Banksy by Gordon Banks Read Free Book Online Page A

remember the three of us waiting one day on the outskirts of the city for the Chesterfield team coach to pick us up and take us on to a Central League game at Manchester City. I hadn’t played that many games for the reserves and, at the time, was still awestruck whenever I came across a player who had been a boyhood hero of mine.
    As we waited for the team bus, I looked across the road and was amazed to see the former Sheffield United goalkeeper Ted Burgin, walking by on the opposite side. My eyes were on stalks – Burgin had been a real idol of my youth. On my rare visits to Bramall Lane, I used to marvel at his heroics in goal for United and, though I was now a pro myself, seeing him so close up made me weak at the knees. Browny called his old team mate over. I was amazed at Browny’s easy familiarity with someone I had accorded hero status. Browny introduced us and I addressed Ted as ‘Mr Burgin’, which induced laughter on the part of my team mates and a wry smile from Ted himself. Suddenly, my mouth went dry and I couldn’t think of anything sensible to say.
    There was little if any coverage of football on television in those days, only marginally more on radio, so consequently you rarely heard a footballer speak. My impression of Burgin was derived solely from watching him from the terraces. ThoughBurgin was a Sheffield lad, for some reason I was surprised that he had a local accent. What sort of accent I expected him to have, I don’t know. But having thought of him as something of a god, certainly not a south Yorkshire accent like mine. Though still in awe of him, I was struck by the sheer ordinariness of the man. He reminded me of the cheery man from the Pru who called at our house once a week to collect the one-and-six life insurance money Mam and Dad paid, so that, when the time came, they could be given, as Mam would say, ‘a decent send off’.
    Having met Burgin, he was no less my hero in terms of his expertise as a goalkeeper, but from that moment I saw him in a totally different light – an ordinary bloke on his way to the fish and chip shop.
    At that moment, at the side of a road in a village on the outskirts of my home city, it came to me that footballers were mere mortals. I would have no more perfect heroes. It would be an exaggeration to say that my age of innocence was over, though I did sense that something from my childhood had died.
    After a while Browny, Hutch and I decided to travel to Chesterfield by train. This was usually more convenient, but on one occasion it put us in hot water with our new manager, Duggie Livingstone. We used a local service that always departed from the same platform, but on the day in question we found it wasn’t there. I asked a platform attendant and he directed us to a train on another platform. Browny and Hutch felt uneasy about this departure from the norm, and on seeing the same platform attendant again, to allay their fears, I pulled down the carriage window and asked for confirmation that we were Chesterfield bound. No problem – this was the right one. On the outskirts of Chesterfield the train began to slow down. We gathered our bags only to stand dumbfounded as it started to pick up speed just outside the station. Panic set in as we watched the station flash by.
    The train did eventually come to a halt. At Derby. We jumpedout as if it were on fire and raced for the nearest telephone. By now it was twenty to three. I rang the club and heard the voice of our trainer, George Milburn, brother of the legendary Newcastle centre forward, Jackie Milburn, uncle of Bobby and Jack Charlton. Not a man to mince his words. When we told him where we were, George told us what we were. He ended the brief conversation by telling us to take a taxi to the ground. It was twenty minutes to three and I knew even if Stirling Moss himself turned out to be the driver, there was no way a taxi would get us to Saltergate in time for us to play against Everton.
    We eventually