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| Ken Aston Referee Society ~ Football Encyclopedia Bible |
Schoolboy Football
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| Source - References |
| In the 18th century football
was played by most of Britain's leading public schools. There is
documentary evidence that football was played at Eton as early as 1747.
Westminster started two years later. Harrow, Shrewsbury, Winchester and
Charterhouse had all taken up football by the 1750s. After the passing of the 1867 Reform Act, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe, remarked that the government would now "have to educate our masters." As a result of this view, the government passed the 1870 Education Act. This move rapidly increased the growth of state education and most of these new schools provided fields for the boys to play football. Some of England's oldest football clubs were established by friends who played football at school. In 1875 Blackburn Rovers was founded by young men who had played football at Shrewsbury School, Clitheroe Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. The amount of football played at school depended on the male staff. For example, James Allan, an avid supporter of football, arrived in Sunderland from Scotland to teach at Hendon Board School in 1877. He had developed an interest in football while at Glasgow University and encouraged the boys at the school to play the game. He also did what he could to persuade other schools in the city to follow his example. In October 1879, he helped establish the Sunderland and District Teachers' Association Football Club. The captain was Robert Singleton, the headmaster of Gray School in Sunderland. In 1881 it was decided to open-up club membership to non-teachers. As a result the club changed its name to Sunderland Association Football Club. As the author of Sunderland: The Official History points out: "The club was formed not by shipbuilders or miners, but by school teachers, local school master James Allan having taken the initiative in organizing such a venture. More surprisingly still, the teachers not only formed the club, but made up the entire team too, and the club's original name - Sunderland and District Teachers' Association Football Club - reflected this." Archie Hunter was another Scotsman who did a great deal to encourage young boys to play football. Hunter moved to Birmingham in search of work in August, 1878. Soon afterwards he was training young men to play football at Aston Villa. He had learnt the game at school in Ayr. As he explained in his autobiography: " It wasn't long before I was playing football at school with the other lads; but football in those days was very different to what it is now or ever will be again. There were no particular rules and we played pretty much as we liked; but we thought we were playing the Rugby game, of course, because the Association hadn't started then. It didn't matter as long as we got goals; and besides, we only played with one another, picking sides among ourselves and having friendly matches in the playground. Such as it was though, I got to like the game immensely, and I spent as much time as I could kicking the leather." The captain of Aston Villa at that time was another Scotsman, George Ramsay. Hunter and Ramsay introduced what was known as the "passing game". This was the main style used in Scotland whereas in England most teams relied on what was known as the "dribbling game". As Graham McColl pointed out in his book, Aston Villa: 1874-1998: "It was a style of play modeled on that which was prevalent in Scotland at the time which was prevalent in Scotland at the time and which had been pioneered by Queen's Park, the Glasgow side. This type of sophisticated teamwork had rarely been employed in England. Instead, individuals would try to take the ball as far as they could on their own until stopped by an opponent." In 1885 the South London Schools FA was founded. Other associations were established in other industrial areas and in May 1890, the Sheffield Schools played London Schools for the first time. In 1892 Brighton Schools FA was formed with membership of 22 schools and games were played on Preston Park on Saturday mornings. In order to encourage boys playing football in schools the Football Association decided to organize schoolboy games to take place before important senior games. In 1894 over 37,000 fans at Goodison Park saw schoolboys from Manchester and Sheffield play a match before that year's FA Cup final between Notts County and Bolton Wanderers. Ernest Needham, the captain of Sheffield United and England did a lot to promote football in schools. In 1902 he published a coaching manual entitled Association Football. He pointed out: "Too many youths and men play football to obtain exercise, but this is quite wrong: exercise should, nay, must precede match football, or harm from exposure and over-straining is bound to ensue. Still more, the untrained man blunders about the football field, throwing himself blindly into danger, and proving a frequent source of accident to himself and others." The first schools international fixture was played between England and Wales at Walsall in 1907. Four years later England played their first game against Scotland in Newcastle. Scotland had a long tradition of producing good young footballers. This was especially true of coalmining areas. Matt Busby, the son of a miner, lived in Bellshill as a boy. At that time, Alex James and Hughie Gallacher, also lived in the same mining village. As Busby pointed out in his autobiography, Soccer at the Top: "I was as football daft as any of the boys in the village of Bellshill, and dafter than most, and we had our idols already. There were two young fellows called Alex James and Hughie Gallacher, for instance. They would be about eighteen or nineteen, I suppose, I about nine or ten." The small mining village of Glenbuck also had a reputation for producing good footballers. The village school did not have a football team so the boys played for local junior clubs. As Bill Shankly pointed out: "We played football in the playground, of course, and sometimes we got a game with another school, but we never had an organized school team. It was too small a school. If we played another school we managed to get some kind of strip together, but we played in our shoes." Despite only having a population of around a 1,000 people, Glenbuck produced near fifty professional footballers in a sixty year period. During the early part of the 20th century the following boys moved from Glenbuck to England to play professional football: Robert Blyth, William Blyth, William Muir, Alex Brown, George Halley, John Crosbie, Sandy Tait, Sandy Brown, Alec McConnell, Bill Shankly, John Shankly, Bob Shankly, Jimmy Shankly and Alec Shankly. Although none of these boys represented their country at schoolboy level, six of them were later selected to play for the Scotland senior team Young boys began organizing their own football matches. In the 1920s Joe Mercer and Stan Cullis played in the streets of Ellesmere Port. Mercer later pointed out: "Back alley football is only a substitute for the real thing. We always have to right for bigger and better playing fields for children. But, all the same, the back alleys did hold some valuable lessons of their own. For instance, playing with a small ball. If you could control a small hall with certainty, you found later that bringing down a normal ball came more easily. It was wonderful training for the eye." Joe Mercer and Stan Cullis both played for Cambridge Road School and Ellesmore Port Boys but were never considered for the England Schoolboys team. However, they did attract interest from Football League clubs and Mercer signed for Everton whereas Cullis joined Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wilf Mannion, who lived in the industrial area of South Bank near Middlesbrough. Mannion loved playing football on the waste ground (puddling) in South Bank. He later recalled: "We played all the ruddy time - morning, noon and night. You might see the police inspector coming in the distance and that might make you stop but not much else did. We'd play with anything: cans, rag balls, we'd even get a pig's bladder from the butchers and if you could control that, you were a ruddy genius. And we'd play on anything, the puddling most, though, because it was playable all year round. It was bumpy, but that did not bother us." Wilf Mannion was a talented inside-forward and at the age of 13 he travelled to Durham for a North versus the Midlands trial for England Schoolboys. His teammates included Johnny Spuhler and Jimmy Hagan. Mannion, who was only 4ft 2in tall, was told afterwards: "You were marvelous, but I'm sorry to say that they won't pick you because you're too small and they're afraid you might get hurt." Raich Carter was another small boy but was selected to play for England schoolboys against Wales on 23rd April 1927, he played for England schoolboys against Wales. Carter, the smallest boy on the pitch, was only 13 years and four months old at the time. Also in the England team that day was Alf Young. Carter was a great success and he retained his place in the team the following year. |
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Stanley Matthews was another player whose talent was recognized when he
was still at school. He played for England schoolboys against Wales when
he was only 13 years old. In his autobiography, The Way It Was, Matthews
described his feelings about playing in the game: "When I ran down the
tunnel for the first time in an England shirt, I was bursting with
pride. The first sensation as the team emerged into the light was the
noise of the supporters who had packed into the Dean Court ground. There
must have been nigh on 20,000 there, which was far and away the largest
crowd I had ever played in front of. I took a look around and the sight
of so many people made me catch my breath. My heart was doing a passable
impression of a kettledrum being played at full tempo, and as I ran
around the soft turf, it was as if my boots would sink into it and never
come unstuck." Tom Finney, who was later to join Stanley Matthews in the full England team, also played football at every opportunity. In his autobiography he points out: "The kickabouts we had in the fields and on the streets were daily events, sometimes involving dozens and dozens of kids. There were so many bodies around you had to be flippin' good to get a kick. Once you got hold of the ball, you didn't let it go too easily. That's where I first learned about close control and dribbling." Tom Finney was a very small boy who weighed less than 5 stone when he left school at 14. However, Jim Taylor, the chairman of Preston North End, decided to create a youth scheme to identify talented young footballers from Preston. This included funding the under 16 Preston and District League. As Jack Rollin explained in (Soccer at War: 1939-45): "By 1938 the club was already running two teams in local junior circles when the chairman James Taylor decided upon a scheme to fill the gap between school leavers and junior clubs by forming a Juvenile Division of the Preston and District League open to 14-16-year-olds."Rollin points out that by 1940 over 100 youngsters were being trained in groups of eight of the club's senior players voluntarily assisting in evening coaching. Robert Beattie was one of those involved in this coaching. One of the first youngsters to emerge from this youth system was Tom Finney. Stan Mortensen failed to make much impact when he was at school. In 1934 he was selected to play for the South Shields boy's team representing all the schools in the area. However, he only played in three games before being dropped from the team. Mortensen left school at 14 and found work in a timber yard on Tyneside. He played football for the South Shields Ex-Schoolboys, a club formed by his former teacher, John Young. As he pointed out in his autobiography, Football is My Game: "We had the advantage of having played together at school and were all pals, so we soon became a pretty hot combination. We were too good for anything else in the district of the same age, and we won all sorts of prizes. I was lucky to be in such a team, and to be able to play regularly, for it is in the fourteen to sixteen years period that many boys cannot find opportunities for serious football, and lose interest in the game." Mortensen was seen by a Blackpool scout while playing for South Shields Ex-Schoolboys and he later became a regular member of the England team that included Wilf Mannion, Raich Carter, Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews. |
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Len Shackleton went to school in Bradford. As he pointed out in his
autobiography, Crown Prince of Soccer: "Although there was no official
football session at school, I spent all my spare time kicking a ball
about in the school yard, in the fields near our home and even in the
house, the latter with full parental approval. In the early 1930's, when
television was merely a madman's mirage, when empty pockets put the
cinema out of bounds, youngsters manufactured their own entertainment
with a tennis ball." Shackleton's parents could not afford to buy him football kit: "I could not afford real football boots so my Uncle John bought some studs and hammered them into an old pair of shoes. Uncle John always wanted me to be a footballer and he realized how much I would appreciate those studded shoes." A teacher recognized Shackleton's talents and arranged for him to play in the North against the Midlands schoolboy game at York. He was only 4 feet 11 inches tall and was the smallest boy in the game. He was a great success and was selected to play for England Schoolboys in 1936. He scored two goals in England's 6-2 victory over Wales. He was also in the England team that beat Scotland (4-2) and Northern Ireland (8-3). |
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From the age of ten Tommy Lawton played for his grandfather's team. "On
Sunday mornings, after church, there was usually a game organized
against a team from another part of Bolton with sidestakes... We would
get a tanner a man if you were on the winning side... A tanner, you see,
paid for their Saturday night out, a couple of pints and a packet of
fags." Lawton's school teachers soon recognized his football talent. Bunny Lee was his sports master at Tonge Moor School: "I had never been able to kick a ball with my left foot, but every afternoon at four o'clock after school, he took me across to the field and we practiced shooting and passing with a plimsoll on my right foot and a boot on my left. He would kick the ball across to me and I had to shoot from whatever angle." Fred Milner, the headmaster of Castle Hill School also helped to coach Lawton. However, it was his grandfather, James Riley, who was the greatest influence on Lawton's football career. As he told the authors of The Complete Centre-Forward: "He was my staunchest admirer and pal, he nursed and advised me. He was one of the main reasons why I was able to get such a great start in football." In 1933 Tommy Lawton was selected to play for the North against the South. Over three seasons he had scored 570 goals for his school and Hayes Athletic. Lawton was expected to play for England Schoolboys but despite scoring a hat-trick in the 7-0 victory he was not selected for the game against Scotland. Lawton later remarked: "I never was capped at schoolboy level. I cannot understand why not. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life." Schoolboy games were not played against Northern Ireland until 1934. The first European opposition was West Germany in 1956. England won the game 5-1. |
| Source - References |
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(1) Archie Hunter, Triumphs of the Football Field (1890) Not far from Joppa my father had a farm, but he died while I was too young to remember him; and before I was many years older the family removed to Ayr, where I was sent to school. My three brothers - all dead now - were athletes, and I suppose the love of good, hearty games ran in our blood. The excellent country air, and the rural life we led, gave us plenty of strength and fitted us for out-door sports. It wasn't long before I was playing football at school with the other lads; but football in those days was very different to what it is now or ever will be again. There were no particular rules and we played pretty much as we liked; but we thought we were playing the Rugby game, of course, because the Association hadn't started then. It didn't matter as long as we got goals; and besides, we only played with one another, picking sides among ourselves and having friendly matches in the playground. Such as it was though, I got to like the game immensely, and I spent as much time as I could kicking the leather. We were a merry lot, but by and by I had to leave school while I was still very young, and I was rather sorry, I can assure you. I was sorry to go, but I wanted to continue playing, so I joined the Ayr Star Football Club, which was then a Rugby Union team and for a short time I played the strict Rugby game. After playing the season under the Rugby rules we held a meeting, not, as you might think, in some comfortable room, but under the blue canopy of heaven, and by lamp-light; and after considerable discussion we determined to alter the name of the club from the 'Star' to the 'Thistle'. But there was soon to be a great change. The Queen's Park, the leading club in Scotland, adopted the Association rules almost as soon as they were made and of course, most of the other clubs began to follow the example. The 'Thistle' Club was one of them. I had only played in two matches under the old code, officiating as full back... but now we began to practise dribbling... And we went in for the new game with enthusiasm, I can tell you. Every other night saw us in hard training, and we learnt the art of working well together. In my opinion that is the secret of success. Good combination on the part of the players is greatly to be preferred to the muscular powers of one or two of them. Strength has got very little chance against science. (2) Ernest Needham, Association Football (1901) Well-directed exercise is the chief factor in training for any sport. Here I might warn against a most common error. Too many youths and men play football to obtain exercise, but this is quite wrong: exercise should, nay, must precede match football, or harm from exposure and over-straining is bound to ensue. Still more, the untrained man blunders about the football field, throwing himself blindly into danger, and proving a frequent source of accident to himself and others. This is so well known to professional players that trainers take charge of first-class men at least a month before their first public appearance of the season. To get into condition at the beginning of the season is hard work, for while resting superfluous fat has accumulated, some muscles of locomotion have become more or less flabby, the circulatory system is torpid, and the chest muscles and organs of respiration are slow in their action. To counteract all this, we must at first have plenty of football practice to bring the muscles into obedience to the will, skipping, walking, and running to strengthen them, sprinting to cultivate speed, and three-quarter and mile runs to tone up heart and lungs. Indian clubs and dumbbells are occasionally used. These various exercises, used lightly at first, and gradually increased under experienced direction, will produce the necessary vigour and hardness, and bring the player into condition for match playing. (3) Charlie Buchan, A Lifetime in Football (1955) Always I carried some sort of a ball in my pocket. It did not stay there long. I used to run along the road, using the pavement edge as a colleague. I fear that in these days of heavy traffic, it would be impossible to carry out this sort of practice. But I thought nothing of it. I became so adept at pushing the ball against the pavement and taking the rebound that it did not impede my rate of progress. When I first played for the Polytechnic, my position was left half-back. In one game I happened to score five goals. So I was immediately put into the forward line where I remained for the rest of my playing days. Then I had ambitions of becoming a centre-half, but I was too small for the position. Though I was big enough in after years, nobody seemed to fancy me as a pivot. At any rate, I never played in the position. Playing regularly for the school team was not enough to satisfy my appetite for the game. Every Saturday afternoon I went down to the Manor Field to see what I could of Arsenal's League and reserve sides. As my weekly pocket-money was the princely sum of id, I could not pay the 3d admission into the ground. I waited outside, listening to the roars and cheers of the crowd, until about ten minutes before the end when the big, wide gates were thrown open to allow the crowd to trek out. In I rushed with other soccer-crazy boys to see the finish of the game. It was enough to get a glimpse of my heroes and to watch the way they played the game. (4) Stanley Matthews, The Way It Was (2000) I attended Wellington Road School in Hanley. I never distinguished myself as a scholar but in many respects I suppose I was a model pupil. I listened in lessons, was fair to middling academically, enjoyed school life and was never the source of any trouble. All the spare time I had was taken up with playing football. When the school bell rang, I'd make my way home with a stone or a ball of paper at my feet. Once home, I'd make for a piece of waste ground opposite our house where the boys from the neighborhood gathered for a kick about. Coats would be piled for posts and the game of football would get under way. In fine weather it would be as many as 20 a side, in bad weather a hardened dozen or so made six a side. I firmly believe that in addition to helping my dribbling skills, these games helped all those lads to become better citizens later in life. All such kick about football games do. My reasoning behind this is quite simple. We had no referee or linesman, yet sometimes up to 40 boys would play football for two hours adhering to the rules as we knew them. When there was a foul, there would be a free kick. When a goal was scored, the ball would be returned to the centre of the waste ground for the game to restart. We didn't need a referee; we accepted the rules of the game and stuck by them. For us not to have done so, would have spoilt the game for everyone. It taught us that you can't go about doing what you want because there are others to think of and if you don't stick to the rules, you spoil it for everyone else. Of course, that was not a conscious thought at the time, but looking back, those kick about games on the waste ground did prepare us for life. (5) Tom Finney, My Autobiography (2003) The kickabouts we had in the fields and on the streets were daily events, sometimes involving dozens and dozens of kids. There were so many bodies around you had to be flippin' good to get a kick. Once you got hold of the ball, you didn't let it go too easily. That's where I first learned about close control and dribbling. It was a world of make-believe - were children more imaginative in those days? - and although we only had tin cans and school caps for goalposts, it mattered not a jot. In my mind, this basic field was Deepdale and I was the inside-left, Alex James. I tried to look like him, run like him, juggle the ball and body swerve like him. By being James, I became more confident in my own game. He never knew it, but Alex James played a major part in my development...We played until our legs gave way - scores of 15-13 were not uncommon - and I never stopped running. I tried to make up in enthusiasm what I lacked in physical presence for all the other boys were much bigger than I was, or so it felt. Football united the kids. You didn't have to call for your mates; simply walking down the street bouncing a ball had the Pied Piper effect. We could all smell a game from 200 yards. (6) Frank Garrick, Raich Carter (2003) Horatio Carter was undoubtedly an unusual name despite Shakespeare's use of it and Nelson's considerable fame but to young Carter it was a stimulus to excellence and achievement. He was determined to overcome his small size and fancy name by excelling at sport. So Horatio soon becarne Raich' and he determined to become a runner, a cricketer and a footballer... While Raich undoubtedly inherited his footballing abilities from his father, he never received any coaching or encouragement from that source. The repeated headaches that the career ending injury caused had understandably destroyed Robert Carter's interest in the game. He never spoke about his own footballing experiences and never went to watch his son play. However, he put no obstacles in the way of his son's football progress. Probably he did not want a serious injury to blight Raich's life in the way his own had been affected. In August 1916 the license for the Ocean Queen switched to Clara. At that time Robert was 35 and may have been involved in war-work for a couple of years because the license reverted to him shortly after peace was restored. Meanwhile Raich began to attend Hendon Board School in 1918. This was the school which could claim to be the birthplace of football in Sunderland. James Allen, a Scot, arrived in 1871 to take tip a teaching post and introduced the Association code to Wearside where rugby had previously flourished. At a meeting in 1879, Allen helped found the Sunderland and District Teacher Football Club. They played at the Blue House Field in Hendon and soon became Sunderland AFC. The First World War had kept Sunderland's shipyards busy and an immediate post-war boom continued to keep employment high. Sixty-seven ships totaling a third of a million tonnes were built in the 16 Wear shipyards in 1920. But the boom was brief and the great over-capacity in shipbuilding created by the war made its decline all the more dramatic. By 1926, unemployment in the town had reached 19,000 and half the yards launched no ships. Thus schooling in Hendon in the 1920s took place in a tough area in a tough period. Children without shoes relied on the Mayor's Boot Fund, but some still went to school barefooted. The custom at the Ocean Queen was sufficient to protect the Carters from the worst of the recession and young Raich remained determined to make his mark in sport. Initially he took up running because only when you moved from the Junior Department to the Boys' Department was there any chance of organized games. He had some early sprinting successes which stimulated his Aunt Jen to make him some silk running shorts and a vest with a big 'H' on it from Uncle Ted's underwear. In 1923, aged nine, he won the 100 yards on sports day. Meanwhile, left-footed, left-handed and diminutive, Raich Carter picked up the basics of football and cricket in the streets. The lampposts acted as goalposts or wickets depending on the season. Alternatively a "tanner" ball was taken to the beach for an improvised game. Wherever the game, Raich's natural talent was quickly apparent. Further inspiration came from following the fortunes of his local professional team, Sunderland. The club had long been one of the most successful in the country with five league championships. One of the stars of that team, Charles Buchan, was still playing at Roker Park in the early 1920s when Raich Carter first stood at the Roker End. The tall, angular Buchan, who had paid occasional visits to the Ocean Queen, was Raich's great hero. To get to the games Raich walked down the Hendon Road to catch the ferry across to the North Bank and on to Roker Park. (7) Stanley Matthews, The Way It Was (2000) All the spare time I had was taken up with playing football. When the school bell rang, I'd make my way home with a stone or a ball of paper at my feet. Once home, I'd make for a piece of waste ground opposite our house where the boys from the neighborhood gathered for a kick about. Coats would be piled for posts and the game of football would get under way. In fine weather it would be as many as 20 a side, in bad weather a hardened dozen or so made six a side. I firmly believe that in addition to helping my dribbling skills, these games helped all those lads to become better citizens later in life. All such kick about football games do. My reasoning behind this is quite simple. We had no referee or linesman, yet sometimes up to 40 boys would play football for two hours adhering to the rules as we knew them. When there was a foul, there would be a free kick. When a goal was scored, the ball would be returned to the centre of the waste ground for the game to restart. We didn't need a referee; we accepted the rules of the game and stuck by them. For us not to have done so, would have spoilt the game for everyone. It taught us that you can't go about doing what you want because there are others to think of and if you don't stick to the rules, you spoil it for everyone else. Of course, that was not a conscious thought at the time, but looking back, those kick about games on the waste ground did prepare us for life. (8) Joe Mercer, Football With A Smile (1993) Back alley football is only a substitute for the real thing. We always have to right for bigger and better playing fields for children. But, all the same, the back alleys did hold some valuable lessons of their own. For instance, playing with a small ball. If you could control a small hall with certainty, you found later that bringing down a normal ball came more easily. It was wonderful training for the eye. (9) Stan Cullis, All For the Wolves (1960) I was an ambitious inside-forward who earned a place in the town's schoolboy team. I was not the only person who was later to lose his urge to score goals. The centre-forward in the same side was Joe Mercer, who later emerged as one of the finest wing half-backs in English football history. I was born in Ellesmere Port in October 1916, the son of Wolverhampton parents who were among the hundreds who moved out to Ellesmere Port with the Wolverhampton Corrugated Iron Company. Therefore it was natural that my father insisted that, if I became a professional footballer, it would be with Wolves. Several scouts from Football League clubs came to watch the Ellesmere Port schoolboys' team, but none of them was ever allowed to talk to me. My father always told them, "When I consider my boy is good enough, he will join Wolverhampton Wanderers." So, as Joe Mercer moved off to Everton, I stayed behind to play with the Ellesmere Port Wednesday side and, as a lad of 16, I won my first honor with them at Anfield, the Liverpool ground-a runner's-up medal in the Liverpool Hospital Cup. In 1933, my father did allow me to go for a mid-week trial with Bolton Wanderers but he stressed to me that this concession was only made to allow me to gain experience. His precaution was not really necessary because, years later, I learned that Bolton turned me down after this trial because I was "too slow". (10) Stanley Matthews, The Way It Was (2000) I thought my father had also been understanding in saying I could carry on with football if I made the England schoolboy team, even though it was a pretty tall order. I was of the mind that to be picked for England Schoolboys was something that happened to other boys, not me. I felt I was making good progress. I often played at centre-half for my school and in one game scored eight in a 13-2 victory. I realized what a feat this was when my headmaster, Mr Terry, said how pleased he was with the way I had played and gave me sixpence. The youngest ever professional player? It was around this time that another teacher at the school, Mr. Slack, picked me at outside-right for the school team. I felt comfortable in the position; it provided more scope for my dribbling skills but I still thought centre-half was my calling. I must have been doing something right on the wing for later that year, I was selected to play for the North against the South in an England Schoolboy trial. Even to this day, the lads picked for England Schoolboys tend to be the ones who have physically matured quicker than others. I was only 13, so in the physical stakes I was quite some way behind lads of 14 and 15. I felt I did all right in the trial, nothing exceptional, but the selectors must have seen something because three weeks later, I played for England Boys against The Rest at Kettering Town's ground. I never heard another thing for months and was beginning to come to terms with the fact that at 13 I was probably a bit too young to get into the England Schoolboys team. I consoled myself with the thought that there would always be next season. I never stopped hoping, though, and I never stopped practicing. I was doing so in splendid isolation, never realizing that not every boy was getting up at the crack of dawn like me, going through a rigorous physical workout of sprints and shuttles and honing ball skills at every given opportunity. Such was my determination to master the ball and make it do whatever I wanted it to do. A few months after the trial at Kettering, I was told to report to the headmaster's office. Such a call was about as bad as it could be. To be asked to report to the headmaster was a sure-fire way to immediate anxiety and guilt - a bit like your own mother saying, "Guess what I found in your bedroom this morning."As I made my way to Mr. Terry's office, I ran through all my recent escapades but couldn't come up with anything I d done that merited seeing the headmaster. On entering the office my stomach was churning. He indicated I should stand before his desk and then said, "Well, Matthews, let me congratulate you. You have been picked to play for England Schoolboys against Wales at Bournemouth's ground in three weeks' time. What do you think about that?" I felt like saying, "Sorry sir, could you repeat that. I didn't hear you because of the sound of angels singing." Of course, I didn't. I just stood there dumbfounded. I could feel my face twitching, my mouth went dry and the shock made me sense I was about to embarrass myself with a bodily function. I tried to speak but the words wouldn't come. Instead, out of my mouth came the sort of noise a small frog with adenoid trouble would make - if frogs had adenoids, that is. "I'm sorry to have given you such a shock, lad," Mr. Terry said. "I had no idea it would upset you like this." (11) Stanley Matthews, The Way It Was (2000) Meeting my fellow team-mates for the first time had the same effect. Some of the boys seemed to know one another. I thought at the time this was probably down to the fact that they had played in previous schoolboy internationals or area representative games together. I was the only lad from Stoke-on-Trent. I didn't know anybody, no one knew me. It was the first time I had ever been in a hotel. A number of the other players seemed to know how to go on, but I simply hadn't a clue and was full of anxiety in case I made a dreadful faux pas. I had never been waited on at a table before and this made me feel awkward. I over-emphasized my thanks to everyone who placed a plate before me or took a bowl away, such was my embarrassment at having adults seemingly at my beck and call, not that I ever dared beckon or call anyone. All of my team-mates were older than me. Although this was only a matter of a year, they all appeared so much more mature and worldly wise than me, as if they had done it all before, which several of them had. I'd always had confidence in my own ability but as I sheepishly hung on the perimeter of the social life at the hotel, I did wonder if I was going to be up to the mark. Would I cover myself in glory, or, having teamed up with those who were considered the best school-boy footballers in England and been pitted against the best Wales had to offer, find to my horror I was totally lacking? Would it be a case of being a big fish in a small pond in Stoke, but a floundering minnow when set alongside the cream of my contemporaries? This and my natural shyness made for a very quiet, passive and unassuming schoolboy international debutant in the build-up to the game. When I ran down the tunnel for the first time in an England shirt, I was bursting with pride. The first sensation as the team emerged into the light was the noise of the supporters who had packed into the Dean Court ground. There must have been nigh on 20,000 there, which was far and away the largest crowd I had ever played in front of. I took a look around and the sight of so many people made me catch my breath. My heart was doing a passable impression of a kettledrum being played at full tempo, and as I ran around the soft turf, it was as if my boots would sink into it and never come unstuck. It was a terrific feeling, though. There and then, I knew that there couldn't be anything but a football career for me. It was one hell of a buzz and I felt so elated it was all I could do to stop myself shouting and screaming to release the excitement and emotion as I ran about in the warm-up. I got an early touch of the ball from the kick-off and that settled me down. I started to enjoy the game and must admit I felt totally at home at outside-right. It was as if I had been born to it. We won 4-1 and, although disappointed that I didn't get on the score sheet, I was happy enough with my overall contribution, having been involved in the build-up to a couple of our goals. I had made a point of saying to my parents that I didn't want them to watch the game, partly because I thought it would unnerve me and partly because, with four sons to bring up, I knew they were on a tight budget and a trip to Bournemouth would have made quite a hole in my dad's weekly wage at the barber's shop. However, as I came off the field I felt sorry they weren't there. After all, you only make your debut for your country once. In the dressing-room after the game, I was in the process of putting my boots into my bag when one of the officials came up and said there was someone outside the ground who would like a word with me. I made my way to the players' entrance and there was my father in his belted overcoat, clutching a brown paper bag in which he had his sandwich tin. "Not so bad. I've seen you play better and I've seen you play worse," he said. "I've got just enough left for a cup of tea for the both of us, son. So let's have some tea, then we'll go home." We walked in near silence towards a nearby cafe and I fought to hold back my tears. He may well have had only the price of two cups of tea in his pocket, but he was walking proudly with his head held high. (12) Wilf Mannion, interviewed in Golden Boy (1997) We played all the ruddy time - morning, noon and night. You might see the police inspector coming in the distance and that might make you stop but not much else did. We'd play with anything: cans, rag balls, we'd even get a pig's bladder from the butchers and if you could control that, you were a ruddy genius. And we'd play on anything, the puddling most, though, because it was playable all year round. It was bumpy, but that did not bother us. (13) Stan Mortensen, Football is My Game (1949) My father died when I was five, and my mother was left with two boys to bring up. I need not say that the task was one which promised only a future of hard work, with the end of the road a long distance away. Without boasting, I think I can say that the two of us determined to do our best; and I daresay that deep-thinking psychologists and psychiatrists may be able to find in my method of play some connection with those early struggling days when the two Mortensen boys, young as they were, realized that they would have to make their own way in the world. When other boys were dreaming of becoming engine-drivers, soldiers, explorers, and so on, I was thinking of something that was actually within my compass - football. Looking back now, I cannot remember any time when I was not certain that one day, somewhere, I would earn my living on the football field... Football filled my every waking hour. At St. Mary's school, South Shields, I spent every moment of my spare time playing football. There were some stolen moments, too, when I should have been engaged on what my teachers would have described as more important things. I suppose I must have been pretty good for my age, because after a period at inside-right I was moved to centre-half. In school teams it is the best footballer who is placed at centre-half. In such sides, the pivot is still an attacker, not a stopper as in more advanced football, and a player is required who can do useful work up-field-and also get back. The centre-half position was also considered the most difficult. Some people think that in modern top football the centre-half has a money-for-jam job. It isn't quite that; and, in any case, in junior football, it isn't a bad idea for a boy to have a go at centre-half and to regard it as a position in which he has to be the complete footballer... When I first played in the team of St. Mary's School, Tyne Dock, South Shields, I was only nine. The rest of the team were all older boys, up to fourteen, and in addition they were all bigger. I was never very tall, and at nine years of age I was pretty skinny, too. We played in a school league, and I am afraid we were usually somewhere near the wrong end of the table... Mr. Young re-formed an old club known as St. Andrews, and called it South Shields Ex-Schoolboys Club... We had the advantage of having played together at school and were all pals, so we soon became a pretty hot combination. We were too good for anything else in the district of the same age, and we won all sorts of prizes. I was lucky to be in such a team, and to be able to play regularly, for it is in the fourteen to sixteen years period that many boys cannot find opportunities for serious football, and lose interest in the game. Shortage of pitches, lack of organized facilities, and the necessity for working for a living are all contributory factors to this state of affairs. (14) Tommy Lawton, My Twenty Years of Soccer (1955) As far as I can remember I have always been interested in soccer. As a youngster in Bolton I played whenever I could, sometimes with a tennis ball, sometimes with a rag ball, and, on special occasions, with a real live football. The first person to spot that I had any talent out of the ordinary was my grandfather, James Hugh Riley. Little did I know then that he was to have a tremendous influence on my future career, acting in the dual capacity of personal manager and personal coach. But grandfather always believed that I had it in me, and he found a more-than-useful ally in Mr. "Bunny" Lee, the sports master at Tonge Moor Council School, Bolton. Mr. Lee was a meticulous sports master. Only the best would do for him, and he soon spotted that as a boy of eight I had quite a shot with my right foot but used my left foot purely for standing on. So he kept me behind after school, took me on to the field, and made me practice left-foot shooting. He would pass the ball to me and I had to shoot every time with my left foot. And to make sure I didn't cheat, I was allowed to wear only a gym shoe on my right foot! It was tough going, but my, was it worth it! I left Tonge Moor Council when I was nine and transferred to Castle Hill, a new school which had just been opened. Fortunately for me, the headmaster, Mr. Milner, was very keen on football, and he helped me just as Bunny Lee did. But soon I was on the list again! This time I was transferred to Folds Road Central School, and once again I found the headmaster, a Mr. F. P. Lever, whom I was later to know as "Pop", was a keen football fan. Then most Lancashire folk are. Soccer is a religion with the people in the industrial North, and it is due to people like Mr. Lee, Mr. Milner and Mr. Lever not only that I developed into England's centre forward, but also that Nat Lofthouse, a townie of mine and educated at the same schools, followed me in the job. Bolton also produced Bill Holden, that brilliant centre forward who followed in my footsteps to Burnley. One of the first questions Mr. Lever asked me when I went to Folds Road was whether I played football. When I said I did he gave me a trial for the school team, and before long I was not only leading the school attack but the Bolton representative side's attack as well. Mr. Lever was so keen on football that he used to watch us playing in the school-yard during the break. If he saw a lad do something wrong he would call him to his study window, give the lad some advice and settle down to watch some more. At Folds Road we used to chalk a set of goal posts on the wall and practice shooting-in or heading-in. We used only tennis balls at that time, and looking back I feel that such practice helped me considerably to become such a deadly "shot" with my head when I graduated to first class football. Mind you, seeing goals chalked on walls was a common sight in Bolton (and I am sure in other places) when I was a lad. A game of shooting-in was always one of the highlights of the day, and whenever I could I would pitch in with the other lads. It grieves me to walk through our towns today and notice the complete absence of chalked goals on walls. Surely the modern youngster has not turned his back on the greatest of all training grounds, the training system that produced all the great players I have known as well as the modern continental heroes such as Ferenc Puskas and Josef Bozsik. People tell me that the modern boy would not lower himself to such common games, that he is more interested in going to the pictures or watching television. For the sake of football I hope those people are wrong. So lads, stop reading now. Go out with a couple of pals, chalk a goal on the nearest gable end and start some shooting or heading practice with a tennis ball. If the householder comes out and chases you ... well, you've got to be quick off the mark to be good at soccer, so it is all good training." (15) Matt Busby, Soccer at the Top (1973) I was as football daft as any of the boys in the village of Bellshill, and dafter than most, and we had our idols already. There were two young fellows called Alex James and Hughie Gallacher, for instance. They would be about eighteen or nineteen, I suppose, I about nine or ten. They were little whippets as footballers go, but they were famous. Why, everybody in Bellshill, knew what players they were! They played at the time for two juvenile teams in the area, juvenile meaning teams in lower status than the Scottish League but brimful of the best young players in the villages who had not, or not yet, reached the big game. I was still at school, of course, but I was hamper boy to James's team, humping kit, and generally helping and fussing about. I do not know why, but something went wrong with Alex James's boots, or they were missing, and the great man borrowed my football boots. I was a big boy and he was a little man. Soon the village knew about it. I proclaimed it to all my friends or whoever was in earshot. "Alex James played in my boots!" It will have been noticed that I proclaim it still, and that is because, as young as I was and as small and insignificant though little Bellshill might seem in the big world of football, I saw magic in those early days, the magic of two of the greatest footballers in the game's history in one small village. Magic because even then James used to mesmerize his opponents with a feint that said: "Now I'm here, now I'm not", and Gallacher used to paralyze them with a dribbling run and power of shot and a line of pertinent or impertinent patter to go with it... I played against James and Gallacher in their later but still great days, after Gallacher had left Newcastle United for Chelsea. I was a nobody, but they remembered the boy who had looked after the hamper and always had words of encouragement for me, their opponent now, with a welcome `Well done, son,' or "Well played, Matt." Not that this in any way deterred them from leaving me sitting on my bottom with the rest. (16) David P. Worthington, Bill Shankly: The Glenbuck Years (1997) It was said that any Scottish town or village that didn’t have a decent football team had got its civic priorities wrong. Glenbuck was certainly no exception to this rule, the club had its beginnings in the late 1870`s and was founded by Edward Bone, William Brown and others. It was originally called Glenbuck Athletic and wore club colours of white shirts and black shorts. The Glenbuck team had two earlier grounds before finally settling at Burnside Park. It was at the turn of the century that the team changed its name to that of Glenbuck Cherrypickers. Initially a nickname, Cherrypickers was soon adopted as the clubs official name, something that continued to the end. Over the years The Cherrypickers won numerous local cups including the Ayrshire Junior Challenge Cup, the Cumnock Cup, and the Mauchline Cup. Despite all their honors the real place of Glenbuck in footballing history was as a nursery of footballers. It is thought that Glenbuck had provided around fifty players who plied their trade in senior football at least half-a-dozen who played for Scotland - not bad for a village whose population never exceeded twelve hundred. (17) Bill Shankly, Shankly (1977) I was born in a little coal-mining village called Glenbuck, about a mile from the Ayrshire-Lanarkshire border, where the Ayrshire road was white and the Lanarkshire road was red shingle. We were not far from the racecourses at Ayr, Lanark, Hamilton Park and Bogside. Ours was like many other mining villages in Scotland in 1913. By the time I was born the population had decreased to seven hundred, perhaps less. People would move to other villages, four or five miles away, where the mines were possibly better... There was the village council school and a higher-grade school in the village of Muirkirk three miles away. I just went to the village school. We played football in the playground, of course, and sometimes we got a game with another school, but we never had an organized school team. It was too small a school. If we played another school we managed to get some kind of strip together, but we played in our shoes. (18) Len Shackleton, Crown Prince of Soccer (1955) Ever since I started putting two and two together - and that was a long time ago - I have had a passionate interest in football. As an elementary school kid, playing no organized Saturday afternoon soccer, off I would trot with Dad to Valley Parade one Saturday, Park Avenue the next... dividing my affections equally between the two Bradford clubs. Footballers normally become spectators when they are too old to play, but I was a keen fan before starting to play. Although there was no official football session at school, I spent all my spare time kicking a ball about in the school yard, in the fields near our home and even in the house, the latter with full parental approval. In the early 1930's, when television was merely a madman's mirage, when empty pockets put the cinema out of bounds, youngsters manufactured their own entertainment with a tennis ball. From May to August we were all budding Herbert Sutcliffes or Hedley Veritys. In the winter we became Cliff Bastins and Dixie Deans. Even though youngsters stuck to their seasons religiously, the same tennis ball and pile of coats were utilized for equipment. Whenever Mum told me to go on an errand, I would make sure I had a pal to keep me company, produce the tennis ball the minute we left the house, pass and re-pass it all the way to the shops and back, and hardly notice I had performed the loathsome task of shopping. Refusing to be robbed of football time after dark, our gang played many a "cup-tie" in front of a well-lit grocery shop... Like Jimmy Hagan, Wilf Mannion and the other over-30's, I was fortunate enough to be brought up in an age of football enthusiasm. As a seven-year-old, I could not afford real football boots so my Uncle John bought some studs and hammered them into an old pair of shoes. Uncle John always wanted me to be a footballer and he realized how much I would appreciate those studded shoes. Dad didn't appreciate them so much the first time I tried them out. Every evening, Sundays included-we were not answerable to the Football Association then-the decks were cleared in the Shackleton living-room for indoor football. Chairs were removed from the room, while furniture too bulky to evict was pushed into a corner, though as a slight concession to the landlord's window panes, a ball of paper bound with elastic bands was substituted for the tennis ball. |
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