MY FOOTBALL CAREER

MY FOOTBALL CAREER

(Schooldays memories fom the ‘fifties, still giving amusement now)

Who was it that said, 'The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton'? It is often attributed to the Duke of Wellington, who always refuted it. Well I reckon it’s irrefutable that no battle was ever won on the playing fields of St Mulbert’s Grammar school in Newcastle.

I might have become a great footballing figure at St. James’ Park if things had only turned out differently - if my interest had been caught and developed. At primary school most of the boys were drawing colourful football strips and shorts, but I was drawing sailing boats and castles. Another pretty good early indication of thin interest was the Christmas gift book about Stanley Matthews. It was a whopping bore, I hardly ever opened it and even when I did, I really had no interest in pictures of men kicking footballs. That book simply served to wedge up my Meccano bridges built between the bed and the cupboard.

And then there was the F A Cup final in 1951 watched on the early tv sets of those days, with tiny black-and-white snowy screen and hissing sound. All the adults, including lots of neighbours, crowded into the living room and were rapt, especially when Newcastle’s Jackie Milburn scored in that game against Blackpool with its iconic Matthews. Even mum, who had no real interest in football, was trying to whip up my enthusiasm. All I recall is a mass of shouting neighbours so closely packed that the tiny screen was barely visible.

“Howay, Jackie!”

“The magpies are gannin’ to take the cup!”

I was on the floor drawing maps or playing with my Bayko building set, between slices of bread with Lyle’s golden syrup twisted on with a knife, mentally trying to visualise a big flock of magpies making off into the sky carrying the silver cup.

And to add injury to insult, the Cup final cost us in blood. When the victorious Jackie Milburn and his team returned to Newcastle on the train, mum took me to see their arrival at the Central Station, thinking that my interest might be sparked. For her effort in the huge crowd, she had to be taken to hospital with a crushed rib. The next day uncle John was enthused enough to try a kick at the kids’ football with his false leg. Unfortunately it was uncontrolled in power of direction and it slammed into my face and made my nose bleed a lot. So, not a very propitious start to my career.

At St. Mulbert’s I was always on the second team “scraps”. Everyone knows how it goes. The teams are chosen and there are a few boys left unpicked, and it’s,

“Oh, you’ve got take them”,

“Oh, no, we don’t want them, you’ve gotta take ‘em.”

I was sometimes told, “You’re right back.”

I always wanted to ask, “Right back where? Behind the stand?”

But I guessed the “real footballers” wouldn’t find it funny, so I shut up. And then we were ignominiously shoved into one team or another.

Although this indignity was meant to indicate unworthiness, it was a completely meaningless selection process to me, for I was starting to care nothing for either team, or indeed for the game itself, at that point. I was essentially an unreliable non-combatant, only a lukewarm supporter. Like a conshie – a conscientious objector - in wartime. This was actually close to the truth. Oh yes, I went along with the whole class on the school bus to away-matches, but I was always just there to carry bags - to act as supporter. After spending two hours standing in mud and cold, my support was somewhere between lukewarm and indifferent. Again, unpropitious beginnings to my football career.

I think what really clinched the beginning of the end of my football career was an unusual theft. Someone stole one of my new boots. I reported it to the sports teacher but no interest was shown.

“Sir, one of my new football boots has been stolen.”

“Well, you’ll have to find another quickly, the match is starting soon.”

I suppose I fondly imagined that he might ask the boys about the theft in the next class. I’m sure an Eton sports teacher would have done so. Sure, if Wellington had lost his boot there would have been ructions. My boot was not found. Maybe it was a joke, or maybe someone actually needed a boot, but it pretty well brought my career to a dead stop. I mean - who would want to steal a single boot?

So I used my one good football boot (left foot) for the next two years and found another for my right foot. It was an old boot far too big for me, with no laces, a big hole, and only three studs instead of six. The hole let in mud, but I didn’t complain to mum because she couldn’t afford another new pair and I had all but given up caring about football anyway. In the wash, mum always found one really dirty sock and one quite clean in the monthly pile from school.

So, shod in my uneven footwear, I often ended up as the losing team’s goalkeeper, and of course the goalmouth is often a muddy place. To say that the so-called football pitch was muddy doesn’t adequately give the picture. It was like World War I Flanders Field. It was surprising I didn’t get trench foot. Now I reflect on it, the other guy ( thieving Bigfoot ) must’ve had trench foot syndrome too, not to mention cramp from my smaller boot on his right foot. But, with phlegmatic resignation, the goalmouth mud I could accept - it was only a game after all, so who cared?

And, unlike the soldiers of Flanders Field, I knew this was only a game, and in two hours time, there was life beyond football. Even so, diving into the mud to stop an unstoppable goal-bound piledriver? Why bother? To me it was equivalent to throwing oneself on a grenade when everyone was already dead. I honestly couldn’t see the point of running to beat some guy for the ball. If the other team wanted it so badly, let them have it. As unwilling goalkeeper I was additionally expected to run for any ball which was out of play. This expectation remained fast, even in the deep squalor of nettles off-pitch, where, with bare legs, it resembled a WW I barbed wire entanglement. I could easily imagine Bigfoot suffering similar tortures, for with his uneven footwear he too probably ended up in goal somewhere.

At least I was in charge of the ball off-pitch. When on-pitch, however, the other lads all got excited from time to time about something called the offside rule. As far as I could figure it out, no normal human being actually understands it. It rests with the opinion of a linesman, and in his absence, endless discussion leads to stoppage of play for up to ten minutes, with one captain or the other holding the ball pompously under his arm and spitting regularly on the mud, while the debate proceeds.

Another item of on-pitch academic interest only was the location, or even existence, of goal-box and penalty-box lines. This was on a “pitch” which was mostly bare soil and mud. And if a penalty were awarded, once again, I was expected to dive into the mud for the ball ! I never did of course, and as a result was exiled from the team entirely, to wander the weeds in shame, like the lost souls across the Styx, deprived of team-support and changing-room bawdy songs after the mud battles. From my point of view, this was a happy exile. I’d sooner think my thoughts in the weeds than go swimming in mud.

Like the struggles of WW I, all our second team matches ended in no victory/no defeat. No official scores were kept of the second team matches. The captains and other self-appointed experts would stroll back to the changing rooms arguing about this or that goal or penalty, and do a lot of spitting on the mud. But there was never any clear victory or defeat. So it was a lot of effort and filth for basically nothing. We had not been lions led by donkeys, but more like sloths driven on by old dinosaurs. Our lethargy was certainly due to poor teaching by old teachers of WW I vintage, lacking the energy and enthusiasm to engender a real team spirit. At least the fruitless WW I charges and struggles were compulsory - they were done at pistol point. Here in St. Mulbert’s command HQ they expected us to do it willingly for “fun and relaxation”. But I couldn’t help thinking how the whistle that started the match reminded me of over-the-top whistles on the Western Front.

I’m sure the playing fields of Eton were not constantly swimming in mud, hence Wellington’s victory. So there can be value in team sport. In spite of the best efforts of St. Mulbert’s to mar my football career, when my middle son grew big enough he became interested in football, and I devoted a lot of time showing him basic skills in the back garden. But it wasn’t the Flanders Field training method, and we both enjoyed it greatly. He is still a great footballer and enthusiast today.

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