Always Managing: My Autobiography, page 8
There was a little room in the block of flats in the middle of the estate, called the Matchbox. It was about the size of a matchbox, and I don’t know what its purpose was, because it had never been used, but Albert got the keys and that became our team room. We had a meeting one Friday to set up our XI, and Albert got us kit and a place in the Regent Boys League, which was over the other side of London, north-west, in Regent’s Park. The match was an hour and the journey there was about three. We had to get a bus, then a train, and there was nowhere to change. We were playing teams from Islington, from Camden, and it turned out the only league he could get us into was an under-11. We were all younger, and some of the smallest ones were no more than eight. We were getting chinned every week, but Albert was soon on the lookout for new players. He found a cracker in Terry Reardon. Terry was 11 but he was already on the way to being a man. When he was just 12 he played in the English Schools under-15 Trophy final for East London Boys against Manchester Boys. He could operate three years out of his age group, no problem. Once Terry joined, Albert started nicking a few lads from the other east London clubs and pretty soon we had enough for two teams. By then we had become the best club in the area. We moved leagues and played on Hackney Marshes and won the title year after year. I’d play for East London on the Saturday, Burdett Boys on the Sunday morning, and then wait for our older team to turn up and play for them, too. And that’s how it all started – running around with Burdett Boys on a patch of land we called Wembley.
There was nothing for me at school. Susan Lawrence had a fancy new name – it used to be Ricardo Street School but was renamed after a local councillor who became a Labour MP – but the headmaster was the same chap that was in charge when my dad went there. I was lucky, though, because it had two good sports teachers, Mr Enniver and Mr Clark, who were really enthusiastic. Mr Enniver loved his cricket, and they both loved their football. We would meet at nine o’clock Saturday morning and play on a red cinder surface; I don’t think I saw a grass pitch until I had left for my senior school. I remember the pair of them going from class to class announcing the trials for the school football team and asking whether anyone was interested. My hand shot straight up. I got picked and my dad came to watch me. I felt ten feet tall.
Mr Enniver absolutely loved me, and Mr Clark was fantastic for me, too. He only died quite recently. He got in touch late in his life and I saw him quite a few times in the decade before he passed away. Unfortunately, though, I left Susan Lawrence only interested in sport. There were three choices in those days: grammar school, central school or secondary modern. If you were clever you went to our local grammar school, George Green on the Isle of Dogs; the average ones ended up at the central schools, St Paul’s Way or Millwall; and if you were an idiot like me there were two further choices – Hay Currie School or Sir Humphrey Gilbert School in Stepney. They were the roughest schools in the area by a million miles – a pair of nuthouses, really. You had to be pretty poor in class and have failed the eleven-plus exam to end up at a secondary modern, and I think there was only me and one other boy who went there. I chose Humphrey Gilbert, and I remember Mr Enniver taking me aside before I left. ‘Harry, be careful at that school,’ he told me. ‘If you’re not you could get caught up in the wrong things. You’ll have to concentrate. I know you love your sport, but you must watch out. Get in with the wrong crowd and you could end up in prison.’ People now don’t understand what it was like there. They think I exaggerate when I tell them I can’t remember having too many proper classes or proper teachers. It was student teachers who got dumped there, mostly. Young women – they would last a day, or a week at most, and run out crying. I can’t recall any of the names, because we had so many. They would disappear one afternoon and we’d never see them again.
We did no work, we learned nothing. We’d have assembly at nine, and by ten everyone would be bunking off class and meeting up by the toilets to get up to mischief. The education was non-existent. I think there were probably ten kids in my year who left not being able to read or write. I’m not saying I was much better. If I tried to write a letter, you’d think it was a six-year-old who had got hold of the pen and paper. It’s embarrassing, really. My writing is disgusting and my spelling is no better. I might be dyslexic for all I know; it certainly looks like it. I can sign my name or write ‘Best wishes, Harry’ for autographs, but the rest is a mess. I have never composed a letter in my life because I simply couldn’t. If I ever have to put down a proper sentence, I’ve no idea where to put the full stops and commas, and I start off in capitals, then joined-up letters, then back to capitals. Don’t think I’m proud of this. People can’t believe it when they see my handwriting – and everyone I’ve ever met from Sir Humphrey Gilbert or Hay Currie is the same. The education was secondary, but it certainly wasn’t modern.
We didn’t go to school in the way other kids went to school. We caused havoc and then went home. The only way they could keep order was by using the cane. There was one teacher there, Mr Merton, who was extremely scary. He’d bend you over and beat you with the cane, or give you six across the hand. We dreaded being sent to him because he always made sure it hurt. I got the cane a few times, for not turning up to class or banging the lid of my desk repeatedly. One time we all started singing in class and I got the blame. My favourite trick was playing to an audience in woodwork and metalwork. I didn’t have a clue about either of them so I used to act up, get this wiry metal that we used and stuff a load of it down the back of my trousers. Then I would wind up our teacher, Mr Harris, unmercifully until he flew into a temper and ordered me out in front of the class to get the cane. With the wire down my trousers I couldn’t feel a thing, but I’d be making all these noises, ‘ooh’ and ‘aargh’, as he hit me, all the while winking and grinning at my mates in the room. Everyone would be laughing and Harris wouldn’t have a clue what was going on.
Mr Harris was the saving grace for me, though, because he was also our football teacher. I went there at 11 and was straight in the first team with the 15-year-olds. We played in green shirts, but there was no other kit. Most of the boys wore jeans and army boots, even when representing the school. One of our first matches was against our big rivals Hay Currie, and they beat up Mr Harris after the game. He was the referee and he should have gone crooked and given them a couple of goals. They were big, scary boys – a few of them were members of notorious gangster families in the East End, proper villains in the making – and at the end of the match they chased him as he was trying to drive away on his moped. They pushed him off, trod on his wheels and smashed up the spikes. We all just stood there. We didn’t fancy fighting them, either. Where I came from you either had to be good at fighting or good at running – and I was always a fast runner. I represented the school at everything: football, cricket and athletics, but our equipment was a joke. I came third in the 400 metres at the London Schools Championships, and I ran in slippers. I was only a yard behind the first two, but they had spikes.
When I first went there the school football team practised in the playground, but after a while we started to get a bus out to Goresbrook Park in Dagenham. The problem was, by the time they had got all the nutters organised on these old green buses, and then sorted everybody out amid the pandemonium at the other end, it was time to come home. We would waste whole afternoons like that. It was only when I got picked up by Tottenham Hotspur that I saw how important it was to train properly.
I was in the C class, for the lowest academic achievers, which did not help. There was a boy called David Thompson, who had a car that he had nicked, a little Mini that he used to leave parked up the road. He could only have been about 14, but he was already a man. He was useless at football, but we got him in the school team because he used to run at people and frighten the life out of them. Not with the ball. He never had the ball. He’d just run at them, ‘Grrr!’, they’d get out of the way and we’d score. It wasn’t a good team, though. My football career started in earnest when I was picked to play for East London Schools. It was at that moment that any chance I had of leaving with qualifications ended. Each Tuesday and Thursday I would excuse myself from school at about two o’clock, with another boy called Johnny Blake, and we’d go over to Hay Currie for our East London Schools training. It wasn’t a long journey but we’d act as if we needed two hours to get there, and then just hang about until all the Hay Currie kids had gone home, and our session began. It was a great thing, and a big thing for me, because East London were a proper team with a proper green-and-gold quartered strip, and Mr Sturridge, the teacher who ran it with Mr Hurley, was also responsible for the England Schoolboys team. It was my first experience of real coaching. We were a unit, we were all mates and good players, and joining up with that group was the highlight of my week.
I think East London Boys kept a lot of kids on the straight and narrow. I don’t think I would ever have fallen as far as Mr Enniver feared, but I would definitely have got into a lot more trouble had I not been so busy playing sport. I also played cricket for East London, and ran too, and because I was of a high standard I began coming into contact with professional coaches, like Eddie Baily from Tottenham Hotspur and Dennis Allen, Martin’s dad, who played inside-forward for Charlton Athletic. That was probably the best time of my school football years, when Dennis starting coming in once a week to take our team. I think Mr Harris got Dennis in because he knew he had a couple of decent players among the lunatics. School felt like less of a madhouse on those days.
It wasn’t as if Dennis could do much. We only had two footballs between all of us, and often he’d only stand there and watch us all play fifteen-a-side in the playground, but I loved the fact that here was a real professional footballer, because I idolised those guys. Dennis used to single me out and talk to me because he knew I had a chance, and all week I would look forward to being with him. I suddenly learned the importance of staying clean, tidy and fit. When Dennis left, his brother Les, Clive’s dad, who won the Double with Tottenham, took over the supervision. Footballers had to earn money where they could in those days. He was probably paid £1.
If it hadn’t worked out for me in football, I feel sure I would have ended up down the docks. That was where people like me went in those days, and Dad already had my name down. It was all about family connections. You could only get in if you had a dad or an uncle there but, luckily, my whole family were dockers. My dad, his dad, Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Billy. Sandra’s family were dockers, too. If you had no education and lived in the East End, the docks opened their gates and in you went. Having failed miserably in exams at Susan Lawrence, I can’t even remember taking any at Sir Humphrey Gilbert. I left just before my fifteenth birthday and never looked back. My school wasn’t there to provide education.
Yet that East London schools team proved the making of me. We were really good, and started catching the attention of the professional clubs. One by one, our players began to get picked up. Terry Reardon, my friend from Burdett Boys, was the star and every team in England wanted him. Then one night we played at Millwall, in the final of the Criss Shield, against Wandsworth. We won 4–0 and I did really well. I remember we had the Cup and I felt ten feet tall, and as I came off down the tunnel there was a grey-haired man standing there, wearing a lovely big overcoat. He looked like a million dollars. I didn’t recognise him, but it was Dickie Walker. He’d been a great centre-half for West Ham and the captain of the club, but I don’t think they looked after him very well, and now he was chief scout for Tottenham. ‘Is your dad here, son?’ he asked. He told me who he was and that he wanted to see Dad before we went home. I went running in. ‘Dad, Dad, the Tottenham scout’s here – he wants me to go to Tottenham.’ Just saying it felt great. Dickie arranged for the pair of us to meet him at White Hart Lane the next day. It was the middle of winter, freezing cold, and I had to wait for Dad to finish work. I had no overcoat, just a plastic mac; and we had no car, so it was an unpleasant walk from the station, but I didn’t care. I was going to meet Tottenham. I had never been so excited. When we arrived, Dickie took us straight in to see Bill Nicholson, the manager. Bill was building the Tottenham team that went on to win the Double in 1960–61, the first manager of the twentieth century to do so, but here he was talking to me. I couldn’t believe it.
To a young teenager, no more than 13, Bill was a very intimidating figure. He was a man of few words and had an immediate air of authority. He certainly didn’t look like the sort of manager who would be up for having a laugh with the lads. ‘Hello, son,’ said Bill. ‘Dickie tells me you’ve being doing all right, he’s seen you play a couple of times. You’re a winger, aren’t you? Tell me, do you score goals?’
I couldn’t lie. ‘No, not me, Mr Nicholson,’ I told him. ‘I don’t score many goals.’
He wasn’t too happy with this. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I only know one great winger who didn’t score goals and that was Stanley Matthews. Unless you’re going to be as good as him, you’d better start scoring.’
And off he went. He was a blunt Yorkshireman and seemed very cold. I can’t say I thought I’d have much of a future at Spurs after that brusque encounter.
Yet despite my lack of goals I did start training with Tottenham twice a week after school. Terry Reardon did, too. We got two trains there and two trains back and then made that journey six weeks straight in the school holidays.
There was a small group of us and, in summer, once the professionals were back at training, we all looked forward to the lunch break when the first-team players would come over and entertain us with a few tricks. Those names are legend now: Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, John White. Just wearing the same Tottenham kit as them made us proud. ‘Come on, John,’ Mackay would say, ‘show the lads what you can do.’ And White would get the ball, put it on his neck, on his shoulders, let it drop and juggle it. He had possibly the best feet I’ve ever seen, just unbelievable skill, and we all sat there watching in awe. White was a true great. He had this amazing ability to arrive in the opposition penalty area without being detected, and the Tottenham fans nicknamed him ‘the Ghost’. It was such a terrible tragedy that he died so young, struck by lightning on a golf course at the age of 27.
Tottenham were playing the best football in the league at the time and had a fantastic team. Cliff Jones was the fastest winger of his generation, Bobby Smith was a battering-ram striker, and at the back there was Maurice Norman, the first centre-half to go up for corner kicks. Yet White, bought from Falkirk for £22,000, was the pick of them all. Harry Evans, Tottenham’s assistant manager, was John’s father-in-law, and he used to work with the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Before John died, Harry gave me a pair of his boots and they were the most beautiful black leather, the softest I had ever felt.
What a year that was. I watched a lot of the home matches as Tottenham won the Double – Bobby Smith smashing the ball in the net, the goalkeeper petrified – and even an Arsenal fan could see they were special. But my own career was taking off, too. West Ham, Chelsea, they were all in for me.
One evening on the Burdett Estate, we were playing football near the pram sheds and we spotted two men standing in the shadows. It was too dark to see the football, let alone make out who these shady figures were, but as they stepped into a chink of light I recognised Tommy Docherty, then a young manager at Chelsea. He was there with a scout, Wilf Chitty, to talk about me going to train with them instead. My dad loved the Doc – he was an ex-Arsenal man – and they came up to our flat where my mum made us all a cup of tea and my dad sat around talking football with one of his heroes.
By the time I was ready to sign I had the choice of all the London clubs, even Arsenal. My favourite club, though, was bottom of my list. As much as I loved the Gunners, at that time they had a reputation for buying players rather than developing them, and were by far the biggest London club in the transfer market. Even with Tottenham having such a great team, I still thought I would have more chance with them – but, in truth, the club I had fallen in love with was West Ham. Once they came in, and I got to know the culture there, it was the only choice for me.
I noticed that whenever I went to watch the youth team play, Ron Greenwood, the manager, was present. He really cared about the kids. He didn’t just put in the odd appearance to impress you into signing. He knew you, how you were progressing, how far you had to go. The first team was full of home-grown players; Ron wasn’t always out buying and West Ham was a place where I felt I would get a chance. They were doing well then, too. Tottenham were obviously the best team in London, but although Arsenal was the biggest club, they weren’t streets ahead of West Ham in the league. And Chelsea were relegated in 1962.
Malcolm Allison, a former player, had also made a big impact at Upton Park. He had left by the time I arrived, but his influence could be seen everywhere, not least in the style of West Ham’s great young captain Bobby Moore. Bobby swore that Malcolm made him, that without Malcolm he wouldn’t have been half as good. Malcolm’s career ended prematurely when he fell ill with tuberculosis and had to have a lung removed, but he would coach the kids at West Ham and took Bobby to training twice a week. Bobby said Malcolm was like the boss of the young players, and when he talked they all listened. I think the staff must have listened to him, too, because he stopped them making one of the greatest mistakes in the history of football. When it came to the end of each season, West Ham only had a limited number of new professional contracts on offer and, one summer, were choosing between Bobby Moore and another boy. It looked as if Bobby was going to be unlucky. The report on him said he couldn’t run, couldn’t head it, had no pace and wasn’t big enough to be a centre-half. Malcolm wasn’t having that and intervened. ‘He’s going to be a player,’ he insisted forcefully, and, fortunately, the others listened.
