’s Hermits and a host of others. My main hang-outs were the Plaza, where Jimmy
Savile
was the DJ, Blinkers Nightclub which is where anyone who was anyone would normally be seen, and now and again I’d frequent the Twisted Wheel.

The 60s were when it all came alive and for my counterpart at Old Trafford, Mr Best, it became all too easy for him to get caught up in the moment. If he had married at an early age like
myself
then it might have been a different story with him. He was a good looking lad, the ‘Fifth Beatle’ they called him and so the press hounded him everywhere he went. He enjoyed a lot of success at an early age and if that had happened to me, perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to handle it all. It was only later on when he started to disrespect Matt Busby’s wishes that he really fell from grace.

Funnily enough,
Bestie
used to
babysit
for me. He used to go out with my first wife’s twin sister. I remember one Saturday night coming back to
Handforth
and there were four cars outside my house at two in the morning. I thought: “Oh, George must have some friends round,” but it was the
News of The World
, the
Sunday Express
, the
Sunday Mirror
and
The People
all waiting for George to come out, so I’d have to sneak him out the back door.

I think many of us liked a drink but we weren’t in the spotlight as much as
Bestie
. We knew when to draw the line. Tony Coleman liked a bit of a drink but then so did Malcolm. He wouldn’t mind if you were rolling about at
3am
outside
Chorlton
Street Bus Station because it meant you’d been letting off a bit of steam. If you played hard and worked hard that was all right by him. To be honest though, much of the time we invited ourselves and our partners round to each others’ houses for a buffet or whatever. That way you also stayed out of the way of the press as well.

From a Blue perspective it was good that the spotlight was on the
United
players for the wrong reasons from time-to-time because by comparison we were getting on with the game and winning trophies. Our philosophy was: “Let them have the limelight, let us have the cups.”

So
just as we had the Hollies, and the Scousers had the Beatles the two great cities had two great football pedigrees. That’s where the comparison stopped though. On Merseyside there were
Liverpool
and Everton but even Bill
Shankly
had to exclaim: “
There’s
only two teams in
Manchester
.
City and City reserves!”
How right he was!

As an aside, when my son Mark was seven I took him to
Liverpool
to watch us play them. When we arrived at the ground the man himself was there at the top of the stairs. The great man said: “Ah, Neil is that your son? Bring him to my office.” So we went up to his office and then Shanks said: “Wait there.” He came back with a little parcel and my son opened it. It was a
Liverpool
kit. Shanks said: “Try it on!” Mark would never take it off nor could I get him to change it. It just shows how quickly a young boy can be bought!

Despite a great start to our first season back in the big time, many people felt that we lacked something up front. So Joe went out and bought a real bubbly character from Bolton Wanderers in the shape of Francis Lee. He fitted into the team pattern majestically, replacing either Jimmy Murray or Derek
Kevan
. They were both internationals, both good players but Franny gave us something extra – he had that little bit more edge. Now when we played we didn’t fear anybody. Nobody enjoyed coming to

The first time
Bell
, Lee and
Summerbee
played together with the rest of our team we beat Wolves 2-0. That was October 1967. It must have been superb for the crowd in those days, especially if we were playing the Reds from the borough of
Stretford
.

Joe was very clever in the way he assembled the squad. He certainly didn’t buy a lot of defenders early on and try and build a platform from the back but he brought in one here and one there and he knew exactly the sort of players he wanted for each position. We finished up with about seven players who could score goals at City.

At one stage, for about three seasons, Malcolm gave me a role where I could pick up the ball anywhere I wanted. It was a little similar to the role Matt Le
Tissier
had at
Southampton
– he knew with my control and passing ability I would not give it away. I had no problem in switching the play thirty, forty or even fifty yards because I was so accurate when I passed the ball. I’d do that for Colin and often he’d return the favour.

We knew what we were doing because we took our instructions from earlier in the week and put them into practice on the Saturday. From Monday to Friday we trained hard and practised various moves, so that when we put them into operation during the game it seemed like second nature to us.

By now I was on the left but really I could play anywhere, Mike was on the right and while he made a few goals he didn’t score too many. Belly chipped in with a few from midfield but we still lacked that twenty goals a season man up front as the likes of Derek
Kevan
and Tony Coleman never scored too many either. Again, that’s where Francis Lee made such a difference to the team pattern.

*

As a coach and trainer Malcolm was second to none, in fact he transformed my game and one of the main reasons behind my continued improvement was the confidence he gave me. A master at mind games Malcolm always had something to say.
Always.
One instance I remember very well was a game we played at Craven Cottage against Fulham. I had one of those dream nights where we came off the pitch at full time, we’d won 2-0 and he came across to me and said: “You have just murdered the
England
full-back.” I wondered sometimes why I wasn’t in the
England
frame because I held my own against all the international full-backs I came up against: Paul
Reaney
of
England
, Peter
Rodrigues
of
Wales
and Alex Elder of
Northern Ireland
.

Another example of him building me up was when he literally bounded into the dressing room before a game at