Catch A Falling Star (3 page)
Read Catch A Falling Star Online
Authors: Neil Young,Dante Friend
We’d walk along the river bank until we reached our favourite spot called Vale Royal Locks, where we’d stay all day. Out with the pop and sandwiches and loving every minute of it. Really and truly I didn’t care whether I caught a fish or not, I was happy to enjoy a lovely day out with my dear brother.
When I was old enough I joined Macclesfield Anglers juniors’ section and we went all over the place.
The River Weaver, the
I really loved it. One day we left
Fallowfield
about five in the morning and we set off for
Northwich
for the day. It must have involved a lot of travelling because at one point that afternoon I fell asleep with the rod in my hand. It must have been such a deep sleep because I fell off my basket on the edge of the river and toppled right in. Luckily it was only two or three feet deep and our Chris paddled in and pulled me out. Undeterred I took my place back at the side of the river and carried on fishing.
One of my favourite spots was a place called
Monksheath
corner, close by
Alderley
Edge. We’d go down early in the morning and knock at a farmer’s door and ask permission to fish in his field. All right, he’d charge us a shilling but it was well worth it. It would be just the two of us there all day. Fantastic – great days. How can anyone top that?
My brother and I were great friends. In fact he was my best mate. We shared the common love of football. He would play for his school team on a Saturday and I’d be playing simultaneously for mine. That of course would mean that our poor mum would have two sets of kits to wash every Saturday afternoon.
My brother Chris was a very good player. Like myself, he was involved in the Manchester Boys set-up but he was offered a good job on the papers. He was on good money in those days and went into a successful career in that particular field. At the end of the day it was his decision – the Daily Express
were
offering a great package and he gave up the chance to play professionally for a stint at
Ancoats
Street
I’ll always be grateful to Chris for the time he spent with me in those early developing years because he allowed me to play with older boys and that improved my game. I’ve no doubt about that. Remember he was five years my senior and he took me under his wing. He’d keep an eye out for me when I’d do cheeky things on the pitch like nutmeg one of his mates and nip round the back of him to pick up the ball. Chris made sure they didn’t take out their frustrations on me! That must have been annoying for them!
When I was twelve, City
were
FA Cup winners, having made up for the disappointment of losing at Wembley the year before. I watched the final at a neighbour’s house in 1956. I suppose I didn’t have an out-and-out favourite in that team, they were all heroes to me. I liked the whole team.
Ken Barnes, Roy Paul, Bert
Trautmann
of course, Bobby Johnstone, Roy Little, Dave Ewing, Bill
Leivers
, Don
Revie
, Joey Hayes.
The names just roll off the tongue. Seeing their success whetted my appetite even further.
I don’t know why but I always knew that I’d be a
footballer,
it was as if I was destined to play the game professionally. But I don’t think my mum had totally grasped my total and utter dedication to the game by then.
Here’s an example: when I was twelve I went for a trial for
When I was a young lad I used to go with Chris up to see my
gran
and
grandad
, taking the number 76 bus from
gran
was a lovely little old lady and my grandfather a tall elegant man. They used to give us so much love between them. My
grandad
was a commissionaire at the local cinema. I think it was called the
Roxy
– mind you most cinemas in those days were called the
Roxy
!
He would get us in for free and we always used to sit on the back row. He would bring us a free ice cream in the interval which tasted brilliant.
Gran
would always be cleaning the house. They only had a little two-up, two-down but she kept it very neat and tidy. We would always take a ball with us to have a kick-about because there were playing fields behind the house.
We’d normally go and see them on a regular basis but especially a week before we went away on holiday because we knew they’d been saving sixpences up for us in a jar and once a year we’d have a cash windfall!
Then we’d have some spends for our two weeks in
Horrocks
. She was a great friend to my mother and a good confidante. She knew all about the problems mum had at home with my abusive dad.
I really used to adore going
there,
I used to be a dab hand in the kitchen, helping out with the bacon and eggs. At breakfast there must have been at least forty meals going out each morning and I’d help serve the breakfast to the people staying there.
Then it was off to the
Oh what magic times they were
–
because they were my childhood days. Special times because my mum had so much love for Chris and I. Yes, some things that we saw were very hard to take but when you have love and respect for your mum, you try to put the injustices and the pain she must have suffered aside in order to keep her spirits up.
2. “You’ll
Never
Make it as a Footballer”
You’ll have noticed from the first chapter of my life story that I have not mentioned my father too much but I have touched on the fact we had some domestic problems. I only wish to briefly talk about this because it’s very painful. Anyone else who has experienced domestic violence at close hand can understand what I’m talking about.
My dad used to hit my mum when he’d been on the bottle and from being the age of five I was totally scared of him. I mean really scared.
Frightened to death in fact.
I’d go to bed early at night living in fear of him while he beat my mum up twice a week. I can still picture it now – crying my eyes out listening to it going on.
I’m sure he was jealous of the love me and my brother had from my mum, but how on earth he thought lashing out at my mother would endear him to anyone, well, God only knows. It makes me angry when I think back and recall how long my mother put up with this man and his violent behaviour towards her.
It’s often the case in relationships like these where the woman is bullied into submission so much, frightened to speak out because she fears reprisals so they keep it all in. They put up with things because even though they’re not happy, they are frightened for the consequences. They’re not brave enough to branch out on their own. How could anyone love a wife-beater? I certainly couldn’t.
It was not until my brother was fifteen and could stand up to him that it all stopped. One day he grabbed my father roughly by the throat and said: “Now that is the last time you touch my mum.” He was flabbergasted and he went as meek as a lamb. He couldn’t take it, couldn’t accept that his authority had been challenged. He didn’t realise that Chris was growing up and in a position to put him in his place.
He never spoke to us from that day until he died six years later, aged fifty-six. Although I did not like my dad for what he did, in the end I felt sorry for him because he spent the last two years of his life on the settee dying of cancer.
Which again, was not a nice thing for a young lad to see.
I hate bullies and that’s all he was, a bully. That’s my last word about him.
My grandmother came to live with us just after that because my
grandad
died shortly after my dad did. We had some great times with her, she was full of fun and when she was about 80 years old she did something that I’ll never forget.
She was besotted with the singer Paul
Anka
and she went on her own to watch him at the Odeon Cinema in
. We’d been so worried about her when cool as a cucumber, calm as you like, in she strolls, singing his songs without a care in the world. We’d been worried sick but she may as well have just been down the shops for a paper!
A very strange thing happened about six months before she died. We bought her a baby budgie from Platt Fields Funfair – they used to have a pets corner there. We took it home, bought a cage and a stand and she would try and teach it to talk. She would say: “Beauty
Beauty
!” all day long. She used to take the budgie outside with her into the garden while she did her knitting but one day she knocked the cage over and the budgie flew off and got away.
My
gran
was heartbroken. But the budgie was quite clever – it had flown back to the aviary we’d bought it from. Don’t forget it was only 500 yards to Platt Fields from where we lived and we managed to retrieve it for her. My
gran
was ecstatic and I remember the smile on her face.
It wasn’t long afterwards that she died, which was a body blow to us all. She actually died sat on the toilet in our house on a rainy afternoon – can you believe that? So by now I’d seen two people die in our house and I was still only seventeen.
*
When I was fourteen or fifteen Chris and I used to play for a local team called
Parkfield
Rovers. Every Sunday we would meet up in a barber’s shop on
seater
coach for our games because nobody owned a car in those days. We never used to train during the week, just turn up and pay our subs. You should have seen some of the pitches we played on, you wouldn’t have put cattle on them, never mind footballers.
I started dating girls from about the age of fifteen but one great little affair was when I went to
miss,
she was very nice... in every way that you can think of! I must admit I had some beautiful girlfriends. I think being a footballer helped a lot. I remember Jimmy Elms who played for United. He often went to the Plaza with me and his girlfriend was this gorgeous sexy girl, a stunning blonde. He never made it in football but he became a very successful businessman – so well done Jimmy. Incidentally he did marry Anne, the blonde he met at the Plaza.
In one of Fred Eyre’s books he says: “If you want to know a certain girl’s name,
ask
Neil Young!” He was joking of course – I had a few but I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about me. I was a good clean-living lad!
*
I don’t think enough has been said in books over the years about Harry Godwin, City’s chief scout. He was a gem of a bloke. He’d played amateur football before the war and joined City as a scout when Les
McDowall
got the manager’s job. Joe knew how good Harry was and made him chief scout. He used to come to our house and make himself feel at home. We would all wait to get a mint off him. There must have been dozens of illustrious and successful players who first signed for the Blues because of Harry Godwin and his packet of mints! It was funny because when I signed one Thursday night at the age of fourteen, the very next week, Johnny Aston and Jimmy Murphy, the
United
coaches came round to try and sign me too. Just think I might have played for that lot.
Nah – not a chance.
I would have turned them down straightaway. As it was I simply said: “Sorry, Johnny. I’ve just signed for City.”