Authors: Gordon Banks
From top to bottom everything about a football club had to be conducted on a very small scale because the main body of customers, the supporters, didn’t have much money to live on, let alone the disposable income for what today would be called leisure activities.
Back in the fifties there were no corporate boxes, you could get in for one and six and at half time, in the words of a Rochdale programme of March 1959, ‘Walk to the tea bar / Straight as a die, / Count out your coppers / And ask for a pie.’ Count out your coppers! That’s what survival boiled down to, for Rochdale, Chesterfield and many other clubs five decades ago.
In 1958–59 the regionalized Third Division was scrapped and reformed into national Third and Fourth Divisions. Our opponents on my debut, Colchester United, had been members of the Third Division South and so no one at Chesterfield knew anything about them. Or Colchester us. Teams didn’t spy on the
opposition at the time, especially at this level of football. They played it off the cuff and decided what tactics to use as a game unfolded. The emphasis was on individual rather than collective effort. Anyway, Duggie Livingstone’s pre-match team talk comprised a few clichés about ‘taking the game to them’ and ‘playing to our strengths’, the latter meaning nothing to me as nobody had told me what our strengths as a team were. I might as well have been away with the reserves because despite making my first team debut, Duggie virtually ignored me. It was only when the bell rang to signal that we should take to the pitch, that my manager directed any conversation to me, and only then, when prompted by Dave Blakey. We stood up and formed a crocodile line in readiness to leave the dressing room. I was a couple of places behind Dave, who, aware that Duggie Livingstone had said nothing about what was expected of me, jerked his head in my direction to indicate he should. At first it didn’t click with Duggie, then his face lit up.
‘Oh, aye! Gordon?’
‘Yes, boss?’ I said, eager to hear his words of wisdom.
‘Good luck, son,’ Duggie said, smiling broadly.
Now well versed in my expected role I sprinted down the tunnel and out in front of the 7,140 fans present to witness my league debut.
The result was a 2–2 draw, with our goals coming from Bryan Frear and Maurice Galley. Despite conceding two goals I came off the field quite satisfied with my own performance, feeling that neither could be put down to goalkeeping error. Back in the dressing room my team mates told me I’d done well, which raised my spirits even more. Even Duggie Livingstone said ‘Well done.’
‘Played it just like you told me, boss,’ I replied.
That night’s
Sheffield Green’Un
reported that, ‘Debutant Gordon Banks produced a competent performance in goal.’ I slept that night, I can tell you.
I was given another chance to win over the sceptical Chesterfield
faithful because I was selected for the following game, a 1–1 home draw against Norwich City, and during the remainder of the season I missed only three matches, through injury.
There were some sizeable attendances in the Third Division in those days. I played in front of over 11,000 at Wrexham, 13,000 at Carlisle United, 15,000 at Notts County, in excess of 17,000 at Plymouth Argyle and 20,505 at Norwich City. Even our home attendances picked up, most noticeably against Hull City and Mansfield Town, against whom we drew crowds of more than 10,000. Chesterfield finished the season a respectable sixteenth – way off the promotion places but well clear of the relegation trapdoor. I was enjoying my football immensely and loved the camaraderie of my team mates, a number of whom are good friends to this day. They were a great bunch of lads and very colourful characters.
Right back Ivor Seemley was a Sheffield lad like me, who had started his career at Sheffield Wednesday. After eight years at Hillsborough he wanted regular first team football and had spent two seasons with Stockport County before joining us. Ivor was a solid player who, following my move to Leicester City, lost his place in the first team only to win it back in the most unusual circumstances when his replacement, Ray De Grucy, was stung in the eye by a wasp during training!
Our other full back, Gerry Sears, was a Chesterfield lad who had been spotted playing for a local youth team. Originally an outside left, Gerry dropped back into defence where he proved himself to be a capable left back. He had one of the sweetest left feet I’ve ever seen. We used to joke he could have used it to open tin cans.
Our right half, Gerry Clarke, came from Barrow Hill, just outside Chesterfield and was a member of the Chesterfield Boys team which reached the semi-final of the English Schools Shield. Gerry joined Sheffield United from school but, after a couple of seasons in the United youth and reserve teams, signed for Chesterfield. Gerry was a fine wing half and a good leader on
the pitch, a quality that eventually saw him become team captain. He went on to give years of loyal service to the club before eventually retiring in the late sixties.
Dave Blakey was a Geordie who had signed for Chesterfield in 1947. When I made my debut in 1958, Dave had already clocked up 350 appearances for the club, which would have been consecutive but for a spell out of the game in 1957 due to a troublesome appendix. He was a huge man who, when the going got tough, remained as immovable as a rock in a raging sea. Like Ron Powell and later Gerry Clarke, Dave was one of those players who spent the vast majority of his career with one club.
My best mate, Barry Hutchinson, vied for the place of left half with Jim Smallwood. Barry had already been at Chesterfield for six years when I made the first team and was to continue playing for the club into the early sixties. He was a creative player, a good passer of the ball with a keen eye for goal and a ready wit. I recall one game, away at Southend United, in which Barry had got the better of the Southend right half, the wonderfully named Mortimer Costello – we won 5–2 and he scored two of our goals. After the game we were enjoying a quick drink and some sandwiches before starting off for home when he was confronted by an indignant Southend supporter who was outraged by what he perceived to be Barry’s robust treatment of Costello, though Mortimer himself had just accepted it as part and parcel of the game and given as good as he got.
‘I know football is a contact sport,’ said the supporter, ‘but you overstepped the mark today, young man.’
‘Football’s not a contact sport,’ replied Barry, ‘it’s a collision sport. Pairs ice skating, that’s a contact sport.’
At outside right we had Andy MacCabe, a mercurial Scot who had lived most of his life in Corby. Andy joined Chesterfield from Corby Town, then a Midland League club, and proved himself to be a very tricky winger in the days when it was a common sight to see wingers plying their trade up and down
muddy touchlines. Like his counterpart on the left, usually Gwyn Lewis, Andy was a typical winger in that he could be brilliant one game and totally ineffective the next. This inconsistency was a constant source of wonderment to Duggie Livingstone and, at times, much frustration and irritation. In the end I think Duggie just sent them out there and hoped for the best.
Keith Havenhand and I played together in the youth team that had reached the FA Youth Cup Final. As a player Keith had more than just a touch of class about him. He was a scheming inside right and, like most scheming inside forwards of that time, had an intellectual air to his play. He always seemed to be happy with a big smile on his face and he played the game that way too. He wasn’t a big lad but he was stocky enough to look after himself in the rough and tumble of Third Division football. Keith scored a lot of goals for Chesterfield and many of them were match winners. Quite often a player wins a reputation for scoring goals though a closer inspection of his record shows that many of his goals are scored when a game is over as a contest. It’s all very well scoring a goal when your team is two or three goals up. The true worth of a goalscorer, though, is how many times he puts the ball in the net when you really need him to. In my spell in the Chesterfield first team I can recall at least five occasions when a game was very tight and Keith popped up with the match winner. There may have been more prolific scorers around at that time, but few with a better record than Keith’s of notching goals that were crucial to the outcome of a game.
Bryan Frear was an important goalscorer for the club, who could be relied upon for twenty goals a season. Bryan could play equally well in any position in the forward line but to me was always at his best when leading the line. He was one hell of a competitor, as centre forwards had to be in those days. As we prepared to take to the pitch Bryan would be there in the dressing room, right fist clenched, teeth gritted, urging us all to give of our best – though on occasion some of his encouragement had a touch of the Sam Goldwyns about it.
‘Let’s go out and enjoy ourselves,’ said Bryan. ‘The result doesn’t matter. As long as we win!’
They were a super bunch of lads who played no small part in helping me establish myself in the first team. To a man, they always encouraged me and, when I did make a mistake, told me not to worry and just get on with it. To a young goalkeeper experiencing league football for the first time, this encouragement and support was invaluable, helping my confidence grow with each passing game.
I was learning my trade not in training but out there on the pitch in games. You might think that’s a very dangerous way to do it, especially for a goalkeeper, and you’d be right. But in those days there was no different training or specialized coaching for goalkeepers. Certainly in those early years, I was self-taught.
Back in the fifties, unless you were a player destined for a club in a much higher division, there was little to be gained from moving clubs. Players in the Third Division were all paid more or less the same. Marginally more in the Second Division, less in Division Four. Unless a First Division club came in for you, there was little financial incentive to change clubs. A player would only receive a cut of his transfer fee if he had not asked for a move. If he asked for a transfer, he got nothing. Moving to another club of similar size for a couple of pounds extra in wages was only beneficial if you lived within easy travelling distance and didn’t have to move home.
At the time most Chesterfield players were on around £9 a week. We heard stories of players at some clubs in the south, such as Brentford, Plymouth and Crystal Palace, being paid more. But the cost of housing and living in general in the south was much more expensive than in the north and midlands. The few pounds gained in wages from such a move would probably be gobbled up by more expensive mortgage payments and so on. Similarly, not many southern players made the reverse move to the lower-paying northern clubs.
In January 1959
Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly
, the most popular football magazine of its day, surveyed the origin of players in the Third and Fourth Divisions. The statistics showed that at the thirteen Third Division clubs from the north and midlands there were only twelve players who had moved from the south of England. In the Fourth Division the situation was even more pronounced: seventeen northern and midland clubs in that division boasted just seven players from the south. As we approached the sixties, clubs in the lower divisions operated in much the same way as they had done in the twenties, thirties and forties. The vast majority of players on their books came from within a twenty-five mile radius and they rarely looked any further afield for emerging young talent. When I was at Chesterfield we had only three players, Dave Blakey, Andy MacCabe and Gwyn Lewis, who had been born outside that radius of the town. The only ‘southerner’ was the Scot Andy MacCabe who lived most of his life in Corby, Northamptonshire.
Port Vale were also typical of the time. In 1959 they had twenty-three professionals on their books, eighteen of whom were local lads. Likewise Doncaster Rovers, who had nineteen local players on a professional staff of twenty-four.
The very fact that the local team, by and large, comprised local players made the football club a focal point of the community, even for those people who weren’t active supporters, and it fostered a deep loyalty and local pride. Everyone in Sheffield was either Wednesday or United, never Manchester United or Spurs. For those who owned a TV set, there was no league football to watch. Consequently, youngsters were never seduced by the glamour and reflected glory of the successful teams. You were never mocked at school for supporting your local team.
Supporters believed the players understood what an important role the local club played in their lives. The majority of players had grown up alongside these fans and, because players were not paid much more than the average working person, continued to
live alongside the fans. In my early days at Chesterfield I’d catch the same bus as some of the supporters, who’d chat away to me for the duration of the journey. Whether in the newsagent’s, the chip shop or the barber’s, wherever I went around the town I would receive praise or criticism depending on how we had done in our previous game. I never viewed such familiarity as an intrusion. I simply saw it as part of my lot as a footballer.
If supporters were loyal so too were most players. It was not unusual for clubs to have several longtime servants like Chesterfield’s Ron Powell, Dave Blakey and Gerry Clarke. ‘One-club men’ were loved by the supporters for that club loyalty. They were loyal, but their devotion presented them with the one opportunity of earning any decent money from football: the testimonial game, awarded to players who had given at least ten years’ service to a club. The award was in the gift of the board and usually took the form of a single game against superior opposition, the match receipts from which were given to the beneficiary.
Such loyalty wasn’t always a two-way street. Stanley Matthews spent fourteen years at Blackpool during which time the club enjoyed halcyon days. Often Blackpool played money-spinning friendly matches for which the club received a substantial fee, usually payable as a guarantee that Matthews would play. When the time came for Stan to leave the club, the Blackpool board didn’t think fit to reward him for his efforts with a testimonial match. The receipts from a testimonial wouldn’t keep a player for the rest of his days, but at least it was a way to top up his pension fund. Many people (but not some parsimonious club directors) thought the testimonial game to be a fitting ‘thank you’ for loyal service, as well as providing a safety net for someone who had to embark upon an entirely different career when in his mid to late thirties.