A Twitch on the Thread.

Phil (left) and Don Everly

This morning’s (Monday Jan 6^th 2014) Guardian has two half page obituaries – for Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers and for Eusébio da Silva Ferreira more famously known  as Eusébio the great Portuguese soccer player.  It is a sad start to 2014 and in my view a small link with a better and simpler time has been broken. When I heard of these two deaths over the weekend it was a “twitch on the thread” recalling my own teenage years of the late 50s and mid 60s when Phil & Don Everly and Eusébio were not only household names but inspirational to a whole generation and beyond.

As I read of Phil Everly’s death on Saturday I immediately thought back to my own teenage years – at the time when the Everly Brothers were at the height of their fame. They are inextricably linked with my own past. When I was about 12 I got a job delivering newspapers and saved what I was paid so that after a few weeks I could buy a fishing rod and some basic fishing equipment. I can still remember the day when I went to Mr Seed’s hardware shop just down the road from where I lived in Preston to buy my fishing gear. The weeks of that summer and several years after that were filled with endless (and usually totally fruitless) trips to the River Ribble in Preston or to the Lancaster Canal in the hope of catching some super fish. Despite my lack of angling success I still recall those days with love. 

Eusébio in full flight

But as I became a little older I began saving again – this time for a record player. All the teenagers of the late 50s and early 60s were getting them and I wanted one too. My auntie chipped in and when I was 15 I went to the local shop on New Hall Lane and I can remember paying what seemed at the time a huge amount of money - about £12 - for a Dansette Record Player. I carried it home and it sat for the next 4 or 5  years in the corner of our living room and was played to death – first with rock and roll from the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and the rest and later with the early records of the Beatles. When I went off to teacher training college in 1965 my Dansette  went with me and sat in my room at college. It was part of my history and marked my changing life and musical tastes as the Beatles, the Stones, the Animals, the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Walker Brothers took over from the Everlys, Buddy Holly, Brenda Lee, Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran.

Exactly like my old Dansette

But it had a specific connection with the Everly Brothers.  On that first day when I bought the record player in 1960 I didn’t have a single record to play on it  so I went out and bought one. I walked into the record shop in Preston and paid, I think, 17/6 (about 85p), and came out the proud owner of the LP I had long wanted: The Fabulous Style of the Everly Brothers. In the months and years that followed as my record collection grew so too did my collection of Everly Brothers recordings – Ebony Eyes, Cathie’s Clown, Walk Right Back, Crying in the Rain............ . The Everly Brothers more than any other pop stars of the time summed up my teenage years. When I read of Phil Everly’s death at the weekend it seemed to me that just a small piece of my own life died with him. I’m sure that many of my age across the world will feel the same.

The sound of the Everly Brothers was unique and instantly recognisable. But it was the words too. Looking back from these early years of the 21^st century they might sound twee and outdated to modern ears, but, as I commented to Pat yesterday as we listened to the old songs on our modern stereo system, “They don’t write songs like that anymore” . It is, perhaps, not an inappropriate social comment to observe that what the Everly’s sang about – young love, broken hearts, teenage hopes and fears in many ways moulded people of my generation. It told us how to behave and what to expect when setting out on the course of young love! I contrast this with today’s offerings – Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and the rest which send very different messages about lust, promiscuity and sex. And there is another aspect which the great Art Garfunkel referred to when he spoke about the Everly Brothers: “the brothers' harmonising taught me” said Garfunkel "that every syllable can shine......They were Kentucky guys with beautiful, perfect-pitch harmonies and great diction. All those vowels and consonants, those s's and t's, every one of them killed me....". He was not wrong – listen to the Everly’s (and indeed to other singers of that era like Buddy Holly or Brenda Lee) and even though to English ears we can recognise their American accent every word is clear, every syllable and consonant formed. The hidden message we were getting when we listened to them was reinforcing the importance of clarity of speech. Listen to the Platters sing one of their greats such as “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”  and every word is beautifully formed and crystal clear – the grunting of rappers and pop stars  of today is largely indecipherable. 

The first record I ever bought

When Pat and I put on TV today we invariably put on the sub titles – especially if we are watching an American film or a British drama. We don’t need the sub titles because we are deaf but rather because it is so often impossible to understand what the actors are mumbling so poor is their diction. Of course, they might argue that this is “real speak” – they are  reflecting how society today speaks - but that seems to me to be a chicken and egg situation. If the great and the good, the celebrities and stars, the shakers and movers, the actors and the singers speak badly then what have we lesser mortals got to copy? As I have quoted in blogs before we have, as a society, become increasingly inarticulate and uncaring in our use of language and its resultant implication. Only this morning I received an e-mail which said: “Ill be sendin are letter soon”  Forget the missed apostrophe in “I’ll”, forget the missed “g” in “sending” but clearly the sender is unaware if the difference between “our” and “are” – or he doesn’t care. Whichever way there is an increasing lack of value placed up clear pronunciation, vocabulary and the written word. This inarticulacy then leads to a shortcoming of thought and has profound implications.  As Tony Judt so well said: "Poor expression belies poor thought. Confused words suggest confused ideas. There is now a glib popular articulacy based upon shoddy prose, speech and quality of argument and when words lose their integrity  then so do the ideas they express." The Everly Brothers were never guilty of this.  The legendary Nashville guitarist Chet Atkins was one of their earliest supporters."One thing that impressed me when I met those kids was that they were so intelligent," Atkins said - "Don and Phil used correct English and I just thought they were a cut above ... intellectually and educationally." The man is right.

Pat off to the end of term ball at
Christmas 1966 -with my Dansette
player just visible on the table!

The music from that time in the late 50s and early 60s was captivating for most of us because it was beyond our reach, heard in snatches on crackling  Radio Luxembourg or on a juke box in a cafe or, for increasing numbers of us, on our Dansette record players - that was what made it so precious. These sounds, which came mostly from across the Atlantic, were beguiling and slightly exotic. They spoke of a largely unknown and exciting world – far off America - and teenage years and young love - but we could all relate to it.  When the Everlys sang in their Kentucky “twang” “Whenever I want you all I have to do is dream.....”  or when Buddy Holly’s Tex-Mex music told us in his “...well, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.....”  or Eddie Cochran’s mid western tongue promised us that “... there are three steps to heaven....”  we all imagined and dreamed and knew what it was about.  No doubt the quality of today's recordings are technically far superior, but at the time, and still today, I preferred to have music in my dreams, not in my face. To listen to the Everlys sing something like “Devoted to You” or "Crying in the Rain"  and be able to hear and understand the words sung and sentiments espoused with clarity and sincerity – even if the accent is from the mid-west or Texas or Kentucky – was part of our growing up. It was a kind of rite of passage on the way to adulthood.

The words and the sentiments were the important thing – no need for the obscene “twerking” of Miley Cyrus or the bizarre videos of Lady Gaga or the Neanderthal grunting of rappers or baseball capped youths – it was the words, the ideas, the thoughts and the musical harmonies that mattered.

The second LP I bought!

And, in the UK, it was the Dansette record player that made much of this possible. Dansette was the brainchild of a family long involved in the production of gramophones and radios. Morris Margolin had come to London in the 1920s – a refugee from Russia. He had established a small business in the East End selling gramophones and radios but it was not until the mid 1950s that things took off. His grandson Samuel was offered a new lightweight and compact record changing system from a company in Birmingham. Samuel saw the potential – the increasing interest in recorded “pop” in the post war years and especially the growing teenage culture and rock and roll music gave Samuel an idea.  The record changer could be easily fitted into a small suitcase size box with a speaker. Samuel travelled along the south coast of England visiting stores and shops to drum up trade. He was not wrong. The new record players sold like hot cakes – in 1952 you could have your own portable music machine for just £11 guineas. By the time I bought mine it had gone up a bit and there were several models to choose from – some with legs which were small pieces of furniture, others like mine which had a carrying handle and could be easily transported. And transported they were – to parties, to new homes, to youth clubs and in my case to a new life in Nottingham  when I went to teacher training college. Over those years the music changed; the Everly Brothers gave way to the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones - but throughout my three years at college my Dansette was played and played and played and it all began with that first LP –The Fabulous Style of the Everly Brothers – the first record to play on my Dansette. And so, when I read of the death of Phil Everly, I was reminded of another oft quoted pop lyric: “The day the music died.........”

And the same thought would also apply to the other of today’s obituaries  - that of Eusébio. A wonderful football player,  a great sportsman and an even greater human being. Still regarded as one of the game’s true greats – he always features in the top ten and always near the top. Born in very humble circumstances in Mozambique he was spotted as a player with potential and enlisted by the great Portuguese side Benfica.  During his professional career, he scored 733 goals in 745 matches.

Eusébio on a Portuguese stamp

He helped the Portuguese national team reach third place at the 1966 World Cup, being the top goalscorer of the tournament with nine goals. He won the Ballon d'Or award in 1965 and was runner-up in 1962 and 1966. He played for Benfica for 15 years and is the team's all-time top scorer with 638 goals scored in 614 official games. There, he won eleven Portuguese League titles, five Taça de Portugal titles, a European Cup and helped them reach three European Cup finals. He was the European Cup top scorer in 1965, 1966 and 1968. He also won the  Primeira Liga top scorer award  a record seven times. He was the first ever player to win the European Golden Boot, in 1968, a feat he replicated in 1973.

Although well known before it was at the 1966 World Cup in England that made Eusébio part of football’s mythology. He was the competition’s top scorer but it was his great skills and his sportsmanship and demeanour that won the hearts of all that watched. The World Cup of 1966 was probably the first to receive TV coverage in the modern sense so millions throughout the world could see the games – and they took Eusébio to their hearts. Reading one of the obituaries today it was commented that England triumphed over Portugal in the World Cup because Eusébio was "nullified" by the English defender Nobby Stiles. There is truth in that but it only tells a small part of the story. Great player though Stiles was he was a destroyer rather than a skilled footballer - he spent the whole game in bringing Eusébio crashing to the floor with a number of tackles which today would  cause Stiles to be dismissed from the pitch. Those of us watching knew this was the case and accepted that it was the task Stiles had been given - to stop Eusébio using his great skills - but we were even more impressed by the reaction of the Portuguese. He never once retaliated, never once showed any dissent, never once complained, never once did his lip curl or his lips mouth the obscenities that are now part and parcel of the sportsman's common vocabulary. He simply got up of the floor, smiled and got on with the game - how different now is the world of Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Ashley Cole and the rest. And we all recognised that this was sportsmanship of the highest order and although we were pleased that Stiles' success in sticking to the game plan had worked we also knew that Eusébio was the long term winner. We all knew that Eusébio had shown Stiles up to be what he was - a ferocious brawling and unpleasant bulldog whose only way of winning was to resort to such tactics. Although England won the World Cup and players like Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton were, and rightly, still are national heroes and treasures, it was the smiling, quietly spoken, hugely talented and humble Portuguese Eusébio that won hearts from the first kick of the Competition.

Scarves and flowers adorn his statue at the
Benfica stadium

Just as the Everly Brothers beguiled English teenagers with their promise of young love and teenage excitement, so too this unassuming but delightful and sporting black man had an air of mystery and enchantment. He was from a far off place – Mozambique – he was nicknamed the Black Panther and the Black Pearl.  His skills were awe inspiring – his shot so fierce he was said to be able to strike a ball harder than anyone in the world. His timing was perfection and as he could accelerate over a 100 yards in less than 11 seconds – even with a ball at his feet – so  he was as fast as a world class sprinter. Portugal finished third in the 1966 World Cup and as he left the pitch was seen to cry – I suspect everyone else, too, shed a silent tear with him.  Although we all wanted England to win we also wanted him to be a winner – he had been instinctively taken to the hearts of people across the world as a graceful, and charming sportsman.

Two years later Eusébio returned to England to play for Benfica against Manchester United in the final of the European Cup at Wembley. I remember the game well; Pat and I were by now engaged and we sat in the lounge at my landlady's where I lived in my last year at college to watch the game on her TV. It was the end of May 1968 and we were involved in final exams at the end of our teacher training course - we were about to enter the world of the classroom!   The score was 1 – 1, extra time was looming and then Eusébio broke through the United defence and powered down on goal. He unleashed a right foot pile driver which had goal written all over it. Somehow, however, the United keeper, Alex Stepney, got to the ball and stopped what was a certain match winner. Eusabio’s reaction? – to stand and applaud Stepney. One of the great footballing and sporting moments and something that was instantly recognised as such. There have been better saves in big matches, but there has never been a better reaction to a save. As the United goalkeeper made to throw the ball to a colleague, Eusébio, ran up to him and patted him on the back. It was a wonderful gesture. And Eusébio wasn’t done, as Stepney threw the bail upfield instead of tracking back to defend, the Portuguese forward stood there applauding him. Who was this man? He had done his bit. He had shown his appreciation, he had patted Stepney on the back. And now, just in case that was not a generous enough gesture he was clapping. This was serial sportsmanship – from a man of honour. Kenneth Wolstenholme, commentating, was as star-struck as anyone, ‘What a sportsman. Eusébio! When he could have won the match, to applaud Stepney like that!’ reported Wolstenholme, the doyen of football commentators. But it perhaps wasn’t so surprising to the millions that had watched Eusébio in the World Cup and had seen his progress at Benfica. It was just typical of a man who always played in the Corinthian spirit that, even at a critical moment of such an important match, he could still find time and the sportsmanship to put an arm around Stepney's shoulder to praise him for the save that in the end denied his club the victory. From that point on the game drifted away from Benfica and United ran out 4-1 winners. 

Nowadays football, as all sport, is shaped not by the sportsmanship and Corinthian ideals and beliefs of men like Eusébio but by conceited, unpleasant, grubby and inferior men. Eusébio’s own countrymen Jose Mourinho and Christian Ronaldo spring to mind as do England’s own foul mouthed thugs Wayne Rooney and John Terry. Sadly the list is endless.  When Eusébio at last retired he hinted at how his sport had changed. On his retirement in 1980 he became an ambassador for both Benfica and the Portugal team and although he remained enthusiastic about the prospects for football, especially in Africa, he felt that he had played during the sport’s greatest era, against players who, like him, had learned their skills in the streets with balls made from rolled-up socks or newspaper. “I respect the football of today,” he said, “but the football of my time was better. Football today is just commercial.” . In 1998, a panel of 100 experts assembled by FIFA named him in its International Football Hall of Fame as one of the sport's top 10 all-time greats. "Look, there are only two black people on the list: me and Pele," Eusébio said, "I regard that as a great responsibility because I am representing Africa and Portugal, my second homeland." Here was a man who cared and who wanted to project the best in himself, his sport, his club and his country. I far cry all this from today’s players.

The cortège passes in front of Benfica fans

And, for all those reasons,  smiling, sporting and skilful Eusébio da Silva Ferreira was loved and respected.  Although Portugal has produced many great players it is why today on the TV I have seen thousands turn up at the Benfica stadium to pay homage to the man and the footballer. His country has declared three days of national mourning to honour him. 

I wonder, will Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Miley Cyrus or Lady Gaga's passing in half a century be celebrated and marked with such affection and respect as was Eusébio's or Phil Everly's? We live today in a largely graceless and charmless world and too many of those who are in positions of power or influence are themselves both charmless and graceless and lacking in any real talent. Sadly, these people, be they celebrity cooks whose main skill appears to be the serial use of four letter words or the use of cocaine, footballers whose behaviour both on and off the pitch becomes more bizarre and offensive as each week passes, talentless pop stars whose actions and lyrics are both offensive and musically inept, public figures who have lost their ability to inspire and act in the public good. In short they are all the product of a media industry whose one criteria is commercialisation and money.

Eusébio and Phil Everly, were of a simpler time when talent meant something and when how you behaved, how you spoke, how you played, the what you said and how you projected yourself was of importance. Today's sportsmen rely upon power, athleticism, aggression and competitive instinct to win games. It has not always been thus - skill, grace, subtlety and sportsmanship were more the watchword in past ages. And in the world of entertainment the same is true; where once timing, use of the voice, thoughtful words and actions, harmony or simple musicality were the hallmark of a performer now it is largely "in your face" shallow or meaningless lyrics supported by video technology, obscene gesture and musical poverty that passes for entertainment. 

Outside the Benfica stadium. Will our current stars

get this send of in half a century - I think not for they

will not be loved as was Eusébio

When I heard the news and read the obituaries this weekend I thought back to those years of my life and remembered the people, places and events that were so important to me then - things which, although I perhaps didn't realise it at the time, became fundamental in making me what I am and what I believe in today.  So many of these are inextricably linked with the music and the football of the time - and especially with the Everlys, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and with great players like Eusébio, Bobby Moore or Bobby Charlton. I cannot think of these heroes with out also thinking of personal friends - one or two of whom have already passed away - or Bolton Palais Dance Hall on a Saturday night, or happy hours watching my own football team Preston North End, or the three wonderful years I spent at teacher training college. "Memories", as the old song goes, "are made of this".  The passing of people like Phil Everly and Eusébio da Silva Ferreira  breaks another strand in that thread to a better time when although we might not have been so materially well off as today the world was, perhaps, a safer, more sincere, simpler, less cynical, more thoughtful and, I believe, pleasanter place.