LITMIR.BIZ

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but many of these didn’t come to watch matches at Old Trafford and average gates had fallen away badly. Crowds of 25,000 were not uncommon, a figure well under half the capacity.

      I walked into a club where confidence was low and the team hadn’t been playing well. And because of the weather, United didn’t have a chance to find some form. The team didn’t play a league game between Boxing Day and 23 February and the FA Cup third round wasn’t staged until 4 March.

      I had plenty of time, therefore, to study the little red book given to all players, containing a list of training rules and instructions. Some of these regulations, expressed in the most pompous of tones, were standard. Firstly, this pass book had to be carried with you at all times and it was supposed to be shown so you could gain entry to the ground. Players were expected to ‘attend the Ground, or such other place as the directors may appoint, at 10.00 every morning (except Saturday) to undergo such training as the Manager or Trainer appointed by the Directors shall order’. There were two training sessions: 10.00 am to 12.00 pm and 2.30 pm to 4.00 pm. You were expected to turn up forty-five minutes before kickoff for home matches and at the station or coach pick-up fifteen minutes before departure, and you weren’t allowed to slope off during a trip without permission. If you had an accident or were ill, then you had to notify the manager and see the club doctor, unless you lived away from the club, when in ‘necessitous cases’ you could ‘consult your practitioner’ and send in a doctor’s certificate. Not that the club expected to pick up the bill, as they were careful to state. Any player rendering himself unfit to perform his duties through drinking or any other causes would be severely dealt with, and friends or acquaintances were to be kept well away from the ground or the dressing room.

      Rule 11 would raise a few eyebrows today. ‘Smoking is strictly prohibited during training hours, and players are earnestly requested to reduce smoking to the absolute minimum on the day of a match.’ Brilliant isn’t it, a request to cut down on smoking on a match day? I didn’t smoke, but fellow Scot Denis Law, one of the few lads I knew at United when I arrived, took a sly fag now and then. Denis was one reason Matt bought me. He’d watched us link up well for Scotland and he had a long term plan for United which included us two, with me being Denis’s main supply line. Some people told me that another reason why Matt had gone over the border to sign me was that he considered my style of play the closest to the kind of role he himself once had while playing for Manchester City. Matt never said that to me, but others did.

      Despite knowing Denis Law, I still felt like an outsider and the whole experience was a bit strange for me because I’d only lived in Glasgow and I was a bit of a mummy’s boy. To make matters worse, I was described by the Scottish newspapers as an ‘Anglo’, a phrase I hated, which was used to describe Scottish players who played in England.

      It took a while for me to find my feet at Old Trafford, to adjust to life in a new city and at a new football club where I wasn’t used to the players. I had no real friends and even though my team-mates made me feel welcome, they had issues of their own to deal with. There was discontent with the training, despite the two sessions laid down in the pass book, and matters became quite tense, with some players thinking that training could be more challenging. A meeting was sought with Matt Busby and club captain Noel Cantwell but I was new to the club and stayed on the sidelines – the last time I spoke my mind a few months earlier Celtic had transferred me. Players were looking to apportion blame to anyone but themselves, but I just wanted to get back on the pitch so that we could lift the mood.

      To make matters worse, there was a thief in the changing room, with valuables frequently going missing. Matt gathered everyone together in the room, about thirty players including the reserves. He said, ‘We have a nigger in the woodpile.’ Dennis Walker, United’s first black player, was sitting there. I was so embarrassed for Dennis and so were the other lads. Matt wasn’t a racist – it was an expression which was used by his generation – but we thought Matt had put his foot in it. Dennis was a talented footballer who would have made it if he wasn’t so shy. As it happened, he only played one game, filling in for a resting Bobby Charlton before the 1963 FA Cup Final. The thief was eventually found, a reserve player who was bombed out of the club straightaway.

      To add to the poor spirit, there were stories of match rigging when I arrived at Old Trafford. Harry Gregg, who I befriended, told me that he took part in a United game which was bent. Harry was straight, but he claimed several matches involving United were thrown during that season. I was new to Old Trafford, but I had seen evidence in Scotland of match fixing, seen that players had received money to lose games, even at the biggest clubs. Me? I have never received money to throw a game.

      My first game in a Manchester United shirt was a friendly in Cork against Bolton Wanderers on 13 February 1963. The weather wasn’t as harsh in Ireland as it was in Britain, hence the location. We beat Bolton 4–2 and I scored a hilarious goal. I took a shot which deflected off a stone and past the goalkeeper. There was a big crowd, despite the terrible rain and the afternoon kick-off because there were no floodlights. Roy Keane’s father Mossy was at the game as a supporter – he took the afternoon off and got the sack for his troubles. Some have said that he’s never worked since!

      I didn’t stay in the team hotel, but at Noel Cantwell’s house. Noel was from Cork and we had a great night out at a shebeen called Kitty Barry’s. Together with Harry Gregg, Noel was fantastic in helping me settle. He used to stress the importance of what he called ‘moral courage’ – players not shirking responsibilities on the field. I’d like to think that I didn’t.

      The three of us were mad about football and would go and watch other teams from the north west play if we did not have a game. Because I didn’t drive, one of them would drive to Liverpool and we’d stand on the Kop, despite being Manchester United players. The Scousers would have a word with us, but it was good humoured. United fans might be surprised, but I always had great respect for Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly. I still respect the older generation of Liverpool football fans. When I go to Anfield I speak to longstanding Liverpool fans who can’t put up with what the rivalry has become – with the hooliganism and the nastiness between the fans. Liverpool and Manchester are both working-class cities that have produced two of the greatest football clubs in the world. People should be proud of that, but they are not.

      I became friends with Shankly when I moved to England, a friendship which endured for decades. When I played for Scotland at Wembley in 1965, he came to see me in the dressing room. I was wearing number four, his old number, for Scotland and he touched my shirt and held it up with a real reverence – as though it was the most sacred number that a player could wear for Scotland. He didn’t say anything but he was almost crying.

      In 1981, the United players put on a testimonial dinner for Sir Matt Busby at the Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester. It was to raise money for Matt because he wasn’t flush with cash, although he never liked to say anything. I asked Matt if he wanted anyone to come from Liverpool and he said Bill Shankly. I called Bill to invite him and his wife Nessie. He said he thought it was great that we were doing it for Matt and that nobody had ever done anything like that for him at Liverpool. Bill felt he had been treated badly by Liverpool in his final years. He used the Anfield gym on a daily basis and said to me that he wanted to be the fittest man in the graveyard, but he cut a lonely figure. He asked me the date of the dinner.

      ‘Monday 30 November,’ I told him.

      ‘Pat,’ he said, ‘do you know what date the 30 November is? Have you been in England so long that you have forgotten the feast day of the Patron Saint of Scotland, St Andrew?’

      I had. Bill Shankly never made it to the function. He died that September.

      Jock Stein, who was at Dunfermline, would travel down to watch United and Liverpool and if I knew he was coming I would ask him to bring some Glasgow rolls, a type of bread roll – in Manchester they have a version called barmcakes – which tasted much nicer than anything in England. You couldn’t – and still can’t – get the real thing in Manchester. Jock’s son-in-law was a baker and Jock used to fill his car with them and Irn Bru, because the Irn Bru in England tasted totally different from what I was used to in Scotland. There were certain sweets that you couldn’t get in Manchester so Denis Law and I would fight over them and

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