Читать книгу Bill Nicholson - Brian Scovell - Страница 11

Bill Nicholson was a late starter in ‘proper’ football – at the age of seven, he was presented with a rubber ball by a relative. It was 1926, the year of the General Strike. Jimmy Greaves said of his youth in east London: ‘If you had your own ball, you were the king.’ Similarly, Bill was captain in kickabout matches, usually played in narrow passages between back-to-back houses or on the hilly slopes around Scarborough. Two skippers tossed up – one had a stone hidden in a hand behind his back and asked ‘Heads or tails?’ The boy who won the toss always picked to play down the hill.

Every day they played on until it was almost dark. In those times, they made up their own rules and the strongest and keenest ended up on the winning side. There were no organised games for youngsters that age and later on, when the older boys were invited to attend clubs, coaches were scarce so these early practice sessions helped them to master the ball.

Amazingly, Bill never played senior football in the Scarborough League, only junior football. And the ground where he played organised football, Falsgrave Park, was on a slope with a drop of more than 30ft from one side to the other and unsuited to any activity except perhaps kite-flying. Frank White, a former footballer and now administrator, recalled: ‘There was always a shortage of flat land in the town and Falsgrave, which is close to the reservoir, now has big white stones around it like Stonehenge. I think motorcyclists used it and that was probably the reason why they put the stones there.’

Children’s entertainer Ron Anderson, who was born in the same year as Bill, said of him: ‘I wasn’t much of a footballer but one day the team was short and I played, and I soon recognised that he was much better than anyone else in the team. He was brilliant. I thought then he could be a professional.’

Bill admitted to not being an academic but after gaining above-average marks at the Gladstone Road Primary School, he was awarded a scholarship to the Scarborough Boys’ High School at the age of 11. He was soon chosen as a centre half for the U14 side. Despite not being very tall, he was able to jump higher than most of his opponents and was more determined to reach the ball first. Geoff Hillarby, one of his nephews, recalled: ‘The High School had a very good record and had some exceptional teachers. Bill could have gone on with his education, but I think he wanted to go into football. He was a very educated man.’ His daughter Linda adds: ‘He was very good at maths.’

Doreen Procter, a family friend whose brothers knew Bill well, spoke of his almost copperplate writing on Christmas cards. ‘He wrote beautifully and I still have a letter from him,’ she said. ‘I also have one of his autographs. Today’s footballers make a scrawl and you can’t read it. Bill always took time to write his autograph so as people could read it. He was a very kind man and never forgot his family and friends.’

Eddie Wright, who met Bill occasionally around White Hart Lane, remembers: ‘He always had time to talk to you about the club. The last time I met him was in 2004, in the car park inside the ground. I had my Double winning autographs with me and wanted him to sign. Although he had difficulty in writing, he stuck at it and it took about ten minutes to do it. God bless him, he eventually finished it. I have collected many autographs over the years, but this one will stay in my family forever.’

Bill’s nephew Tony McKenzie said: ‘He had the shakes towards the end and he would apologise for not giving an autograph but would say, “What about a shake of the hand instead?” and people thought that was wonderful.’

In the 1930s the leaving age for the High School was 14, but Bill stayed on for almost a year before starting work. He wasn’t selected for the district side because he was still playing for his school, and he had to travel to similar institutions in faraway towns and cities such as York, Hull, Whitby and Malton. At this stage, he had never travelled beyond Scarborough and the boys had to pay their own fares. A match would usually cost a few shillings and one day his mother told him she couldn’t afford it. The man who organised the team, C.B. Bradley, paid his fare. Bill bought his first pair of boots from the proceeds of his paper round and he knew they would have to last a long time. He repaired them himself, hammering away on his father’s last in the stable.

Not having matriculated, he was forced to accept a menial job on leaving school: drying the clothes in the Alexandra Laundry for a weekly wage of £2. A photo taken of 16-year-old Bill has survived and it shows a serious young man with his arms crossed, wearing a tie and an apron, his sleeves rolled up ready for a hard day’s work. He looked mature and older than his years. At that point, he hadn’t considered a serious career and certainly not being a famous footballer.

Another character who loved football came into his life around this time: a dentist called Herbert Basil Jones, who ran the Young Liberals FC team, which played on Saturdays. No one in the Nicholson family admitted to supporting a political party but Bill fancied the yellows and he would soon become their best player. According to Ron Anderson: ‘The man who recommended him to have a trial with Tottenham was Albert Hollowood, who worked with me at Mr Jones’s working-class dental practice as a dental mechanic. He came from Tottenham and was a Spurs fan.’

Early in March 1936, a letter written with a pencil dated 29 February and signed by Ben Ives, Tottenham’s chief scout, arrived at 6 Quarry Mount in Scarborough – the family had moved from Vine Street – addressed to Mr and Mrs Nicholson:

Dear Sir or Madam,

This morning I have had a letter from Mr Jones re: your boy. I was very sorry I could not see you on Tuesday last week when I met your son and Mr Jones. He and I had a good chat with him and I expect you are awaiting a letter from me. I should put your mind at rest as regards to the welfare of your son. At present we have about 20 boys of his age and we get them good lodgings with personal friends of mine. Mr Jones will put him on the night train at York and I shall meet him at King’s Cross, or should Mr Nicholson like to bring him down himself, he would be welcome. The boy seems to be very bright and I am sure he will get on here and in any case, I trust you realise that he must have a far greater chance of making headway in London than elsewhere.

Steve Bell, Bill’s son-in-law, treasures that letter.

Years later, Bill admitted that he had no recollection of the meeting with the dark-haired, handsome Ives. ‘My parents had never seen me play,’ he said. ‘They knew I was keen, but they had no idea whether I was any good or not. We weren’t even sure where Tottenham was.’ In those days, agents as such hadn’t been invented and with his father unable to take the day off to travel with him to London, Mr Jones accompanied him to York and put him on the overnight train to London. The shy young man found his way down to the London Underground and made his first trip in the tube, getting out at Manor House before changing to an omnibus that took him up the High Road to White Hart Lane, where the main stand was still being built.

Bill’s great adventure had begun. He had come from the far end of England, he had no video to show off his skills to a prospective boss, no letters of recommendation, nothing except a mysterious letter of recommendation from a man he had never met or even heard of. As Steve Bell observed: ‘You can’t see a boy, barely 17, travelling alone on a journey like that today. He was a very single-minded young man.’

Tottenham offered him a month’s trial and he performed so well that he stayed with Spurs, a club he knew only vaguely, for 59 years as a player, coach, manager and consultant and ended up as the club’s President. He was the one-club man par excellence, devoting his life to Spurs. The Tottenham Weekly Herald of 31 March 1936 announced his arrival: ‘Spurs are giving a month’s trial to an amateur, Wm. E. Nicholson, an inside right of Scarborough Working Men’s Club. He recently celebrated his 17th birthday. His height is 5ft 8ins and weight 10st 12lbs.’

Ron Anderson was secretary of the Young Liberals FC (not the Working Men’s Club FC, as reported) and some time later Spurs sent a donation of £25. It turned out to be the best bargain in the history of the club. Ron said: ‘I remember Bill’s headmaster telling him not to sign for Spurs. “There is no future in playing professional football,” he said.’

Bill was soon kitted out for his first game in a Midweek League match against West Ham, a club to which he would later have a close affinity, and he was delighted to see that the pitch was heavily sanded – it reminded him of Scarborough’s South Beach. Among the West Ham side he met a very chatty, charming East Ender named Dick Walker, later West Ham’s chief scout. They became good friends and years later spent thousands of hours watching talent around the country with a view to signing the best. The club found nearby digs for Bill and after playing in the London Combination reserve side over the Christmas and New Year holiday of 1937–8, he was given a professional contract with their nursery club, Northfleet United. Ron Burgess, Ted Ditchburn and Les Bennett were also loaned out. He was paid £2 a week, the same wage as the Alexandra Laundry. At the end of the season he won a Kent Senior Cup winners’ medal in the final against Dover.

There were 48 professionals on the staff at White Hart Lane, a much higher number than most Premiership clubs today, plus eight ground staff boys. The boys were not permitted to enter the dressing rooms and there was hardly contact with the seniors. Juniors trained only twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but if their other work was finished, then they kicked a homemade ball – a bundle of old cloth tied into a ball – around under the stands. Much of their time was spent painting the grandstand and pulling the 6ft-wide fly roller in a wooden frame over the playing pitch. Often the mud was so deep that it was almost impossible to move the roller. By the end of the season, there was no grass on the pitch and the boys had to help the groundsman to reseed it.

Bill found painting a chore: ‘I dreaded having to climb up the girders to do it,’ he said, ‘because I had no head for heights.’ At school, he had lessons in carpentry, which came in useful when he was asked to build a shooting box for the players. It was an 8am to 5pm day, with a brief rest for a sandwich and a cup of tea, which is of course in marked contrast to today’s young professionals with their sports cars and designer-clad girlfriends. As Frank Lampard Snr observed 60 years later: ‘They should learn how to clean the senior players’ boots to learn some respect.’

Every summer, Bill went home to Quarry Mount to stay with his mother. Frank White, who lived next door, remembered: ‘They kicked small balls about between the back-to-back houses. People always came in from the back door, not the front, which was the posh end, with its lawn and brick wall.’ The reason for this, apparently, was because Richard III introduced a 4p tax on householders using the front door in the 11th century and they still had the habit of going in the back entrance. When I visited that part of Scarborough, a car repair building opposite the Nicholsons’ house had been replaced by 10 very smart detached houses and a notice on the wall said: ‘Nicholson Estate Agents’ (no relation).

Jack Tresadern, a small, dapper man from Leytonstone, was appointed manager of Tottenham from Crystal Palace and he hardly spoke to Bill in the two-and-a-bit seasons that he was in charge. Tresadern always wore a black Trilby and he didn’t look like a manager. He was famed for being West Ham’s skipper in the 1923 FA Cup Final, known as the ‘White Horse Final’, when he complained of being trapped by spectators – 200,000 got into Wembley, twice the number permitted – following David Jack’s first goal. Tresadern told how he was unable to get back on to the field when the game resumed, but it made little difference to the result. In those days managers had little contact with the players – the trainer was the key man and he did the training, which mainly consisted of running round the track. The heavy leather balls were rarely seen until kick-off. Danny Blanchflower always joked about it when he first joined Barnsley before transferring to Tottenham: ‘They kept the ball away from us because they thought we would be eager to get after it.’

Tresadern was unpopular with the fans and directors alike and left Spurs at the end of the 1937/8 season. The man who took over was Peter McWilliam from Inveravon, Banffshire, who managed the club between 1913 and 1927, and he helped to win the FA Cup Final in 1921 on a rain-soaked Stamford Bridge. For the first time, two kings – George V and his son, George VI – attended. Both were saturated and neither of them really liked football. McWilliam never gave tactical talks, preferring to leave the players to work things out for themselves. Instead, his strength lay in boosting their confidence.

Spurs were always renowned for their meanness and in 1927, Middlesbrough offered McWilliam £1,500 to become their manager. When Spurs refused to give him a rise, off he went. It took 11 years for them to get him back. He wasn’t so successful that time around and retired to live in Redcar in 1942. Soon after Bill arrived in 1936, the new grandstand opened and there were more girders for him to paint. The cost of the stand, mainly of wood, cost £60,000. Financed by Barclays Bank, it equalled the club’s profits since World War I.

Bill’s shyness soon evaporated and he made friends with the other boys. One in particular was W.A.R. Burgess, who joined the club on the same day. Known as Ronnie, he was a thoroughly nice young man and the two became lifelong friends. Born in Cwm, south Wales in 1917, he learned his football by kicking balls on slagheaps above the river Ebbw and had just signed up as a coalminer when Tottenham called him up to White Hart Lane for a year’s trial.

When his trial ended, Tresadern and his trainer thought he wasn’t up to standard and so they gave him his rail fare back to Wales. Before Burgess headed off home, he went to watch the ‘A’ team. Finding they were one short, he volunteered to play and proved himself the most influential player in the team. He was promptly re-signed. In 1939, he was capped by Wales before joining the RAF. After the War, he captained Spurs for eight seasons, leading them to success in the Second Division and in the First in successive seasons, alongside Bill in the midfield. Burgess was one of the chief instigators of Arthur Rowe’s push-and-run style of play, his stamina almost inexhaustible and probably derived from his running up and down on coal deposits as a boy.

When I interviewed Bill for his book in 1983 and 1984, I asked him who was the best player at Tottenham had produced in his time. There were plenty of candidates among those that he had worked with, including Greaves, Blanchflower, Mackay and White, but without hesitation, he told me: ‘Ronnie Burgess. I liked him very much. He was genuine and honest, and although he later became captain, he was never afraid to seek advice. He was too nice a person to order people about and make decisions affecting their livelihoods, which was the main reason he was less successful as a manager than as a player. He was my favourite player. He had everything: good feet, ability in the air, strength in the tackle and was a beautiful passer of the ball. In some ways he resembled Bryan Robson, but I believe he was a better player than Robson.’

Was he better than Dave Mackay, I asked? He laughed. ‘I’m not going into that,’ he told me. ‘I’m sticking with Ronnie!’

In 2004, the same year as Bill died, Burgess passed away at the age of 87. He was two years older. The two pals had testing lives but as a testament to their superb fitness and self-discipline, both lived to a grand age and kept close to their original playing weights throughout their lives.

Bill confessed to me that in his first months in London he wondered whether he might have a future in the professional game. He had no tricks – unlike his manager Peter McWilliam, who brought in the ‘wiggle’ when he played for Newcastle – but he made the best of his considerable assets: strength, stamina, the simplicity of his passing game and determination in the tackle. Some people thought he wasn’t first team quality at the time and he was of the same view.

Bill was 19 and raw when he made his debut in the 1938/9 season: however, the first team left back Billy Whatley was injured and so he was forced to play out of position against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park. Rovers won 3-1, during which he strained a thigh muscle and had to play outside right in the final minutes because substitutions were still decades ahead. ‘I cannot really remember anything about the game,’ he said.

At the time he was the tenth-youngest player ever to have appeared in the first team.