Читать книгу Between the Sticks - Alan Hodgkinson - Страница 7

‘Follow your spirit, and, upon this charge, cry, ‘God for Harry! England and St George.’

Henry V

To keep myself reasonably fit, I spent most of the summer of 1954 playing cricket for Thurcroft Main in the Bassetlaw League. Somewhat appropriately, given I was a goalkeeper, I kept wicket for Thurcroft, whilst my batting was good enough to see me in the higher order. When pre-season training began with Sheffield United I felt in pretty good shape, confident, should my personal game continue to improve, I would be knocking on the door for the first-team jersey.

As things turned out, 1954–55 had an inauspicious start for yours truly. On the opening day of the season I found myself keeping goal for the reserves at Newcastle United. Sheffield United fielded several youngsters in the team of which, of course, I was one. Newcastle, on the other hand, named a strong team, too strong for us. We found ourselves overrun from the word go. Try as we did, we proved incapable of mounting anything but sporadic attacks. We were totally outplayed and the Newcastle reserves ran out easy winners 4–0. For all I had conceded four goals I felt I had given a very good account of myself. In addition to executing a string of saves, I managed to save a second-half penalty from Alan Monkhouse, who had recently been signed by Newcastle from Millwall for the princely sum of £11,000.

One of the first things reserve team players do when entering the dressing room at the end of a game is to find out the result of the first-team match. We are all human. Whilst one part of a reserve team player wants to see the first team do well, as we all want to be part of a successful club, another part of him secretly hopes the first team will turn in a bad performance as that will increase his chances of a call-up. No one openly admits to this, of course, but that’s how the reserve team player thinks and, I imagine, such a state of mind is true irrespective of the standard of football you play. On this particular day we learned the first team had drawn 2–2 at home to Everton, which served as no indication whatsoever as to what Reg Freeman might do in terms of the line-up for Sheffield United’s following match. I felt I would have to produce not simply good, but outstanding displays for the reserves to be even considered for the first team. The way things stood I was going to have plenty of opportunity to do that.

Sure enough, I was back in action with the reserves the following Monday when we entertained our old rivals from ‘up the road’, Leeds United. The Leeds team included George Meek, who has the distinction of being the first ever ‘loan’ player, following a spell at Walsall, and a former Sheffield United favourite, Albert Nightingale. Albert wouldn’t be singing that night, though, as we cruised to a 4–0 victory which, in light of our defeat at Newcastle, rather evened things up. What is more, I kept a clean sheet and turned in what I felt was another good performance.

On the Wednesday, the United first team travelled to Manchester City and found themselves on the wrong end of a 5–2 scoreline. Sheffield United had flirted with relegation the previous season; following the defeat at Maine Road, even though only two matches had been played, the press were predicting United were in for ‘another long, hard season’. I imagined what Reg Freeman’s face would be like when he read that – like Louis Armstrong sucking on a lemon whilst a steamroller ran over his foot.

Sheffield United’s next game was at Newcastle United, a trip which would necessitate an overnight stay. When United were due to stay over, the team sheets were pinned up on a Thursday afternoon to allow players time to pack a bag for the journey the following day. The reserves were scheduled to play at home to West Bromwich Albion. When I sauntered along to the notice board to read the team sheet, for a moment I thought I had looked at the wrong one. There, at the head of the team to play West Brom with the number one next to it, was the name ‘Burgin’. My eyes immediately darted to the adjacent team sheet. Written in blue biro was the name ‘Hodgkinson’ and, above it: ‘First Team. Away to Newcastle United’.

I stood staring at my name in disbelief. No one had said anything to me. I had been given no indication whatsoever that I was going to make my Football League debut. It was a complete and utter surprise. I stood as spellbound as a small boy whose father is telling him a wonderful story. My forehead prickled. My hands were clammy and my mouth was so parched and dry David Lean could have shot Lawrence of Arabia in it. I looked at the team sheet again, then glanced across to the other team sheet. There was no mistake. I was going to make my Sheffield United debut.

I was so stupefied I didn’t notice two people arrive behind me. Sensing someone’s presence, I turned to see regular first teamers Jimmy Hagan and Tommy Hoyland.

‘Well done, Alan, son. You deserve your chance,’ said Jimmy.

‘Aye, good luck. You’ll be fine, have every confidence in you,’ Tommy added.

I managed to thank them and said I hoped I wouldn’t let anybody down.

‘You won’t,’ said Jimmy. ‘Besides, we’ll look after you.’

My mind was a whirl. I told Jimmy and Tommy no one had spoken to me about this and asked what the arrangements were for reporting to the ground and travel.

‘It tells you there, underneath the line-up,’ said Jimmy pointing to the team sheet.

‘Oh, didn’t see that,’ I said, feeling not a little foolish.

‘Bloody hell, Alan, I hope your eyesight’s a damn sight better on Saturday,’ Tommy quipped.

I burst out laughing but it was more a nervous laugh than anything to do with Tommy’s wit. The arrangements were simple enough. Players were to pack an overnight bag and report to Bramall Lane on Friday at 11am. We were catching the noon train to Newcastle from Sheffield Midland station. Collar and tie to be worn.

I wasted no time in getting home. When I told Mum she was so happy for me she was close to tears. When Dad came in from his shift at the pit and I told him my news, I may have been mistaken but I thought I saw his chest swell. Dad was in no doubt as to what he was going to do. He told me he would go down to Sheffield station the next day, find out the train times to and from Newcastle and buy a ticket to travel up on the Saturday. Brenda too was delighted for me and said she wanted to accompany Dad to see me play. I was thrilled to bits. I arranged to meet Dad and Brenda at the players’ entrance at St James’s Park so that I could give them a couple of complimentary tickets.

When I reported to Bramall Lane on the Friday morning I was met by a sports reporter from the Sheffield Star who asked for my reaction to my debut. I still have the cutting of that report. The headline reads, ‘Thrilled To Bits’ (see, I told you I was), beneath which is a photograph of a smiling yours truly in my goalkeeper’s jersey. The piece quotes me as saying my selection ‘came as a complete surprise’, which it did. The report then goes on to say my visit to St James’s Park would be my second in successive Saturdays, ‘having kept goal for the club’s Central League side in their 4–0 defeat last week’. Not exactly the sort of thing a debutant wishes to read, albeit I am also quoted as saying, ‘I hope this trip will not have the same result.’ A quote which appears to have come straight from the John Cleese ‘School of the bleedin’ obvious’. The report also mentions the fact I joined United ‘a year ago’ and, somewhat curiously, ends by mentioning my cricket exploits with Thurcroft Main.

The team kit, boots, shin-pads and everything else required for an away game – first aid box, bottles of liniment, trainers’ bucket and sponge, towels, soaps and so on – was carried in a large wicker basket known as ‘the skip’. The skip was about the size of a small dining-room table and of similar depth. It was lugged on and off the train by the trainer and his assistant, or by the travelling reserve player, but when the kit came back soaking wet the weight of the skip doubled so that it became a four-man job to carry it.

As our Newcastle-bound train pulled out of Sheffield station I idly watched the platform glide by with increasing speed. In those days of steam trains, even though it had not rained for some days, the platform was wet, shining Bible-black and dotted with puddles.

At daily training the first team changed in the ‘home’ dressing room, the reserves in the other, so I didn’t know any of the first team players particularly well, certainly not well enough to engage them in conversation unless I was spoken to. About an hour had passed when our train stopped at York for a change of engine. In that hour I had hardly spoken a word to anyone. I had listened, though. The players’ talk was all of football and horse racing, some of it spoken amidst a game of cards. My silence was noticed by Joe Shaw, our centre-half.

‘Come on, Alan, son,’ said Joe, as he sat himself down opposite me. ‘You’re going to make your debut, put a smile on your face. Make your dream come true.’

‘I think I’m a bit anxious,’ I replied, ‘I don’t want to let anyone down.’

‘Let me tell you something, Alan, and this applies to life not just football,’ said Joe, his face adopting a serious look, ‘Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’ll be right.’

I mulled that one over.

‘I don’t just think I can, I know I can.’ I eventually replied.

Joe leaned in closer and slapped me once on the knee with his hand.

‘Good lad!’

There are moments in everyone’s life that make you set the course of who you will be. I have learned that sometimes they are small, insignificant moments you do not immediately recognise as being pivotal and transitional. Sometimes they are big moments. I knew my debut at Newcastle was a very big moment in my life. Everyone needs one day, one chance to grasp the opportunity they have longed for. As Joe Shaw told me, a day to put a smile on their face, and make the dream come true. It’s funny how one day, ninety minutes even, can do so much. No one asks for their life to change, but I felt mine was about to. What’s more, I knew it was what I would do afterwards that would count. That’s when I would find out who and what I was. Deep down I was confident I would give a good account of myself in my League debut, but I was conscious this was just a start. I would have to continue to progress, to get better as a goalkeeper with each and every game if I was to achieve my dream of making a career in the game. I had learned a lot in my first year at Sheffield about goalkeeping and, the more I learned, the more I realised how much there was to learn. I calmed my nerves by convincing myself my debut was not an ordeal to overcome but a doorway to the future.

We stayed at the Station Hotel which, you’ll not be surprised to know, is next door to the station, St James’s Park being only half a mile away on the periphery of Newcastle’s city centre. After an early sitting for dinner our party took off to the Empire theatre. At a time when very few people owned a television set, theatres would present a bill boasting all manner of variety acts in support of the star of the show. That night we were entertained by dancers, a comedian, a spinner of plates and a magician before the American singing star Guy Mitchell eventually took to the stage to thunderous applause.

Going to an early evening performance at a theatre or cinema was the norm for a top team when playing away from home. The idea behind these trips was to relax the players and, I suppose, at a time when hotel rooms did not have TVs, to dispel boredom. There was also the idea that a night out together galvanised team spirit and togetherness. Such trips remained part of the pre-match routine for a team playing away right up to the early 1970s, when there was a complete revision of what was best for players in terms of preparation for a game, and the ubiquity of television took variety acts and, audiences, away from theatres.

After the theatre we took tea and toast in the hotel lounge, another ritual of away trips, before taking to our rooms at 10pm I was sharing a room with right-back Cec Coldwell but I slept fitfully. My mind wouldn’t rest. I lay in bed thinking about the game, what I would do, what I might do. I tried to sleep and cursed myself for not being able to as I knew I needed a good night’s rest. I eventually dozed off around half-one, but was up and about before seven the next morning. I just couldn’t wait for the game – my doorway to opportunity.

As we players changed in the dressing room Reg Freeman came and sat next to me. In keeping with daily training, Reg had hardly said a word to me since we had assembled at Bramall Lane on the Friday morning.

‘This is your big chance, Alan,’ Reg said, as if I needed any reminding. ‘Just go out and play your normal game.’

That was it as far as words from Reg went. He gave me no instructions about what he required from me at corners, goal-kicks, or distributing the ball when I had gained possession. No advice as to how he wanted me to organise our defence. Reg’s lack of advice was par for the course as far as managers of this era were concerned. I remember once having a conversation with Jack Charlton about his debut for Leeds United against Doncaster Rovers in the very same season I made my Football League debut. The Leeds manager was the great Raich Carter of Sunderland, Derby County and England fame. According to Jack, Raich had never spoken to him at any point from him joining Leeds in 1952. Minutes before taking to the pitch, Jack was in a quandary as to what exactly his manager wanted him to do at centre-half. As the Leeds players left the dressing room, Jack turned to Raich. ‘What do you want me to do, boss?’ asked Jack. ‘I want you to see how fast their centre-forward can limp,’ replied Raich.

A sonorous noise from 52,000 Geordies assailed my ears as I ran down the tunnel and out into the Tyneside sunshine. I had never played in front of such a large crowd before, but rather than being overawed I felt good about it. Of course I had butterflies in my stomach but the worst part had been the twenty minutes or so prior to taking to the pitch. Now I was out there, fielding shots from my teammates in the pre-match kick-in, although I was many miles from home and in front of 50,000 partisan Geordies, I felt strangely at home. I felt I was in my rightful place in life – keeping goal and for Sheffield United.

Newcastle had a formidable side. Their team included one of my boyhood heroes, the great Ronnie Simpson, in goal. Casting my mind back to my debut, who would have thought, thirteen years later and coming up to thirty-eight years of age, Ronnie would be keeping goal for Celtic when they defeated Inter Milan to become the first British team to win the European Cup? What’s more, in the first fifteen minutes of that final, Ronnie’s heroics in goal kept Celtic in the game. I can’t recall if Joe Shaw won the toss but I do remember having to change ends before the game got underway. When this happens, goalkeepers always shake hands and wish one another good luck as they pass each other. As I reached the centre circle on my way to the Gallowgate End of the ground, Ronnie shook my hand firmly.

‘Know it’s your debut. Good luck, son, give it your all and don’t let your mind wander to the crowd. Always concentrate on the game and you’ll be fine,’ Ronnie said.

I thanked him, wished him luck and carried on my way. As a young debutant, Ronnie’s kind words meant much to me and were typical of the man. In addition to Ronnie, the Newcastle team also included Bobby Cowell, Alf McMichael, Bob Stokoe, Vic Keeble, George Hannah and the aptly named Jimmy Scoular, without doubt the hardest player I ever encountered in my entire career in the game. Jimmy served in the submarines during the war and was to football what Brian Close was to cricket: a dedicated, determined, combative and talented player who never knew the meaning of fear. Jimmy was as hard as teak. When the going got tough he would remain as unmoved as a rock in a raging sea. With his balding head, a neck that could dent an axe and a mouth like a pair of pants whose elastic had perished, he cut an imposing and frightening figure on a pitch.

The star of the Newcastle team was Jackie Milburn, affectionately referred to by Magpie fans as ‘Wor Jackie’ and, when his fame spread globally, ‘World Wor One’. Jackie’s beginnings with Newcastle could have come straight from the pages of a Boy’s Own story. In 1943 he wrote to the club for a trial. He turned up with borrowed boots and his lunch of a pie and bottle of pop in a brown paper bag. The trial match took the form of Stripes v Blues. Jackie sat out the first half. Come half-time the Stripes were losing 3–0. In the second half Jackie played centre-forward for the Stripes and scored six goals, Newcastle manager, Stan Seymour, signed him straight away. Days later, Seymour played him in a wartime Northern League match at Hull City in which Jackie scored five. After the game a delighted and astounded Seymour said to Jackie, ‘You’re some goal-scorer, eleven goals in two games!’ ‘One and a half,’ Jackie reminded him. It is the stuff of legend.

Jackie was, and still is, a Tyneside legend whose goals and rampages in opposing penalty boxes contributed in no small way to Newcastle’s three post-war FA Cup victories (1951, 1952 and 1955). In 1951 he scored in every round of the FA Cup, including both goals in the Final against Blackpool. He was a spectacular centre-forward who used his exceptional speed, powerful shot and thundering heading of the ball to great effect, scoring 200 goals in his eleven seasons with Newcastle, making him Newcastle’s all-time greatest goal-scorer in League and Cup matches (Alan Shearer scored seven more should you include European games).

It is unthinkable now but following a Newcastle win, when the players received their wages and win bonus, the club always gave them an extra bonus of a packet of twenty cigarettes. The majority of Newcastle players didn’t smoke, but Jackie did, so they gave their cigarettes to him. Off the pitch Jackie always seemed to have a fag on the go, and sadly this may well have contributed to his death from lung cancer at the relatively young age of 64.

As great a goal-scorer as he was, Jackie Milburn didn’t score against me on my debut, though Bobby Mitchell did. A hard low drive on the turn which came through a thicket of legs and I didn’t see it until the last moment. That equalled matters, for a fine effort from Jimmy Hagan had put us in the lead. In the second half we gave as good as we got and with some fifteen minutes remaining, Jack Cross met a cross, and steered the ball past Simpson. It was a lead we were to preserve, though I was kept a tad busy in those last ten minutes as Newcastle threw everything at us bar the proverbial sink. In the final minutes, I managed to make a point-blank save from George Hannah and, diving to my right, finger-tipped a bullet header from ‘Wor Jackie’ around the post. When the final whistle blew I was so happy I nearly jumped over the main grandstand.

I left the pitch to hearty back-slapping and congratulations from my teammates. I think I shook hands with every Newcastle player and twice with the referee, whilst both Ronnie Simpson and Jackie Milburn made a point of saying how well I had done. With adrenalin coursing through my body I tried to spot Dad and Brenda in the crowd but among some 52,000 souls it was, of course, hopeless. I knew they would be as excited and delighted as I was, though. I nearly didn’t make it down the tunnel – it wasn’t built for people ten feet tall.

When a team plays away, the journey home is always a more hectic affair than the journey to your destination, particularly in the 1950s when teams invariably travelled by train. The dressing room was buoyant but we had no time to relax and savour our first victory of the season. It was a mad rush to change, bath, put on our suits, eat some sandwiches, run upstairs for a quick drink with the Newcastle lads before boarding the coach that would take us the half mile to Central station.

In those days players heard results from other games on the wireless that was in the dressing room, or, failing that, by word of mouth from the backroom staff or directors. Naturally we only heard a few results; the way we players obtained the full classified results and football news of the day was to buy a football paper at a station on our way home. We were at York when we bought a local evening football paper. The paper boys who operated at the stations knew which trains were due and located themselves on the platform, knowing that they could sell anything up to fifty papers at one go when a train came in. That night at York our party must have bought nigh on twenty football papers from the paper lad. That done, we all sat back to digest every detail during the final leg of our homeward journey. In the middle pages of the paper was a small report, probably from a press agency, of our game at Newcastle. I didn’t get a mention until the final paragraph when it said, ‘As the home side went in search of an equaliser, Sheffield United owed much to debutant keeper Hodgkinson who first denied Hannah, then Milburn, to ensure the Blades enjoyed their first win of the season’. That was one for the scrapbook.

With today’s saturation coverage of football by television and radio, the internet, mobile phones with apps and what have you, one area of the game which has all but died is the Saturday evening football paper. In the past twenty years up and down the country ‘Green ’Uns’,‘Pinks’ and ‘Buffs’ have disappeared from the shelves of newsagents, the victims of an ever expanding and more personalised media. In the fifties Britain boasted nigh on a hundred Saturday evening football papers. Now there are less than twenty in existence, and some of those such as ‘The Pink’ (Manchester) have moved from a Saturday night to a Sunday in the hope of enjoying a longer shelf life.

Without saying ‘a star is born’ the newspapers were in praise of my efforts at St James’s Park. All agreed I had made a good debut, whilst both the Sunday Mirror and Sheffield Star went as far as to say I was ‘set for a promising career in the game’. Well, another game at least.

On the Monday following my debut, we entertained Manchester City, though to be more precise, City entertained a 29,000 Bramall Lane crowd as all the enterprising football came from them. We turned in a poor performance and without doubt Manchester City were full value for their 2–0 success. If there was a crumb of comfort to be had for yours truly, it was in the thought that I had again played okay. Needless to say, Reg Freeman was not happy with the result or the performance against City. Reg made three changes to the team for our next game, at home to West Bromwich Albion. It was a boost to my confidence that I was not one of them.

The predictions of some newspapers that Sheffield United were in for a ‘long hard season’ gained further credence when West Brom left Bramall Lane with smiles on their faces, a 2–1 win under their belts and consequently two points in the bag. Two successive home defeats on top of the home draw on the opening day of the season did not bode well. ‘The natives are restless,’ Joe Shaw reflected one morning during training. Little wonder, we were sitting just above the relegation places in Division One.

Our next trip was to Cardiff City, who were one place above us in the League table. Cardiff boasted in their ranks Trevor Ford, a true legend of Welsh football and one of the most prolific centre-forwards of the post-war era.

Trevor was an aggressive and bustling centre-forward, a noted charger of goalkeepers, especially young ones he sensed were averse to being rocketed through the back of the net with a meaty shoulder. He looked as if he should have been cast in bronze, a big man from the waist up with a chest in keeping. People trod carefully around Trevor, as if the road to his door was peppered with eggshells. Nothing distracted Trevor Ford from doing what he was was paid to do, which was to fill the net with footballs and, if necessary, the opposing goalkeeper too. As much as I respected Trevor, I was of the mind he wasn’t going to make chips out of me. Formidable as Trevor was, I relished the opportunity of playing against one of the true stars of fifties football. As a young rookie goalkeeper, I was aware that how I dealt with Trevor Ford would go some way to demonstrating my timbre as a keeper to my teammates.

In our dressing room before the game, Joe Shaw told me not to be intimidated by Ford. ‘Give as good as you get,’ he told me, ‘and don’t buckle.’ I announced to the dressing room that no one had any cause for concern and not to worry about me.

‘I’ll come out and give Ford what for, don’t you worry,’ I boldly announced.

I looked about the room and my teammates were giving me the sort of look that Captain Oates received when he said he was going for a walk.

The Daily Mirror described our game against Cardiff City as a ‘highly contested and very physical encounter’. Believe me, in an era when referees were far more lenient towards physical play, for a newspaper to mark out a game out as being ‘very physical’ placed it a little short of the Battle of Waterloo in terms of combativeness.

There was a cauldron simmering just beneath the surface from the kick-off as the match unfolded in vigour and excitement. Joe Shaw was having a titanic struggle with Ford, neither of them giving an inch. When Cardiff’s Derek Sullivan lofted balls into my penalty box, I never hesitated as I ran and jumped to punch clear. In doing so I invariably found myself colliding with what seemed like a fridge-freezer swung from the jib of a crane but was, in fact, Trevor Ford bent on earning every penny of his fifteen quid. It proved to be a match of gleaming steel, mostly of the broadsword which, I have to say, was used with impunity by both teams and allowed to be used by a referee whose vocabulary seemed confined to but two words – ‘Play on!’

Come the final whistle, with the score-line pegged at 1–1, all the aggression and volatility that had beset the match immediately appeared to evaporate into the ether. Players shook hands and invited one another to participate in a quick beer, before boots clattered down the tunnel to a hot bath to ease their aching limbs. As I walked off the pitch, Trevor Ford shook my hand heartily and told me how well I had done. He then asked me how many games I had ‘under my belt’. I told him, this was my third.

‘Third!’ exclaimed Trevor with some surprise. ‘You’ve got a heart as big as a bucket, boy. Learn from every game and you’ll do all right. Good luck, boy.’

Having had words of encouragement from Jackie Milburn and now Trevor Ford meant a lot to me. I felt I was growing in confidence with every game and I was convinced I had what it took to play regular First Division football. In football, however, as in life, when one door opens, another is liable to slam in your face. As I was to learn, it is how you react to such disappointment that is the mark of you.

United’s next game was a tall order, against Arsenal at Highbury. Arsenal were among the pacesetters at the top of Division One, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy and we were spot on in that assumption. On the morning of the game I looked out my hotel bedroom window and watched the rain pepper it, flatten out and slide down the pane in a thick wave like melted gelatine. It was mid-September, too early for that type of rain. Such wet conditions can make life perilous for a goalkeeper. The ball, when slippery and wet, is like a bar of soap, very difficult to get a good grip of when coming at speed, particularly off a greasy surface. Such conditions, of course, are the same for both goalkeepers. In Jack Kelsey, Arsenal had a goalkeeper with some three years’ experience of playing top-class football. Jack was making a name for himself in the game as a very fine goalkeeper, one who had recently established himself as the regular number one for Wales. Jack was indeed a very good goalkeeper, and I wondered if he had learned any special techniques for playing in extremely wet weather. Then the penny dropped: even if he had, he wouldn’t share them with me – well, not before the game anyway.

Arsenal was to English football what Middlesex believed themselves to be to English county cricket, namely a cut above the rest. It was the first time I had ever been to Highbury and to my teenage eyes it was vastly superior to any other ground I had ever visited in my fledgeling career. On arrival, rather than entering through a players’ entrance, we were ushered through a marble-floored ‘Entrance Hall’, the pièce de résistance of which was a Jacob Epstein bust in bronze of legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman. The old boy doing the ushering was wearing a double-breasted dark serge uniform; on the shoulders of the jacket were mounted gold-frilled epaulettes that looked for all the world like hideous spiders set to pounce. The Commissionaire, as I later discovered was his job title, was a large man with a chin you could balance a piano on and one which looked as if someone had tried. Even when he gave us his best smile his eyes were as hard as the marble on the floor and, when he said ‘Good afternoon’, he somehow made it sound like, ‘Who let this rabble in?’

Behind the imposing entrance hall were five storeys containing offices, lounges for guests and players, the boardroom, a gym, and, uniquely for the 1950s, a four-star restaurant and heated dressing rooms. The players’ lounge was something to see. The pile on the carpet was so deep I just about managed to walk across without the aid of snow shoes. Dotted around the room were large comfortable easy chairs and sofas that looked like they cost little more than an entire Third Division team. On the far side of the room, underneath a large frosted window, was an equally large oak table that shone like a lake with the early morning sun on it. On this oak table was a silver salver containing a variety of sandwiches whose fillings didn’t appear to be of the ham and cheese variety; a silver condiment set, a silver vase of flowers, a silver ink-well, a silver writing set and a silver framed photograph of the Queen. For a football club with no current trophies, it seemed like a lot of silver.

When we went out to inspect the pitch I found myself marvelling at Highbury’s East Stand, with its clean straight lines and the two tiers of seating leading down to the paddock terracing. Highbury’s art deco style set the stadium apart from any other ground in the country, Wembley included. The weather was of the kind that makes people who don’t drink know how a hangover feels. The rain was incessant and, as it fell, moved around a thin grey mist that hung in the atmosphere like an unwanted guest at a party.

The pitch squeezed like a sponge when I pressed my foot down on it and sent little popping bubbles to the surface at either side of my shoes. It was going to be as greasy as a chip pan. Fielding low shots on that type of pitch, ones which shot up off the surface like ricocheting bullets, would be a lottery for a goalkeeper. As we stood with the rain anointing the shoulders of our gabardine macs, the ground was silent, but I knew that in two hours, irrespective of how much rain fell, that would change.

The rain had eased off to a light drizzle when we took to the pitch to polite applause from a 52,000-strong crowd. When Arsenal emerged the crowd roared their approval. To my great disappointment they were doing so again some six minutes into the game. Wearing the number nine for Arsenal that day was another great British centre-forward, Tommy Lawton. Tommy had rocketed on to the English football scene in the 1930s when, on his debut for Burnley four days after his seventeenth birthday, he became the youngest player ever to score a hat-trick in the Football League. Tommy was transferred to Everton and was given the arduous, many would say, impossible, task of replacing Dixie Dean. Tommy was not as prolific a goal-scorer as Dean (but then again, who was?), but he proved potent in the penalty box and his goals helped him win a League Championship medal in 1939. He was the top goal-scorer (337 goals in major matches) in wartime football when he appeared for a variety of clubs and also scored 24 goals in 23 wartime internationals. He signed for Chelsea in 1945 and two years later shocked everyone by signing for Notts County, who were then in the Third Division North. To put this into perspective, it would be the equivalent of Wayne Rooney leaving Manchester United for, well, Notts County.

Tommy left Chelsea because of the maximum wage, which in the late 1940s was £12. Notts County agreed to pay Tommy the maximum wage he was earning at Chelsea but also offered him the carrot of a ‘dolly job’, which was a job a footballer supposedly had outside of football. A dolly was usually arranged with a company owned by a director of the football club, or else a close business associate of his. In the case of Tommy, in addition to him playing for Notts County, he was employed as a consultant to an engineering firm owned by one of the County directors at a wage of £14 a week, which more than doubled his weekly income. Tommy knew as much about engineering as I do quantum physics and I doubt if he ever set foot in the company. It was simply a ruse to get around the maximum wage. Tommy wasn’t alone in this. When Trevor Ford played for Aston Villa after every match he had to go and play the Villa manager or a director at snooker for a wager of £5. Trevor was no John Parrot but he never lost at snooker. Tommy was transferred from County to Brentford where, in addition to his football, he also worked as an advisor to a firm of architects. Seemingly, when that company had drained Tommy of every ounce of Norman Foster that was in him, he moved back to top-flight football with Arsenal.

Tommy Lawton had passed the tipping moment in his career but he was still a formidable opponent. With little over six minutes of the game gone, he rose to head a corner back to Alex Forbes, who dutifully dispatched the ball past me and a knot of my teammates. Just before half-time Tommy ensured he would not be the toast of the evening in the pubs along the Ecclesall Road when he made the ball slither across the sodden pitch and nicely into the path of Doug Lishman, who did a fine impersonation of Alex Forbes some thirty minutes earlier.

In the second half Arsenal added two more without riposte, their third, a stinging drive from Derek Tapscott that I had covered only for the ball to rear up when it momentarily skidded on the surface before its trajectory took it over my left shoulder as I dived to my right. As I had suspected from the start, it was that type of pitch.

Leaving St Pancras station for Sheffield we made for a downcast lot, me particularly so. A director had spoken to someone at Bramall Lane and been told Ted Burgin had played a blinder for the reserves. I had conceded four, although I felt three of the goals were not directly down to me. Either way, I feared my tenure as the United’s number one was far from a racing certainty, and so it was to prove.

I found myself back with the reserves for the following game. Reg Freeman never offered me any explanation, Ted Burgin was reinstated for the next first-team game, at home to Cardiff City, and I doubt if Reg spoke as much as two words to Ted either. United lost 3–1 against Cardiff, but there was to be no immediate recall for me.

I was called upon to play eleven first-team games that season. United enjoyed a much better second half to the season and finished just below halfway in the League; another two points would have given us a top ten finish which, given our bleak beginning to the campaign, was some turnaround. Obviously I would have liked to have been the regular number one, but as 1954–55 drew to a close, I took stock of my situation. I was still only eighteen when the season came to an end. I reminded myself I had been playing non-League football two years ago and now I was facing the likes of Jackie Milburn and Tommy Lawton, albeit on an intermittent basis. Still, I was of the mind I had made excellent progress. Though aware I had one hell of a lot to learn, in my heart of hearts I believed I could play First Division football on a regular basis. There was only one tiny little snag, and that came one bright summer morning in the form of a brown envelope through the letterbox.

Whilst Sheffield United could get by in the First Division without yours truly, my country, seemingly, was not so well set. According to the contents of the brown envelope, Queen and country required my services and who was I to deny them such? The letter informing me of the National Service did say my conscription to the armed services would be dependent on me passing a medical; however, given I was a professional footballer I took this to be a formality. It was.

During the summer of 1955 tragedy befell Reg Freeman who died suddenly of a heart attack. His replacement was the former Everton, Arsenal and England wing-half Joe Mercer who, at the time of his appointment as United manager, was running the family grocery business in Wallasey on Merseyside. When a new manager is appointed every player thinks of it as a new start not only for the manager but also for himself. The player hopes the new manager will see things in his play the old manager didn’t see. He also hopes he will undergo a renaissance under the new manager and produce the type of performances he always knew he was capable of. Perhaps the new manager will introduce a system of play that brings out the best in the player. Initially, a new manager always brings hope. Of course it is never long before the manager sets out his stall and begins to impose his own culture on the club and the players. Usually then, certain players get the message they do not ‘feature in the future plans’. I had every reason to believe I did have a future at Sheffield United but I wasn’t going to feature in any plan of Joe Mercer’s, not for nigh on two years at any rate.

National Service was first introduced to Great Britain in 1916 to bolster the perpetually decreasing ranks on the Western Front – cannon fodder, as well we know. It was scrapped in 1920 and re-introduced in 1939 when we faced the might of Nazi Germany. In 1957, Harold Macmillan announced National Service was to be scrapped and the last conscripts were called up early in 1960.

I was assigned to the Royal Signals Corps for my two-year stint and sent to Catterick Camp in North Yorkshire for my basic training. National Service was a bit like the internet, in as much as it scooped up and displayed the very best and worst. There were some terrific and talented young lads from all walks of life in the army due to National Service, but there were also the toe-rags, rogues, nutcases, villains and gangsters. The army, of course, has no prejudice. We all received the same treatment. You can imagine.

In terms of history and tradition the Royal Signals Corps is a relatively young regiment. As I learned during my first week, the Royal Signals began life in 1920 as the ‘C’ Telegraph troop of the Royal Engineers, whose principal role was to provide visual and telegraph signalling and communications in the battlefield and, in time, to wherever the British army found itself throughout the world.

In my first few weeks with the Royal Signals I saw rookie recruits change irrevocably. One young guy, whose self-advertised claim to fame was that he was the ‘hardest bloke in Bradford’, went to pieces like a clay pigeon. Another who back-answered and refused to carry out orders from a drill sergeant was frogmarched off to the glasshouse. When he came out two weeks later I saw him sitting on the edge of his bed, looking like a piece of driftwood carved by Barbara Hepworth to look like a man. The often-shouted mantra was, ‘We’ll make a man of you, lad,’ and with many they did – with some, however, they only succeeded in creating a monster, and with others, simply shadows.

One day a sergeant major with a beer-barrel chest came into our barracks and marched purposefully towards the end of the room where I was seated on my bed. When he reached me he stopped so I jumped to my feet and saluted. He returned the salute. After which we looked at each other for a second that to me seemed long enough for an oak tree to grow to maturity. He took an intake of breath that almost hurt my eardrums and asked me to confirm my name and number, which I did without managing to squeak. The sergeant major told me I was to be assigned to a six-month course to learn Morse Code as I had ‘displayed initiative and intelligence’. His next words were not so much an order as a majestic chorale to my ears. I was told there was to be a football match between the Royal Signals and another regiment and that I was to play in goal for the Signals. With that, I was told to pack my kitbag and follow him, which I did, at a pace marginally slower than if we were both competing in the one hundred metres.

My six months with the Morse communication boys was far different to my basic training. Although the army treated everyone the same during basic training, after they had assessed your worth you were assigned to duties they felt were in keeping with your intellect and capabilities. There were no toe-rags, nutters or gangsters among the Morse boys; on the contrary, many were former top secondary modern, technical or grammar school boys.

During 1955–56, my army leave coincided with weekends, which allowed me to not only get home to my family and Brenda, but also to play for Sheffield United. I played some five matches for the reserves and, to my delight, new manager Joe Mercer selected me four times for the first team. They were not the best of games: I felt I was trying to prevent water from draining through a sieve. Sheffield United had a glum season, finishing rock bottom of Division One behind Huddersfield Town, who joined us in relegation by virtue of having a slightly inferior goal difference to Aston Villa, both teams having finished on 35 points. Relegation in his first season was an ignominious start to Joe Mercer’s managerial career, though many had seen it coming. Undaunted, Joe set about dismantling one Sheffield United team and building another, although still without me for a while.

After communications with the Royal Signals, I spent most of my second and final year of National Service as a regimental policeman, much of it on guard duty, in the guardroom or ‘glasshouse’ as the military jails were known. This, of course, brought me back into contact with the rogues, the rabid and the gangsters, all those who couldn’t cope with being given orders or the discipline of army life. Though my role was passive, for whatever reason, some of the inmates directed their resentment my way and threatened to get even with me when their National Service was over.

I can recall a particularly mean-looking Scouser saying to me, ‘I know you play for Sheffield United. Just wait till you come to Liverpool. See what I’ll do to you.’ Neither he nor anybody else who issued threats ever did carry them out.

I learned much in the army: one of the things I learned was, if you were good at sport, you were called upon to play as much of your particular sport as you would be if you were a full-time professional. I kept goal for the Royal Signals Regimental team, which included my Sheffield United teammate Graham Shaw, Area Command and the Army. The Army team played against not only the Navy and Royal Air Force, but also English, Scottish and Irish FA Representative teams, England ‘B’ and a Football League Representative XI. These latter games drew very healthy attendances: as the Army team we played and beat Rangers before an Ibrox crowd of over 48,000; there were over 34,000 at St James’s Park for an Army v FA XI match, whilst a healthy 19,500 turned up for a game against the Navy at Ipswich Town.

With due respect, you can’t imagine the Army Representative football team commanding such attendances these days but, at a time of National Service, people would flock to see the Army, Navy or RAF play as their teams included some of the very best young footballers in Great Britain, and for the good citizens of, say, Carlisle, this was the only way they could see Duncan Edwards or Bobby Charlton in the flesh.

I also travelled to Continental Europe for the first time courtesy of the Army football team. We played a match against a French FA XI at the ground of Racing Paris FC before setting off on a tour that took us to Holland where we beat Sparta Rotterdam, Belgium and Germany. Whilst in Germany, we played Cologne and, to my utter delight, Hertha Berlin in the Olympic Stadium. I couldn’t get over the fact I had played football in the very same stadium in which the famous Jesse Owens had created Olympic history and in so doing courted the wrath of the Nazi hierarchy, including Hitler himself.

As young as we were, the Army team would, I am sure, have held its own in the First Division. My teammates included the great Duncan Edwards, Bobby Charlton, Eddie Coleman (all Manchester United), Jimmy Armfield (Blackpool, who is still to be heard on BBC Radio 5 Live), Stan Anderson (Sunderland, the only player to have captained all three major North East clubs), Phil Woosnam (West Ham United, who was to play a major role in establishing football in the USA), Dave Mackay (then of Hearts and later Spurs and Derby County), Maurice Setters (then of Exeter City, later his clubs were to include West Bromwich Albion and Manchester United), Dave Dunmore (Arsenal), Trevor Smith (Birmingham City) and my Sheffield United teammate, Graham Shaw.

One game that particularly stands out in the memory was a 3–1 victory against an FA XI at St James’s Park. Over 44,000 were present to see us beat a team that included Colin McDonald (Burnley), Peter Sillett (Chelsea), Ronnie Clayton (Blackburn Rovers), Vic Keeble (Newcastle United), Don Revie (Manchester City), Denis Wilshaw (Wolves) and Jimmy Murray (Wolves). I felt I played particularly well that night, executing a number of saves when the scoreline was 2–1 before Bobby Charlton put the game out of the reach of the FA XI. England manager Walter Winterbottom and his FA Selection Committee members seemingly also felt I had played well, because in late September 1956 I received a letter that couldn’t have surprised me more if it had contained a cheque for a million pounds. I had to read the later twice to convince myself it wasn’t a wind-up perpetrated by my mates in Signals – I had been selected for the England Under-23 international against Denmark.

Henry Rose devoted most of his column in the Daily Express to previewing the match. I flushed just a tad when I saw the headline – ‘Army ’Keeper Wins Under-23 Cap’. This was followed by a sub-heading given to Rose by someone at Sheffield United, which read, ‘Greatest ever, says his club’. No pressure then.

The article is dotted with excruciating puns: ‘this private’s progress’, ‘marching towards a great career in the game’, ‘nothing uniform about his selection’ – you’ve read such articles… According to Rose, my selection for the England Under-23 team was toasted with pints in the NAAFI at Catterick. Even if that was true I knew it didn’t mean anything, they’d have toasted my grandmother’s new shoes in there if it meant them having another pint. Rose makes much of me having been at ‘Worksop Town in the Midlands League less than three years ago’ and, though I am about to make my debut for England Under-23s, rather than speculate as to how I may fare at that level, dives straight in by suggesting I am ‘within driving distance of a full England cap’. The most striking aspect to the article, however, is when Rose refers to me as being, ‘almost 5 foot 7 inches tall’. Even for the time I was not the tallest of goalkeepers, but five-seven was three inches off the mark. In this respect Rose epitomised the cigar-chomping sports writer of the day: rarely would they let the facts get in the way of a good story.

An unknown source at Sheffield United – the quote is simply attributed to ‘his club’ – is quoted as saying, ‘Hodgkinson will turn out to be the greatest goalkeeper this country has ever seen.’ I smarted when I read that. Even at nineteen years of age I saw it as a possible millstone around my neck; the sort of quote from an unattributed source that, should a player go through a particularly bad spell of form, will come back to haunt him, as badly as if the player had said it himself.

The England Under-23 team was a relatively new concept, the game in Denmark being only the fifth fixture, the first having taken place in 1954 against Italy in Bologna after which there had been a twelve-month hiatus until England Under-23s met their Italian counterparts again at Stamford Bridge. The concept of an England Under-23 team was the brainchild of England manager Walter Winterbottom, the purpose of which was to groom future full England players. The idea had grown in popularity and come 1956 England were playing four or five such games a season.

England Under-23 home matches nearly always took place in the provinces, at such grounds as St James’s Park (Newcastle), Roker Park (Sunderland), Carrow Road (Norwich City), Ashton Gate (Bristol City), Home Park (Plymouth Argyle), The Dell (Southampton) and Hillsborough (Sheffield Wednesday). The idea was to bring international football to a city or town that would not normally stage that level of representative football. To have such an honour bestowed upon it, the local football club had to be well supported, as this more or less guaranteed a healthy attendance for the England Under-23 fixture. Just to be sure, the FA selection committee would often include in the England team a player from the local club, which always put an extra few thousand on the gate. This explains why there are one or two players of the time who enjoyed journeyman careers but, among their personal memorabilia, can boast an England Under-23 cap awarded for a home game.

You can play away from home in England among unfamiliar surroundings, yet they never look as unfamiliar and alien to you as your surroundings when you play abroad. I have always felt this wherever I have played throughout the world and I remember first being aware of this prior to the England Under-23 game against Denmark in Copenhagen. The stadium that hosted the game was flanked by flats some five storeys high and what looked to me like office blocks of similar height. When you look at the surroundings of a ground and see unfamiliar styles of house, office, street lighting and particularly church, it emphasises you are indeed a long way from home turf. Our National Anthem never sounds the same when played, as it was in those days, by a band either, and this difference was more pronounced the further from England you went. In South America for example, prior to the 1962 World Cup the military bands before our matches against Ecuador and Colombia somehow contrived to give our National Anthem a mariachi feel.

Denmark were duly beaten 3–0 and I was to keep my place for England Under-23’s next game the following month, a goalless draw against France at Ashton Gate. My fellow Signals serviceman and Sheffield United teammate Graham Shaw played at left-back in this game, his partner on the right flank being West Brom’s Don Howe. The match was noteworthy for featuring the first official substitute of any England representative match when Doncaster Rovers’ Alick Jeffrey was replaced in the second half by Colin Booth (Wolves). Though substitutes were not allowed in Football League matches until 1965–66, they had been part and parcel of continental football since the 1930s. FIFA allowed substitutes for international matches at all levels, but England had never previously taken advantage. The first substitutes to feature in a full England game happened when we visited Mexico in April 1959. Warren Bradley (Manchester United) replaced Doug Holden (Bolton Wanderers) and minutes later Ron Flowers came on for Wilf McGuinness (Manchester United).

In February 1957, I kept goal for England Under-23s against Scotland at Ibrox. A game which the posters around Glasgow and the match programme proudly announced would take place ‘Under Floodlights’. Again, Graham Shaw was included in the England team as was Alan Finney (Sheffield Wednesday) and a fantastic young left-winger, David Pegg (Manchester United). This game also marked the first appearance in an England shirt of a young centre-forward from Middlesbrough by the name of Brian Clough – much more of whom later. Included in the Scotland side were Alex Young and Dave Mackay (both Hearts), Eric Caldow (Rangers) and an amateur who, in keeping with Queen’s Park tradition, appeared on the team sheet and in the match programme under the initials of his first names followed by his surname – ‘W.G.M. Glen (Queen’s Park)’ which, to me, lent him the dusty formality of a Victorian cricketer. Curiously no player from Celtic featured for Scotland. Another very healthy attendance of 42,897 saw a 1–1 draw. Jack Dyson (Manchester City) scored for England whilst the Scotland goal came from the penalty spot courtesy of Hearts’ Billy Crawford. It was hard-hit penalty, driven low and to my right. I remember thumping the ground with frustration when it went in because I got the fingertips of my right hand to the ball but only managed sufficient leverage to push it into the inside side netting.

A couple of weeks after appearing for England Under-23s at Ibrox, I completed my National Service, was de-mobbed and immediately returned to Sheffield United. On my first day back in the fold I noticed how much had changed under Joe Mercer’s management. For a start he was out on the training ground taking the training. Secondly, he supervised the coaching sessions. Third, there was such a thing as coaching sessions. Reg Freeman was a lovely man whose management belonged to the pre-war days; Joe Mercer was what today you’d call a ‘hands-on manager’. There were new faces around the training ground and some of the old faces, if they hadn’t moved on, sported the sort of expression which suggested they knew they were about to.

On that very first morning back Joe Mercer took me to one side. After welcoming me back to full-time football and a little conversation about my time in the Signals, he asked me if I was match fit and ‘up for the big challenge at this club’. I answered him in the affirmative on both counts.

‘Good, I’ve been waiting for you to be demobbed,’ he told me, ‘From now on, you are my number one goalkeeper. I’ll have Ted in after training and let him know the score.’

There were seventeen games left of the 1956–57 season but I very much felt I was beginning a new season. I reasoned Joe Mercer must have had every confidence in me to instate me as the regular number one and the fact that he had such confidence in my ability spurred me to repay his belief in me.

United enjoyed an unbeaten run of eight matches, the pick of which was a resounding 6–0 victory at Port Vale. I felt for their keeper, John Poole; the regular Vale goalkeeper, Ray King, was injured and John came into the team for his first game of the season. As we left the field John was inconsolable but, remembering how a few words from Jackie Milburn and Trevor Ford had meant so much to me, I made a point of talking to him over a beer after the game. I told him not to shoulder the blame. We’d been on fire and on such form we would have put most Second Division sides to the sword. I told John not to think too much about the game but to concentrate on how he was going to react to it. Little over a year later, John was Vale’s first choice goalkeeper, which told me he had reacted to that mauling in a very positive and determined way. That’s what a goalkeeper has to do when he concedes a bagful of goals. Of course he has to reflect on what he did wrong, so he can devise ways not to repeat those mistakes, but the key thing is not to reflect too much and for too long. Get a heavy defeat out of the system as quickly as possible by planning and preparing to ensure that in the next match your confidence is high.

The 6–0 victory at Vale Park elevated United into the upper echelons of Division Two, but I knew it was too late in the season to pose any threat to leaders Leicester City and second-placed Nottingham Forest, both of whom gained promotion. During the Vale game I tweaked a hamstring, nothing serious, but in the dressing room after the match I asked the United phsyio, Alf Willie, to take a look at it as a precautionary measure. As Alf examined my leg he told me one of the FA Selection Committee had been at the game.

‘He’d have been here to have a look at Joe [Shaw],’ I replied. ‘Besides, they have to be seen to attend matches other than those at their own club, otherwise they get it in the ear.’

‘That’s as maybe,’ said Alf. ‘But the same old boy was also at Bury and our home game against Huddersfield.’

There are very good players who, to the surprise of many, are never called upon to play for England, even though the consensus is that they are eminently capable of playing at international level. Other players are awarded one, or, at best, a handful of caps that appear meagre reward for their undoubted talent. Sometimes it is simply down to the fact that the player in question was unfortunate to be competing for a position in the England team currently held by a truly world-class player. Colin Todd (Derby County) up against Bobby Moore, for example, or any one of around ten of us goalkeepers and Gordon Banks. There are numerous Stoke City supporters of a certain age who still can’t understand why centre-half Denis Smith was never selected for England, likewise Sheffield United supporters and Joe Shaw.

Following our victory of Port Vale I received an envelope through the post bearing the three lions motif of the Football Association. The England Under-23 team were due to embark on a continental tour in three weeks, immediately after the domestic season ended. I was hoping to be selected and though I had kept goal for the Under-23s in their recent three matches knew my selection was far from certain. Bolton’s Eddie Hopkinson, Gordon Clayton (Manchester United) and Tony Macedo (Fulham) were but three other goalkeepers in contention for the two places in the touring squad.

As soon as I laid eyes on the envelope I knew it was good news. The FA never wrote to players to inform them they had been dropped from the squad. I tore open the envelope and as I read its contents my face must have turned as white as the paper that contained the words, ‘You have been selected as goalkeeper for England versus Scotland, Home International Championship, Wembley Stadium, 6 April 1957.’

I was standing in the hall, on one wall of which hung a large brass-framed mirror. I heard my mother call, ‘Is that you, Alan?’ I managed to reply in a voice the size of one of those silver balls you see on wedding cakes. My mother came into the hall to see what was the matter.

‘Alan, are you all right?’ she asked.

I handed my mother the letter. She read as much as I had done before looking up at me. She looked shocked. Brenda emerged from the kitchen. Mother handed her the letter. Brenda looked shocked. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked shocked. My legs felt as weak as fruit tea and I waited for my pulse to come down into the low hundreds before I spoke.

‘I can’t believe it,’ was all I managed.

Brenda shrieked with joy and threw her arms around me. My mother stood with tears glazing her eyes.

I really couldn’t believe it. Three months out of the army. Just under four years after keeping goal for Worksop Town in the Midland League I was now about to make my England debut, at Wembley, in the most prestigious match in the international calendar. I was suddenly aware I was laughing. It was nervous, uncontrollable, high-pitched laughter.