Читать книгу To Cap It All - Kenny Sansom - Страница 18

Arnie Warren was the sharpest knife in the drawer and had the reputation for being one step ahead of other scouts when it came to snapping up a good young apprentice. Apparently, Spurs, QPR and the team I was later to captain, the mighty Arsenal, were all interested in signing me, but I’m glad my destiny was Crystal Palace, as they provided the perfect environment for a homely boy like me.

I was blissfully unaware of what was going on behind the scenes – all I was interested in was playing football.

My state of ignorant bliss was a blessing, because had I known what my dad was up to I would have been even more pissed off with him than I was already. A deal was about to take place between my dad and the Crystal Palace manager – one of football’s most charismatic figures – Malcolm Allison.

Malcolm was an iconic man with a larger-than-life character very similar to my dad, who was also tall, dark and handsome. Malcolm became almost as famous for wearing his Fedora hat and smoking expensive cigars as he did for his football prowess. Once a player with lots of potential, he unfortunately contracted tuberculosis in the mid-fifties and had to have a lung removed, which, of course, ended his playing career. Miraculously, even after all the cigars he puffed on, he’s still alive today and in his eighties.

As the story goes, Malcolm would often go to the chairman of Palace, Ray Bloye, and ask for a thousand pounds to secure a deal or sign someone. One day Malcolm went rushing up to him and out of breath told him, ‘I need five hundred in readies. I’ve got to have the cash as soon as possible.’

‘Steady on, Malcolm,’ says Ray. ‘What’s the hurry?’

‘I want to sign this kid. He’s outstanding and another club will get to him first if we don’t move quickly. His dad wants five hundred notes tonight to seal the deal and then we can sign him tomorrow.’

‘Who is the kid?’ asked Joe.

‘His name’s Kenny Sansom and he’s a nippy little left-back. Terry Venables rates him and so do I, so we’ve got to get the cash for his old man.’

Ray, who owned butchers’ shops all over south London, thought for a moment and then the two of them piled into Malcolm’s snazzy car and went all round these shops raiding the tills of five-pound notes until they came up with the full amount needed to secure my dad’s signature on the dotted line.

How true this story is, I don’t know. It was news to me when I heard it from my old agent Richard Coomber some years later, but I have a hunch, given what I know about my old dad, that it’s the truth. How about that? My mum champions me and gets me the break and my dad pockets five hundred smackers. Life can be a bitch.

So I became a Palace player while still at school, and I was the youngest ever to play in the first team. Until this day, I remain the third youngest debutant at Palace.

When I say things like this I still have to pinch myself – there’s still an element of disbelief about my achievements. Sometimes it feels as if I were talking about someone else.

When I marched into the magnificent world of football at Selhurst Park in southeast London Terry Venables was second in charge to Malcolm Allison. He was a young and ambitious coach who was destined for a terrific career in management, one day moving on to manage the England team as well as other top-flight clubs both domestically and in Europe. I was now breathing in the same air as two of the most influential giants in the world of football. It was bloody great.

Malcolm was a great motivator and was brave enough to insist on some changes. He traded in the Crystal Palace nickname of ‘the Glaziers’ for ‘the Eagles’, and the sixties hit, ‘Glad All Over’, by the Dave Clark Five, became our anthem. In fact, it would be fair to say that Allison used his flair to reinvent the club.

‘Big Mal’ rebranded the Palace crest and chose the club’s new colours, which were copies of big European teams such as Benfica and Barcelona. So, gone now were the old claret and blue shirts and in came the red and darker blue.

Dagenham-born Terry Venables had worked his apprenticeship at Chelsea FC and had enjoyed a great England career. He was the first player to represent England at all levels – schoolboy, youth, amateur, Under-23 and the full team – and came to Palace from QPR as a player in 1974 and was appointed the new and dynamic manager after just fourteen games.

There is no doubt in my mind at all that Terry Venables is the best manager ever. Crystal Palace knew it, I knew it, and I like to think he knew it as well. He always told me that knowing how good you are is important. The Sansom luck was holding firm.