Banksy (54 page)

We don’t have football grounds any more – they’re all stadiums. The Taylor Report was long overdue, and it took the human tragedies of Heysel, Valley Parade and Hillsborough before football took a long hard look at how it treated its paying customers. Facilities offered to spectators are much improved, and I’m all for that. The new or redesigned stadiums have also helped to rid the game of the criminal element, often erroneously referred to as ‘football’ hooligans, who besmirched its name in the past. There are real signs that football is once again becoming a family game.

‘A little is lost and a little is gained in every day’, to quote William Wordsworth. The same can be said of developments in football. Let me say now, though, I wouldn’t go back to how it was. Having been cannon fodder in a world war, many people in the late forties were treated as little more than terrace fodder by those who ran the game at the time. That attitude largely prevailed until the terrible tragedy of Hillsborough.

Having said that, I can’t help grieving for what we have lost with the advent of the new stadiums. On the terraces everyone had their favourite spot and stood there season in, season out, for years, as did other supporters who stood near them. Going to a match was a social occasion; football was the glue that cemented a sense of community. Now, if you are not a season-ticket holder, you have to buy your ticket every time and you end up sitting in a different position for every match, among faces you don’t recognize.

At many of the spacious stadiums today, whether new or redeveloped, the fans are so far from the action that they can’t feel the intimate atmosphere of the grounds of the past. Both as
a player and spectator I loved the atmosphere of the old grounds – the Victoria Ground at Stoke City was typical – where the supporters were only yards from the action. Though at either end it boasted alp-like terracing, it guaranteed physical and emotional enclosure. Very little that happened on the pitch escaped the attention of the supporters. They felt very close to the players and vice versa. Someone standing by the tunnel entrance could sniff the liniment wafting up from the legs of the players as they ran out; they could hear me calling to my full backs; the grunts of two players tussling for the ball. The old grounds did not boast the architecture of the Reebok, the Stadium of Light or the redeveloped Elland Road – they were simply bear-pits where attention was focused on the action taking place a few yards away.

There is still brilliance, drama and excitement on the pitch, of course, but fans have been physically distanced from the action. The clubs and authorities appear to have compensated by encouraging supporters to become part of something bigger than just the match. Going to a game has been turned into an ‘experience’ in which the marketing of the footballer and his club as a brand can be deployed. With the word ‘profit’ being the first to be uttered by most club chairmen, the football ‘experience’ inevitably involves parting a lot of supporters from a lot of cash. If you have shelled out £50 for a replica shirt, have the club’s credit card and have paid extra simply to have a concourse that offers you exclusive use of a bar, the stadium needs to look something special!

When I played there was a close connection between players and fans that is absent today. On Saturdays they would be less than five yards from my back. When I extended a hand to block the ball they heard the impact. When Terry Conroy or Mike Stringfellow took off at speed, many supporters saw the soil kick up from the pitch. We shopped in the same supermarkets, drank in the same pubs. Before every match we were besieged by autograph hunters and were happy to sign their books. When
the Premiership players of today arrive at a stadium, the supporters are kept well back, often behind metal crush barriers. Super-stardom has its benefits, but also has its price, and an important aspect of contact between player and supporter is now gone for ever.

I may be in my mid-sixties, but that’s not where I’m living. I don’t yearn for a return to the so-called ‘good old days’. But there are times when I miss the simplicity of how football used to be. The game we played was simple. I remember Matt Busby once being asked whether the game-plan approach of Manchester United in 1968 was a sign that football was becoming too complicated. ‘Our game plan is this,’ said Matt. ‘When we have the ball we are all attackers. When the opposition has the ball, we are all defenders. Now what’s complicated about that?’

Life was less sophisticated, and so was football; but I miss the little things we have lost. Young fans today haven’t felt the frisson of anticipation at half time as the stewards hung up the scores from the other matches around the country, for example. You had to match the scores with the letters in a table printed in the programme. Slower than electronic scoreboards and SMS messages, perhaps, but I know which I preferred. Believe me, from a player’s point of view it’s better not to know how your rivals are getting on elsewhere. I gnore the electronic scoreboard, concentrate on your own game and discover your fate at the final whistle. It’s much simpler that way.

After the TV-induced boom of the nineties, many clubs are now experiencing the bust. The collapse of ITV Digital has affected many Nationwide League clubs. The Premiership is comparatively healthy, but the Nationwide League is looking more and more like the symptoms on a medicine bottle.

I believe the collapse of the digital deal was a symptom of changing fashion. In the nineties football fell into the hands of passive supporters, people who couldn’t really care less about the game. Football, as one person put it, became ‘sexy’, the new
rock ’n’ roll. Many professional people became interested in the game not only because it was perceived to be trendy, but because they realized that to support a club offered social advantages. There’s nothing wrong in that, but, in a similar way to the dotcom bubble, people stopped discriminating in the scramble to climb aboard the bandwagon. Or perhaps they knew nothing about football in the first place.

I say that because I can’t imagine that anyone who knows anything at all about the game would ever believe that live TV coverage of, with all due respect, Bradford City versus Barnsley, might attract a large subscription audience to television. The notion that ITV Digital would attract subscribers in sufficient numbers to make its Nationwide League deal financially viable was flawed from the start, as any genuine football fan could have told them.

Arguably, the advent of the transfer window will have an even greater impact on the finances of clubs than the collapse of ITV Digital. UEFA introduced two transfer windows, one in the summer and the other at Christmas, which means that clubs can buy or sell players only within those windows. Such a system would prevent smaller clubs selling a promising player at short notice to a larger club to offset a cashflow crisis. Clubs such as Crewe Alexandra are very adept at unearthing talented youngsters, developing them and selling them on to top sides. If this source of revenue is limited to two short periods a year, the cashflow implications could be extremely serious.

Nationwide League clubs need to be allowed to develop young talent and given the opportunity for that emerging talent to filter up the pyramid system. Surely it would be far better for English football, and European football in general, if we had an international transfer window, but not a domestic one. This would help the finances of our game because our top clubs would be able to buy players from smaller clubs at any time, but foreign players only during the two window periods. Such a system would allow young home-grown players to move up the league
ladder towards the Premiership, which has to be good for English football. We would still have the interest and skill that foreign imports bring to the domestic game, and money would continue to circulate throughout the year. At the same time, young British talent would have the chance to shine. If some of the ninety-two league clubs fold we will lose not only some of the unique flavour and truly nationwide spread of English football, but also its strength in depth. If all the power and talent are concentrated in too few hands, the entire system could become top-heavy and be in danger of collapse.

If I had but one wish for football, it would be that the success of the Premiership and the national team could be shared among every English football club. The almost daily news of another club going into receivership or administration saddens me greatly. Should the Carlisle Uniteds, York Citys and Port Vales of English football disappear, it would be tragic. Not only would we be losing a club, a business and careers, but also a small but important part of the fabric of our society would be lost. Those who administer our game must do all they can to prevent that happening. The working man and woman must continue to have their ballet.

I have been especially pleased to see the England team emerge once again as a power in world football. We have some fine young players of true international quality and, in David Beckham, Michael Owen, Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand, players of world class. Under the careful and objective managership of Sven-Göran Eriksson I am very optimistic for the future of both the national side and English football in general.

I have been involved in football as a player, coach, manager, raffle-ticket seller and supporter for over fifty years. I’ve seen a lot of changes and will, no doubt, see many more. The game has changed irrevocably, but in essence it remains the same. Football, as Danny Blanchflower once said, is about the pursuit of glory. That is true, but it is also about human endeavour, about passion, courage and emotion. Occasionally it is about pride and honour,
and sometimes even humour. When played at its best and in a spirit of true sportsmanship, a football match becomes much more than a mere sporting contest. The truly beautiful game is a miracle of man’s physical and mental capabilities. When that happens, the pitch becomes a nirvana.

I have been so very lucky. I have a loving and caring family who have been the hub around which my life has revolved. Robert is a sales executive for a timber merchant. Wendy is also in sales, for a shoe company, and in what spare time she has, is also a dressmaker to the entertainment industry. Julia is a solicitor in Cheshire. Ursula and I are keen gardeners and you’ll find us outside most days attending to the beds and borders or mowing the grass. I always ensure the lawns are not too lush and that they’ll take a short stud! We all enjoy watching movies. I often take my grandchildren to the cinema and consequently have become something of an expert on
Star Wars
and
Spiderman
.

Ursula and I love having the family over for a meal. I haven’t inherited my mam’s talent for cooking, nor have I learned from Ursula, who likes the kitchen to herself when she’s cooking and packs me off to the lounge in order to avert a culinary disaster. I miss Mam. She died nearly twenty years since, but the legacy she left was one of love.

I have also been fortunate enough to have made a career in what I believe is the greatest sport on earth. Football is a serious business, but the key to enjoying it to the full, and to surviving in the game, is not always to take it too seriously. That has been my philosophy in both football and life. Of course, seriousness has its place – any waiter will tell you that – but in life, as in football, to everything there is a season.

Football has given me an awful lot. I have played alongside and against some of the greatest names ever to have graced the game. No amount of money could buy that wonderful experience and its store of golden memories that I will cherish forever. It remains only to say thank you to all those players, managers, club officials and supporters whose lives I have touched and who,
in turn, have touched mine. Collectively, you have given me so much more than a lad from Tinsley could ever have expected. Words could never express my true gratitude. Some people think there’s no place for sentiment in football – there is now.

1. A Coronation street party in Ferrars Road and not a car in sight. Our house was the first one in the third block on the left.You can just make out the steelworks at the end of our road.