LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

becoming particularly adept at exploiting the pool of talent available in schools football, a source largely ignored by other clubs. It is a remarkable fact that between 1951 and 1957, the golden years of the Busby Babes, United bought just one player, Tommy Taylor. So many of the other great names of that era, such as Albert Scanlon, David Pegg, Mark Jones, Wilf McGuinness and Eddie Colman, came directly from school, just as Bobby Charlton did. Ron Routledge, Bobby’s Ashington contemporary, says that Bobby’s desire to join United reflected his self-belief. ‘He said to me, just before he signed, “Ronnie, I’m going to be the best.” That is where you’ve really got to admire him. He could have gone to any other club and been quite comfortable. But he didn’t because he wanted to be with the top young players – and United had the name then because of the Busby Babes. There was no way he was ever going anywhere else.’

      When he signed for United, many in the north-east expressed surprise that he had not joined Newcastle, effectively his local side. In fact, his parents even received angry mail from several Newcastle fans, complaining about the decision to allow Bobby to leave the area. But, as Bobby later explained, it was Cissie’s own cousin, ‘Wor Jackie’ Milburn, who was instrumental in ensuring that Bobby did not sign for Newcastle: ‘He came armed with an offer to give me a job on a north-eastern newspaper but he was completely honest with me. He told me it was not such a good club at that time and that, what organization there was, was inefficient. He didn’t believe in the way they treated their young players and the training was almost non-existent. They just went to the ground on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, kicked a ball around and there was no coaching.’

      The other great club in the north-east, Sunderland, was never really in the running after an incident in which Bobby felt he was rebuffed by them. This happened on that frost-bitten morning in February 1953 when Joe Armstrong from United turned up to see Bobby playing for East Northumberland Boys. A scout from Sunderland was also at the match but at the final whistle, instead of going to see Bobby, he approached Ron Routledge, the East Northumberland goalkeeper, and made him an offer. According to Cissie, ‘Bobby was really hurt to have been overlooked by Sunderland that day. Later, when Sunderland joined a long queue of major clubs trying to recruit Bobby, he had his own back. This time it was Bobby who did the turning down.’ But Sunderland did not give up easily. Even when Bobby was travelling down to Manchester to sign formally for United, the Sunderland scout Charlie Ferguson followed him and got on the same train in the hope of persuading Bobby to change his mind.

      Ray Wood, the former Manchester United and England goalkeeper who played throughout the 1950s with Bobby, says that Sunderland would have been absolutely the wrong club for him because of its mean spirit and lack of support for youngsters. ‘Like Bobby, I’m from the north-east and Sunderland had wanted to sign me after I had played in the County Cup Final at Roker. They were known as the Bank of England team, they were so rich. After a meeting with the manager, Bill Murray, I was offered the forms to become a professional. Before I had looked at them, he asked, “How much were your expenses?” I said about one shilling, and ten-and-a-half pence. He gave me two shillings and asked for change. I could not believe it. I didn’t sign after that. I don’t think Bobby would have done as well if he had joined Sunderland or Newcastle. Neither wanted good young players to escape but, unlike United, they never give them a proper chance to develop.’

      For all the high-minded talk of youth policies, there could also have been a simpler reason why United were able to win the battle for Bobby’s signature: money. There were persistent claims that, as at some other top clubs, United offered financial rewards to the parents of talented youngsters – and this may have happened in Bobby’s case. As Ron Routledge said to me, ‘Bobby was off to United, yes, because of the youth policy, but also because of the little incentives on offer.’ Cissie denied, in her autobiography, that she or husband were ever tempted: ‘The high-pressure tactics employed by the more unscrupulous scouts included some pretty lucrative bribes. Yet the plain fact of the matter was that taking bribes was illegal and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it, even if they were an accepted fact of professional football life in those days. We were honest, working-class people with a very clear idea of right and wrong and no amount of money was going to change that.’

      But the distinguished football writer Brian Glanville gave me a different account. ‘I was once told by Jackie Milburn, with whom I was very friendly, that Bobby was all set to join Newcastle United. The deal had been done and dusted and Bobby was going to get a newspaper job. But Manchester United ensured it did not happen. According to Jackie’s story, Cissie said to him, “I’m terribly sorry, but United offered us £750. What could I do?’” Brian Glanville continues: ‘I have put that story to Jack Charlton and he has denied it but it would hardly be a surprise if it were true. At the time there were two clubs which were absolutely notorious for suborning young players and they were Manchester United and Chelsea. Matt Busby, for all his genial, incorruptible image, was actually a very ruthless man.’ Glanville points to the example of Duncan Edwards, who was born in Dudley in the heart of the West Midlands. It would have been obvious for him to join Wolves or West Brom, both outstanding clubs in the 1950s, but instead he was enticed to Old Trafford. And, as John Kennedy wrote in his biography of Tommy Taylor, there were “rumours going around at the time of his transfer that Matt had offered all sorts of inducements to persuade Tommy”.’

      Rumours about such payments were given more credence in 1979, long after Matt Busby had retired, when a Granada World in Action programme revealed the web of unscrupulousness at Old Trafford. Most of the programme focused on the actions of United’s late chairman, ‘Champagne Louis’ Edwards – father of the current chairman Martin – who made a fortune in the meat business, partly through the manipulation of local authority catering contracts, and used his wealth to gain control at Old Trafford in the 1960s. Shortly after the programme was screened, he died of a heart attack while having a bath. Granada researchers uncovered a wealth of evidence suggesting that United were in the habit of paying more than just transfer fees. Particularly damning was the testimony of John Aston, one of United’s great players of the post-war era and junior team coach since 1954, who, in a sworn affidavit, said, ‘Some of these boys were induced to sign because United offered them or their parents backhand payments. In some cases I was personally involved in obtaining cash and handing it to the families of boys.’ As Aston explained, money would be secretly raised through fictitious expense accounts, and then used to pay off families. Such was the strength of Aston’s evidence that Matt made little real effort to dispute it, while two other books repeated the claims. One, Michael Crick and David Smith’s Betrayal of a Legend, states: ‘£500 or £1,000 might be handed over in banknotes. Alternatively, the father of a promising young player might be employed as a part-time scout, though, of course, he was not expected to do anything for this,’ And Eamon Dunphy, in his brilliantly vivid and subtle biography of Sir Matt, A Strange Kind of Glory, writes: ‘Year by year, Matt Busby had found himself sucked into a moral quagmire. A few quid in an envelope to the father of a talented youngster for scouting, no bribe intended.’ This does not, of course, necessarily mean that all young players, like Bobby, were acquired through such methods, or that they would have been aware of such approaches by United. But it does put into perspective some of the sugary guff that is written about United and Busby, as if he was too virtuous ever to be involved in the more mercenary aspects of professional football.

      On 16 June 1953 Busby finally got what he wanted, when Bobby officially signed for United, thus beginning an association with the club that lasts to this day. So highly regarded was Bobby that the Daily Mail recorded the event. ‘This may sound a minor signing but it is of major importance in a soccer world which is acutely aware of the value of developing youngsters. Charlton, the star of the England v Wales match last season, has superb positional sense and ball control.’ Before leaving for Manchester he played out his last season for Bedlington. Evan Martin recalls, ‘We had a hell of a team in 1952/53, thanks mainly to Bobby’s skills. We used to go to really hard secondary schools, like North Shields, and win easily. In the very last match of the season, we were on the coach and Bobby asked Tucker Robinson, “What’s the highest individual score this season?”

      “I got three against Alnwick,” replied Tucker.

      “Well, I’ll get four today.”

      And

Скачать книгу