Authors: Gordon Banks
The World Club Cup was a two-legged affair played between the winners of the European Cup and its South American equivalent, the Copa Libertadores. Santos had won the World Club Cup for the first time in 1962, beating Benfica 3–2 and 5–2. They had retained it the following year with a 7–6 aggregate win over AC Milan and were fresh from winning the Brazilian League Championship and the Copa do Brasil for a record fifth successive season. Though they boasted Pelé and a string of top Brazilian internationals, Santos were not a rich club. Their ground, the imaginatively named Urbano Caldeira Vila Belmiro, only had a capacity of 25,000 (though major games, such as the World Club Cup, were invariably switched to the Maracanà, where 152,000 had seen their game against Milan). The price of admission to matches in Brazil was very low, so clubs such as Santos needed to go on tour to generate extra funds. They didn’t come cheap: the fee they wanted for playing at Filbert Street was £7,500, and that was too much as far as the Leicester board was concerned.
Santos would have attracted if not a full house of 40,000, then definitely at least 35,000 to Filbert Street. The profit margin was considered too small by a Leicester board. What if it was a rainy
night? People might not turn up! Too risky, the directors said. Santos were fixed up with a game at Fulham instead. The crowd at Craven Cottage? 42,000.
The Leicester board were extremely shortsighted in declining this friendly. I am sure there would have been a profit in the end. Money aside, a match against Santos would have been a wonderful gesture of thanks to the Leicester supporters who had stuck by us through what had been an indifferent season in the League. More frustratingly, I was beginning to think I would never get the chance of playing against the great Pelé. After injury had kept him out of the England match against Brazil at Wembley, and Alf Ramsey had left me out of the side that faced the Brazilians in the ‘Little World Cup’, now the Leicester board had declined an offer of a friendly against his club side. Would fate always keep us apart?
The board also turned down a request from some supporters that the former Leicester city forward, Arthur Rowley, be awarded a testimonial match. Arthur had just hung up his boots following a spell as player-manager with Shrewsbury Town and his career total of 434 goals remains, to this day, an all-time record.
Arthur had played for Leicester before my arrival and his goalscoring record for the club was second only to that of Arthur Chandler, who had played in the 1920s. Arthur’s goals-per-game ratio at City was astonishing: between 1950 and 1958, in 321 league and cup appearances, Arthur Rowley scored 265 goals for Leicester City. A record like that demanded nothing but the utmost respect, as did his conduct on the pitch. If Arthur Rowley was not deemed worthy of a ‘thank you’ testimonial game, I wondered who would be.
In 1998, in a week when Manchester United announced profits in excess of £11 million, Arthur put up his medals for sale. He said at the time, ‘I’ve done it because they’re just lying about, so I might just as well enjoy what they are worth.’ He’s in his seventies now but, in the minds and memories of those
Leicester supporters fortunate enough to have seen Arthur play, he remains eternally young and strong. For ever a hero.
The 1964–65 season ended with Bobby Moore elegantly ascending the steps to the royal box at Wembley to collect yet another cup. A year after West Ham United had beaten Second Division Preston North End to win the FA Cup, Bobby led the Hammers to a 2–0 victory over Munich 1860 to clinch the European Cup Winners Cup. It was one of the best games of football ever to have been played at Wembley and West Ham’s success was a tribute to their manager, Ron Greenwood, whose policy of purist football verged on the sublime. The West Ham goals came from Alan Sealey and Brian Dear who were only in the side because of injuries to Peter Brabrook and Johnny Byrne. That Sealey and Dear fitted so seamlessly into the West Ham system was yet another tribute to Greenwood, whose belief in positive, stylish football ran through the East End club from first team to juniors. West Ham became the second English team, after Spurs in 1963, to win a major European competition. Their success fuelled the growing belief that English football was making great strides to being a major force once again in Europe, if not the world. As Bobby said after the final, ‘If our game continues to develop the way it has been doing these last three years, next year England will have a team capable of winning the World Cup.’ His opinion was later to be echoed by a certain Mr Ramsey.
The season also saw the retirement of Stanley Matthews, who in February, at the age of fifty, had played his last game for Stoke City, against Fulham. Stan enjoyed his final bow on 28 April when a packed Victoria Ground saw a Stan Matthews XI take on an International XI that included the likes of Alfredo di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and Lev Yashin. It was incredible to think that Stan first signed for Stoke thirty-five years ago and had made his league debut in 1932. For him still to have been playing the equivalent of Premiership football at the age of fifty I still find
remarkable, though, according to Stan, ‘I made a mistake retiring at fifty. I still had another two good years left in me.’
Tragedy touched football with the death of the Spurs inside forward, John White. I had played against John on numerous occasions for Leicester, and as an England team mate, and considered him a good pal. He was a very skilful player whose wonderful vision enabled him to split an opposing defence wide open with a single pass. He was killed by lightning while sheltering under a tree during a game of golf at the Crews Club in Enfield. John’s death shocked and saddened everyone in football who knew him, not only as a great player, but as a great sportsman. His midfield partnership with Danny Blanchflower was the source of Tottenham’s double success of 1961, and his tragic and untimely death saddened us all.
I spent a good part of the summer of ’65 on tour with England. Having enjoyed a 1–0 success over Hungary at Wembley in May, we set off on a continental tour that was to feature the first appearance of a fiery young red-haired winger from Blackpool, Alan Ball.
The tour began with a 1–1 draw against Yugoslavia in Belgrade. The day before the game we trained in the Belgrade stadium. After the training session Alan Ball couldn’t find his trousers. I realized there and then what sort of mettle Alan Ball had, and what kind of character he was. Any other player would have donned a pair of tracksuit bottoms when searching for his trousers. Not Bally. He wandered around behind the scenes and out into the stadium itself wearing nothing but a shirt and underpants, even approaching some bemused Yugoslav officials and in his high-pitched voice asking, ‘Excuse me, has anyone seen my trousers? Somebody has nicked them – grey flannels with a brown belt. Have you seen them?’
The culprit turned out to be Nobby Stiles, who eventually took pity on Alan and produced the missing flannels. Bally took
it all in good part and Nobby’s prank didn’t upset or faze him at all. The following day, on his England debut, Alan was our best player, and throughout the tour demonstrated skill and technique that matched his phenomenal energy and enthusiasm on the pitch.
From Yugoslavia we travelled north to Nuremburg, where a Terry Paine goal gave us a 1–0 victory over a West German side ranked number three in the world. That game I consider to have been a benchmark for me, both in my career with England and as a goalkeeper. I felt confident from the first whistle, sure of my positioning, handling, distribution and of the way I organized what was a resolute England back line of George Cohen, Ray Wilson, Jack Charlton and Bobby Moore. Those lads were outstanding and this was the game when I first realized I was becoming comfortable and familiar with their individual styles and idiosyncrasies as defenders. In short, we played as a highly effective unit. The days when England took to the pitch with a team of gifted but disparate individuals were over. Against West Germany we had shown that we had all the makings of a very good team.
We concluded what had been a very happy and successful tour with a 2–1 victory over Sweden in Gothenburg. Alan Ball, with his first goal for England, and John Connelly, were our goalscorers on a mudheap of a pitch that during the long Swedish winter doubled up as an ice rink.
Prior to the game there was a scare about Nobby Stiles. Nobby’s poor eyesight was legendary in the game – not to put too fine a point on it, he is half-blind without his contact lenses. As he prepared for the match, he discovered to his horror that though he had remembered to pack his contact lenses, he had forgotten the lens lubricant. It was then that our trainer, Harold Shepherdson, demonstrated just how much attention he paid to detail by producing a small bottle of the vital fluid.
‘I leave nothing to chance,’ said Harold, accepting Nobby’s thanks. ‘In case of emergency, I make sure I have everything every player will need.’
‘You didn’t have a spare pair of pants for Bally though, did you?’ replied Nobby.
(Denis Law tells the story of Manchester United’s victory banquet after the 1968 European Cup final, which for some reason Stiles attended without his spectacles or contact lenses. When he hadn’t returned after fifteen minutes from an excursion to the lavatory, Law and George Best went to look for him. They found Nobby sitting among Rotary Club diners in an adjacent room, oblivious to his mistake!)
Everyone in the England party believed we had had a very successful tour. With the World Cup just a year away, we had made great progress. The team was now beginning to have a settled look about it, and though Alf was still apt to experiment with players, he seemed happy and content with the nucleus of the side. Myself, George Cohen, Ray Wilson, Jack Charlton, Bobby Moore and Alan Ball had figured in all the tour games, while Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves had been absent only owing to injury. Of the players who featured on that tour, only two, Everton’s Derek Temple and Mick Jones of Sheffield United, would not be included in Alf’s final squad for the 1966 World Cup.
Even without Greaves and Charlton we had remained unbeaten, scoring a memorable victory in Germany, yet surprisingly the press were still finding something to criticize. Our continued development as an international team and our good results were not enough to engender wholehearted support in the papers. Winning wasn’t enough, it seemed. We had to win in style. ‘Where was the class? Where was the free-flowing, fluent football that English supporters demand of their national team?’ One ‘old school’ writer professed a lack of enthusiasm for international football. Only the domestic club game mattered. Did he keep these views to himself, I wonder, twelve months later at Wembley?
Stuart Shaw, writing in the popular football weekly
Soccer Star
, described our performances on tour as being ‘as intellectual as a
rocket scientist throwing paper darts’. A lesser man might have been disconcerted by such carping, but Alf Ramsey took no notice of it. On the contrary, the manner of our performances instilled in Alf the belief that his team had the makings of world champions come 1966.
I didn’t enjoy the best of starts to the 1965–66 season. While playing for Leicester in a pre-season friendly against Northampton Town I went down at the feet of Town’s Joe Kiernan and broke my wrist. It was accidental, but the injury put me in plaster and I missed the first nine games of the season (City’s reserve keeper, George Heyes, deputized). Matt Gillies yet again proved himself to be one of the most astute managers in the First Division in signing quality players at bargain prices, when he picked up Jackie Sinclair, a skilful winger from Dunfermline, for just £25,000. Jackie was very quick and, like Mike Stringfellow, liked to come inside and look for goal. Naturally two-footed, he was happy to operate on either flank and did so to good effect during his two years at Leicester. With his boundless energy and ability to make and score goals he was very popular with City fans, but when Leicester’s fortunes began to fade, he was snapped up by Newcastle United with whom he went on to win a Fairs Cup winners’ medal in the Geordies’ victory over Ujpest Dozsa of Hungary.
Jackie Sinclair was a favourite of the City faithful, but the other Matt Gillies signing of the summer of ’65 proved even more popular. Derek Dougan is a footballing enigma. Quite simply, there has never been a player like him, nor one so forthright in their views and opinions on the game. After making a name for himself in the late fifties with Portsmouth, Blackburn Rovers and Aston Villa, Derek had dropped into the Third Division with Peterborough United. Like Trevor Ford before him, Derek had no qualms about voicing his opinions on football and its establishment figures. He was a radical and original thinker whose caustic wit and sharp brain made many a manager think
twice (at least) about taking him on. The fact that he was playing his football in the Third Division was in all probability due to his reputation as a troublemaker. Managers feared the influence in the dressing room of this radical, offbeat, direct, caustic but above all honest character. Why on earth Matt Gillies signed him, I don’t know. What I do know is that Derek was a stylish and formidable player who, in his time at Leicester, channelled his undoubted intelligence on to the field of play to the great benefit of the team and the constant delight of the supporters. Did I say stylish? What with his Zapata-style moustache and one of the first shaven heads in British football – a sensation at Aston Villa in the early sixties – he definitely had a style of his own.
We often hear today about players having ‘cult status’. Derek Dougan was one of the originals. Many people thought his best days were behind him when he came to Filbert Street, but he was to prove them wrong. In his two years at Leicester and subsequent eight years at Wolverhampton Wanderers he was to play the best football of his career, maturing into an intelligent and unselfish striker of the highest calibre. He scored 222 League goals in a career that, in the early days certainly, had more than its share of ups and downs. He also represented Northern Ireland on forty-three occasions and would, in my opinion, have been the perfect manager for the national team. As far as I know, he was never offered the post, nor did he ever apply. Perhaps he felt that the people who ran Ulster football at the time wouldn’t be comfortable with his brusque, honest style. He was certainly unafraid of confrontation. In his many hard tussles with the era’s uncompromising centre halves he would always say, ‘I’ll see you at the far post’ – a phrase that filled them with trepidation and often resulted in yet another headed goal for the Doog.