Catch A Falling Star by Neil Young, Dante Friend Read Free Book Online

We’d line up with me on the right, Waggy on the left and Waggy used to set them up for Harley on a plate.
    But Harley could be a pain in the arse. He used to turn around to Cliff Sear, a full Welsh international, and sarcastically try to coach him how to play the game. “Here Cliff, I’ll show you how to trap a ball properly,” he’d say. While we’d all be training, he’d be in the centre circle, juggling the ball and messing about. He was sold onto
Birmingham
and I think he only lasted about four months down there. I don’t think anybody could get on with him.
    Life in the second division was more relaxed. For example we used to walk around the pitch before the game. When we played at
Portsmouth
one Saturday, I stopped for five minutes to talk to a blonde, as you do! Later on we had a free kick at that end of the pitch. I loitered with intent at the side of the Pompey wall as Matt Gray took the free kick. At the moment the ball was delivered I turned round to look for the blonde when the ball hit me right on the back of the head and it flew past the ‘keeper into the back of the net! I was knocked out cold and knew very little about the goal but the Saturday Pink that night read: “Young scores 18-yard power-header!”
    So with me a seventeen-year-old on the right wing and Waggy , who was just eighteen, on the left we had the energy and legs to really go at teams in that league.
    At this stage we brought in a ‘keeper from
Stockport
County
called Alan Ogley , who used to wear contact lenses. One typically muddy day he came out for a cross, there was a clash of heads as he went up to claim the ball and one of his lenses flew out. There were ten players on their hands and knees looking for this contact lens and the game was stopped for about five minutes. In the end Alan hopped off the field and popped his spare one in. Looking back, it’s hilarious but it was anything but at the time.
    I played with some really good players at the start of my career: Ken Barnes, Peter Dobing , George Hannah, Johnny Crossan , Jimmy Murray, Derek Kevan and Bert Trautmann to name but a few. They were all class players in my eyes – Ken Barnes was the best player at wing-half never to have been capped, he was such an elegant passer of the ball. Another fine player was a boy called David Shawcross who was only nineteen years old when injury robbed us all of a true talent. He broke his leg and never recovered from that.
    I never saw Swifty but Bert Trautmann for me was the best goalkeeper ever. Not only that but he gave me a pair of his boots for my first game with City, which naturally, I treasured for years.
    Some of you may remember Derek Kevan , an excellent striker in his own right. I played one of my best jokes ever on him. We were getting changed in
Chelsea
’s dressing room and when he went to the toilet I took his false teeth out of his pocket and kept them. When we finished the game he went absolutely mad. He went all over the place looking for them, emptying bins, the big kit basket, but he couldn’t find them. On the journey home, we were on the train about to have our meal when I got the waiter to bring him some soup. Floating in the soup were Derek’s false teeth. We were in stitches! But he was so relieved he bought everyone a drink!
    There were laughs and I scored some goals, I was learning my trade. We had some good kids in the shape of Mike Doyle, Alan Oakes and Glyn Pardoe knocking on the door. However we were struggling in the second division and as a club we were in turmoil.
    In 1965 things changed though with the arrival of Joe Mercer, a true gentleman and a legend as City manager.
    I had met Joe two years before at a Lilleshall training camp and he had singled me out with an award which had me bursting with pride – ‘Player of the Week’. What impressed me so much about Joe was that he was a thinker. He would explain things to you as you walked round the pitch together, then two weeks later, his