“Those whom the Gods love.........”

I’ve been away from blogging for a week or two, my time being taken up with footballing matters. In my other life I am secretary of an under 19 football league in this area of the country and this time of year is busy – getting ready for next season - although we are only just over half way through this one! But, now, as they used to say on TV in the 1950s and 60s, “Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible” - back to blogging – but with a football theme!

Bobby Moore with his adoring fans - he had it all!

Last week my daughter in law rang to discuss what birthday present would be suitable for one of our grandchildren. Sam is five in a few weeks time and it was agreed that we would buy him the football kit that he wanted. So Ruth was off down to Reading Football Club – the local team – to buy the said kit on our behalf. Sam, I knew, would have the “real thing”, bought at the stadium and complete with his name emblazoned on the back of the shirt. I know that he will be delighted!

My hero, Duncan Edwards and the
picture I showed to my mother
 - not knowing that in a week
or so he would be dead.

And as the matter was discussed my mind went back over half a century. I can still picture exactly the pride I felt when I was about thirteen and I walked down the street in my Manchester United shirt. Of course, it wasn’t the real thing – this was before clubs began selling their own merchandise – my mother had made it on her old Singer treadle sewing machine with a bit of old red material she had. It wasn’t even the right shade of red – maroon rather than the vibrant United red. It didn’t have the white trim that the real thing had – just plain red. But, and this was important, it did have a “V” neck and short sleeves – even back then Manchester united were style setters - and it was just like (at least to my eyes) the one worn by my hero Duncan Edwards. My mother had cut an old piece of white material (probably one of my dad’s shirts!) to make a number six which she had stitched on the back – just like Duncan Edwards! I know that for a few weeks at least I was envied by my friends. Of course, I didn’t have the rest of the kit there was no way we could have afforded that, but that didn’t matter – the red United number 6 shirt was the thing!

Edwards the hope of a generation

I know that I was thirteen when I walked proudly down the street in my home made shirt because I know it was 1958 and the great “Busby Babes” were becoming footballing legends. The team of Charlton, Taylor, Colman, Edwards, Byrne, Whelan, Pegg, Foulkes. Viollet. Scanlon and the rest . The talented young team “home grown” by manager Matt Busby , not bought superstars, were fast being recognised as the greatest team produced in England . Each month I pooled any pennies and bought a copy of the football magazine popular at the time Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly and in mid February the March edition came out. On the front was a picture of my hero, Duncan Edwards, in the new kit. I showed it to my mother and asked if she could make me a shirt – I knew that buying one was out of the question. Little did I know as I walked down the street in my home made shirt that within a few days it would all end in tragedy – the plane carrying United home from a game in Belgrade crashed at Munich and many young men lost their lives. I can still remember the night dark tea time when the news came through and people stood on their doorsteps talking in whispers as they listened to the radio or the few that had a TV watched it for news. The greatest of the Babes, the young Duncan Edwards, my hero (and of thousands of other little boys) - survived the immediate aftermath of the crash but died a couple of weeks later of his injuries. What a strange and dreadful irony that Edwards should appear on the cover of the March edition of the football magazine but by the time March came he was dead.

The stained glass window in Edwards'
 church in Dudley

I had seen Edwards play only once – these were the days before wall to wall TV coverage of games – but Edwards’ reputation was going before him by word of mouth and newspaper reports. I can still remember the day when I saw him play in November 1957 when almost 40,000 squashed into Deepdale, Preston’s ground. United were already top of the Division and would go on to win the Championship. Preston finished third that year and on that day the game ended as a 1-1 draw. The local paper had been full of it for days – the Busby Babes were coming in a top of the table clash between United and Preston. But there was probably even more press coverage given to the fact that Duncan Edwards was expected to play – he was the player everyone wanted to see – and play he did. I remember going to the game with my friend Tony Clarkson. We pushed our way to the front to sit on the cinder track in front of the great crowd and on the very edge of pitch (as was the fashion for children in those days). I don’t remember much of the game – it was Duncan Edwards that I had come to see. I was not alone – I’m sure that the majority of the Preston fans there had come to see this young colossus. At the end of the game at 4.40 pm (in those days there was only a 10 minute half time and 4.40 was when games finished – none of the nonsense of today when they can drag on and on because of stoppage time)  we both ran. We had newspapers to deliver at 5 o’clock. As I collected my Saturday evening “first post”/early edition round from Joe Unsworth’s newsagents (and got a telling off from Joe for being late!) the headlines were still of the upcoming visit by United and Edwards – they had been printed prior to the game. But by the time that I took my second round – the “Football Post” - just after 6 o’clock the match report was there and the photograph on the front of the paper was not of the goal scorers it was of Duncan Edwards! I walked around the streets reading the report and knowing that I had seen what we would call today a superstar – but to me, and thousands like me, he was a true hero. Everyone, then and since, were united - this young player (he was 21 when he died) was the greatest ever produced in this country and would be a future England captain. Sir Matt Busby, the United Manager said of him ‘I rate Duncan Edwards the most complete footballer in Britain – perhaps the World.’ He was a Colossus. Whatever was needed, he had it. He was immensely powerful. He was prodigiously gifted in the arts and crafts of the game. His temperament was perfect. His confidence was supreme and infectious. No opponent was too big or too famous for Duncan. A wing-half, he could have been a great centre-half, or a great forward striker. He would have been one of the great leaders with his sheer inspiration. If there was ever a player who could be called a one-man team, that man was Duncan Edwards. His death, as far as football is concerned, was the single biggest tragedy that has happened to England and Manchester United. He was then, and has always remained to me incomparable.

Edwards' grave - still
visited today

We looked at Duncan right from the start and we gave up trying to find flaws in his game. (Remember – this was Edwards when he was just 16 years old). Nothing could stop him and nothing unnerved him. The bigger the occasion the better he liked it. While other players would be pacing up and down the dressing room, rubbing their legs, doing exercises, and looking for a way to pass time, Duncan was always very calm. He was a good type of lad too – polite, well mannered, never flashy, never needing to be disciplined. Duncan didn’t want to know about the high life. He just wanted to go home or to his digs. He just lived for the game of football – that was his real strength taking it all calmly and sensibly. He was what every father would want for a son......’

I can still remember that February teatime - Gary Clarkson, Tony Clarkson and I were playing football in the dark street, our game lit by the street lamps – me shivering in my short sleeved home made shirt. Front doors opened and the news of the crash began to leak out and our game ended. Tony and Gary's mum, Marion, told us of the air crash and we asked just one question as tears filled our eyes: "What about Duncan Edwards? We sat round our little TV and watched as, over the next few hours, the names of the victims and survivors slowly came through. Edwards seemed to cling to life but in the end he succumbed - I can still remember the lunch time fifteen days later when Mr Bamber, the PE teacher at school, stood in a hushed dining hall and spoke just four words to us “Big Duncan has gone”, and I remember well the tears that were shed that hour. Today, those of my generation, when asked who is or was the greatest footballer ever, will unhesitatingly respond “Duncan Edwards” . Many, like me, through rheumy eyes will follow this by quietly and proudly saying “I only saw him play once – but that was enough to know”. And all who saw Edwards play would agree with that and the verdict of Edwards’ playing companion Bobby Charlton: “He was incomparable, a colossus .....If I had to play for my life and could take only one man with me, it would be Duncan Edwards.” Truly, "they, whom the God’s love, die young!”

The Fib!

As I listened to Pat discussing Sam’s birthday present with Ruth I idly thought how times have changed over the years – today a home-made shirt would, I suspect, be a source of fun and ridicule for any child. Of course, it has always been so to a degree. Whilst thinking about my shirt and that February night in 1958 I thought back to the vast number of times over the past 40 years when I have read to children the wonderful George Layton short story “The Fib”. Anyone who hasn’t read this has missed a treat – one of the great “growing up” stories. It tells of the young George who grows up in Manchester at the same time I was growing up. He is useless at football and dislikes it but has to take part at school. He wears an old kit , far too big for him – his mother cannot afford anything else - and is ridiculed by the other boys because of his lack of skill and his old fashioned kit. In desperation, he tells a “fib” – that the kit once belonged to his uncle – who, he says, is Bobby Charlton the great Manchester United and England footballer. Of course, as the tale goes on the “fib” begins to unravel – but it all ends happily when Bobby Charlton turns up and rescues George. It’s a tale of growing up, of doing the right thing (as Charlton does in the story), of hero worship and of the need to be recognised and valued amongst your friends. It is, in short one of the tales I would hope every child will read – boy or girl. Sam will get a copy when he is a little older!

Moore with the World Cup

And, as I thought about all this, I flicked through my newspaper – and on the sports pages there was a report on a big game that had taken place the previous evening – West Ham United against Tottenham Hotspur. Although the report of the game was full an equal amount of column inches were devoted (as it was on the TV and in other newspapers) to something else that took place at the game – the commemoration of West Ham’s greatest player and the England captain Bobby Moore who died 20 years ago last week. In the crowd his name was picked out in huge letters “Moore” and underneath it “6” – his shirt number. In his memory West Ham no longer use the number 6 on their shirts – only the great Moore was entitled to it. Number six – the same shirt number of Duncan Edwards!

Moore was England’s captain when we won the World Cup in 1966. He was, like Edwards, a colossus on the field of play. Not only was he the consummate footballer, he was good looking, gentle and a gentleman. He was all that so many of our sportsmen today are not. We have heard so much in recent years and weeks of the failings and lack of integrity of so many celebrity sportsmen that we hardly now notice it and worse forgive their crass attitudes and behaviour simply because they are, allegedly, "sportsmen". I can only assume that these people simply would not have understood Moore or Edwards and their outlook on life.

Moore shakes hand with the
Preston captain Nobby Lawton
before the 1964 Cup Final.
I was in the crowd

Like Duncan Edwards I saw Moore play only once in real life – in the 1964 Cup Final at Wembley when West Ham played my team Preston. As with Duncan Edwards that one opportunity to see Moore was enough to know that here was a player who was on a different level not only as a player but as a human being.  Many say that Final was one of the great finals and West Ham broke Preston hearts when they scored their winner with what was virtually the last kick of the game. Despite being bitterly disappointed – we had matched them throughout the game and the result could just as easily been a victory for Preston – I also knew I had seen a great team and a very great player. A year later I watched our little black and white TV as West Ham won the European Cup Winners Cup beating TSV Munich 2-0. I can vividly remember being overawed at Moore’s command – he was, it seemed to my 20 year old eyes almost god like. A year later, as England captain, he proudly lifted the World Cup for England as they beat Germany in the Final at Wembley – he could, it seemed almost walk on water.

Moore shakes hands with the Queen
- having wiped them on the table cloth!

It was at the end of that Final that one of the great footballing and sporting moments of history occurred - and which gave an insight into to the man. Something, which, I believe, players of today would have difficulty with. In the heady excitement of the victory, with a hundred thousand people in the stadium and millions throughout the world shouting and cheering, when Moore, like every other player in the pitch, was exhausted and on a high he climbed the Wembley steps leading his team to receive the Cup – the greatest footballing trophy in the world. As he approached the Queen and held out his hands to receive the Cup he stopped momentarily. He noticed that the Queen was wearing white gloves – immediately, he bent down and wiped his muddy hands on the table cloth so that he did not dirty her gloves. Such was the man – the perfect embodiment of Rudyard Kipling’s “If”: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..........If you can walk with kings and not lose the common touch......” What a far cry, indeed, from the obscenities, anger, scowling faces and mindlessness that occurs on Premiership pitches today.

One of the other members of the World Cup team and a fellow West Ham player, Martin Peters, said of Moore "He could do anything........He got a few goals every now and again, and he was a great defender. He knew exactly what he wanted to do,......He was just a wonderful, wonderful player....... I never saw him lose his temper or really have a go at anybody. If he wanted to say something, he'd take you to one side and have a little chat in your ear. Then you would know what you had to do. But he wouldn't shout at anyone, he wasn't like that, he was calm and collected. The quality of him, you just knew by the way he played and the way he acted that he was a quality man not only in football but in life as well. He'll never be forgotten."

Twenty years after his death - he, and his shirt,
 are still remembered

Moore was universally adored – not just because he was a great footballer – which he was – but because of what he represented – he inspired others to be like him. He didn’t play for the greatest team in the land – West Ham were a pretty average side, he didn’t make headline news on a continual basis, he didn’t appear on every TV show to be interviewed – but he was loved and seen as something to aspire to. He showed us the best of what we are capable. Like the great American golfer Bobby Jones he was idolized by people who had no interest in sport – because of the person he was not what he did. Like Jones in golf, Moore became, and remained until the day of his death, the “First Gentleman of Football'. He was the sort of sportsman, hero and celebrity that we have lost. Alistair Cooke described Jones as '...kind and genial, without affectation to friends and strangers; and always looking out for the shy one in the corner.' One could write the same words about Moore - he was loved, admired and respected firstly for his qualities as a human being and only secondly for his sporting prowess – people wanted to be like him because of the virtues he displayed not for his stardom - a very far cry from how we perceive our heroes today. Every mother, I am sure, hoped her daughter would marry a Booby Moore; every father wanted his son to grow up like Bobby Moore - not because he was a great footballer but because he was a great man. Duncan Edwards was developing the same reputation when ice covered an aeroplane's wings ended his life.

West Ham win the Cup Winners'
 Cup in 1965

But for Moore, in footballing terms maybe the best was to come – not in terms of winning more trophies, for Moore that was largely over, but in a split second in 1970. In that year England again played in the World Cup Finals – in Mexico – and they played the mighty Brazil – who probably had the finest team the world had ever seen – before or since. It was the team of Carlos Alberto, Pele, Gérson, Jairzinho, Rivelino, and Tostão. Apart from being a wonderful game in which both teams were superb it is remembered for two moments that became football history. One, was the save that England goalkeeper Gordon Banks made from Pele – the world’s greatest player - and which is often referred to as the greatest save ever made. And the other event was Bobby Moore’s tackle on the Brazilian forward Jairzinho as he broke thought the England defence. Again, like the Banks' save, regarded as the finest ever made. It was a defining moment for Moore, it had such precision and cleanliness that it has been described then and now as the perfect tackle. It sealed his place in footballing history – the colossus who will calmly, coolly, skilfully and honestly step in and rescue you. Brazil deservedly won the game 1–0 and as the final whistle went Moore swapped shirts with Pelé the world’s greatest defender and the world’s greatest forward together in mutual a respect.

Moore and Pele at the end of the
great England  v Brazil game in 1970

On Moore’s death the great Pele said this: “Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pelé. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man. Bobby Moore — he defended like a lord. Let me tell you about this man. When I played, I would face up to a defender, I would beat him with my eyes, send him the wrong way; I would look one way and then go the other. Defenders would just kick me in frustration. They would foul me because they couldn't stop me, or because I would confuse them with my movement. I would move my eyes, my legs or my body, but not always the ball. They would follow my move, but not Bobby, not ever. He would watch the ball, he would ignore my eyes and my movement and then, when he was ready and his balance was right, he would take the ball, always hard, always fair. He was a gentleman and an incredible footballer”.

“I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man” - sadly, I cannot think of one single sportsman or woman – and certainly not a footballer – who could or would use Pele’s words today! Bobby Moore, like Pele, lived up to his image, responsibilities and role every day of his life.

Duncan Edwards' statue - and
the number six shirt again 

Bobby Moore died of cancer twenty years ago last week – at the young age of 51. He epitomised all that was best in sport and in football – not what passes for these two things today. He, like Duncan Edwards before him, made real to the old saying from the Greek myths “Those whom the gods love die young” – the gods take them to live amongst them in heaven! On 28 June 1993 his memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey, attended by all the other members of the 1966 World Cup Team. He was only the second sportsman to be so honoured, the first being the great West Indian cricketer Sir Frank Worrell.

And, as I thought about Moore, I thought about how our heroes have changed. I thought about what Pele called his great responsibility (a thing that Moore would have understood completely), about how Moore displayed himself on and off the field, about his number 6 shirt, about my home made Manchester United shirt, about Duncan Edwards, about the oft quoted view that had Edwards not died at Munich then he would have captained England and picked up the World Cup rather than Bobby Moore. I was reminded of Moore’s England manager, Sir Alf Ramsey, when England won the World Cup saying of Moore “My captain, my leader, my right-hand man. He was the spirit and the heartbeat of the team. A cool, calculating footballer I could trust with my life”. And, I thought of another comment – that of his manager at West Ham and the man who coached his young talent - Ron Greenwood who said of Moore: “Ask me to talk about Bobby Moore the footballer and I will talk for days. Ask me about the man and I will dry up in a minute – he was what you wanted all men to be and what we all want to be." And, on the plinth under the statue of Bobby Moore at Wembley stadium are inscribed the words: “Finest legend of West Ham United. National Treasure. Master of Wembley. Lord of the game. Captain extraordinary. Gentleman of all time."

"Gentleman of all time"

The fact that Moore’s death is still remembered, as it was last week, is undeniably because of his characteristics as a person as well as a footballer – he engendered huge respect from ordinary people. He was looked up to as a person. It was the same with Duncan Edwards – his early death denied sport of a huge talent but it denied sport and ordinary people, too, of a model to aspire to. Maybe that is why Edwards’ grave in his home town of Dudley is still visited by people wishing to pay their respects to a twenty-one year old who died well over half a century ago – he, like Moore, was the person we would all like to be.

Guardian sports writer Hugh McIlvanney said this of Moore on the announcement of his death: Amid the coarsening of spirit that has been manifest in this country over the past couple of decades, there is a measure of reassurance in finding so much of the nation so deeply affected by the death of Bobby Moore. It is impossible to doubt the spontaneity of grief felt by millions whose intimacy with the man was no greater than could be developed through watching him from the terraces of a football ground or on a television screen. Wherever people gathered  there was a pervasive sense of loss, an unforced emotion that suggested many had been taken unawares by the depth of their feelings. It was exactly the same when Edwards died so young and so tragically - the wider world not just the world of football grieved, for everyone knew that we had lost more than a footballer we had lost a great human being -  someone who had all the human qualities  that  we would all like our sons and daughters to have.

And I thought about this as I thought on Sam’s birthday present. I don’t expect Sam will be another footballing great – a Booby Moore or Duncan Edwards – but we can always dream! I’m tempted to give Ruth a ring and tell her to get a Number 6 printed on the back of the shirt – that would be a bit of nostalgia and sentimentalism for Grampy! But whether or not Sam turns out to be a good player (as his Dad, my son John, is) is totally irrelevant. Much more important to me is that he turns out like Moore and Edwards - as Pele said “a man........a gentleman” - someone that as Ron Greenwood said “we all want to be”.