Paddy Crerand: Never Turn the Other Cheek

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Paddy Crerand. Paddy Crerand: Never Turn the Other Cheek

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Dedication

For my mother, Sarah,who made me the person that I am

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Until I was too old, or too heavy, I had many a lift, and one of my earliest football memories is of getting into Hampden Park at the age of ten and seeing a fabulous Great Britain team with a forward line of Stanley Matthews, Wilf Mannion, Tommy Lawton, and Billy Liddell beat the Rest of Europe 6–1. I can also remember seeing Tom Finney play for the first time in 1952 when England beat Scotland 2–1. Even though he was wearing the white of England, I knew I’d seen a great winger. The Scots didn’t know what to do with him because, being so two-footed, he could beat them any way he wanted. Later I saw Finney play in quite a few internationals. I saw Stanley Matthews, too, but Finney was clearly the better of the two. The one thing I liked about Finney is that he bowed out at the top. Most good footballers refuse to admit when their best playing days are over, and they go on and play for as long as they can for the sake a few more pounds when they have already made a lot of money in their career. I think this spoils them in the eyes of the public because they are remembered as failures with an expanding waistline instead of the brilliant performers they were before. It says much that Finney was prepared to step out of the limelight when he had the slim build and was still in his prime.

I went to Parkhead for most of the home games. It was so huge that despite the big crowds it was rarely full to its 80,000 capacity. I don’t think I ever had a penny in my pocket but I always got into the ground and stood on one of the vast sweeping terraces that made up three-quarters of the stadium.

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