Nobby Stiles was a late entry into the Big Four. He was very close to John Giles, whose sister Kay he would marry, and when John made his rebellion against Matt Busby, arguing that we were badly treated after our FA Cup win when we received a bonus of just £20, and was promptly sold to Leeds United, Nobby seemed to be a little lost.
We invited him to the pictures and he seemed happy to accept – in fact he stayed with us for ever. We called him Happy because he was always moaning. I soon came to love Nobby, and that feeling has never lost its strength down the years. I make no apology for claiming that he was a great player. He had a reputation for being rough and tough, a kicker, but that assessment only ran along the surface of his ability. Nobby Stiles did things for United, and England, that no one else could have done.
At United, as it would be with England, an entire team was in his debt. He would make his name marking Eusebio on behalf of England, but that was the most visible and obvious point of his brilliance. There was so much else. In the dressing room, on the team bus or in a hotel, he could cause mayhem with his clumsiness, but on the field he saw every threat to our defence.
No doubt he would have made his way in the game anyway, as a midfielder of fierce tackling and aggression and great vision. However, it was more evidence of the brilliance of the Busby–Murphy reading of potential that it included the picture of Stiles the terrier and big Bill Foulkes fusing together so well in the centre of the defence that they might have been just one set of defensive reflexes.
Nobby read the game as though he was equipped with radar, and if I will always feel the greatest pride that I played in the company of George and Denis, the same is equally true of Nobby Stiles. He was the often unsung fourth great player and for me it is one of the happiest facts of my career that he and I enjoyed so much success together and, as it happened, shared the achievement of being the only Englishmen to win both the European and World Cups. In many ways he was the forerunner of Roy Keane in that he was always at the heart of danger, sniffing out points of trouble like some relentless tracker dog. He was a dog of war, if you like, snapping and snarling at both his opponents and his team-mates. When we entered the most vital phase of our campaign to win the European Cup, for Busby and for our fallen team-mates, Nobby was a giant in both his will and his understanding of what had to be done. It was a vital point of the story that was beginning to unfold, and when we came to the detail and the execution of it the little man became a giant, unscrupulous at times no doubt, fiercely committed always, but also someone who loved the challenge of the game, and the feeling he got from being in a winning team. No one I would ever know in football was prepared to do so much for his team-mates and when sometimes, so long after the battles have been fought, I call him and he says, ‘What’s up, Bobby?’ in a voice which still comes straight from the streets of Collyhurst, I experience an old and precious tide of feeling.
Where he differed somewhat from Roy Keane was that he didn’t so much see himself as someone at the centre of the battle, with a duty to go forward and spread his influence all over the field and into every corner of the team, but more as the troubleshooter, someone whose job was to clean up the difficulties, make it easier for people like George and Denis and me to operate at the top of our games.
Sometimes your heart would leap into your mouth as the opposition seized on a mistake and then, in a flash, there would be Nobby mopping up danger, passing the ball on with a few choice remarks for the team-mate who had surrendered it. If he didn’t shout at you, the expression on his face would be eloquent enough. It would say, ‘OK you stupid bastards, I’ve done my job, now you get on with yours.’ On occasions, when he made one of his more dramatic interventions, when he came from nowhere to shut down danger, I would shake my head and think, ‘How on earth did you figure that out?’ It was a form of envy really. I knew that as long as I played, I wouldn’t have that ability to seize on something so quickly and act so sharply – and ruthlessly, if necessary. When Jimmy Murphy hammered out the need to win the tackle, to always be first, he might have had Nobby in mind. Nobby did the hardest thing in the game, he got you the ball, and, as Jimmy used to say, ‘All the rest is bloody easy.’
As the team progressed in all areas, Matt Busby again recognised the need to strengthen the goalkeeping position. Pat Dunne, a £10,500 signing from Shamrock Rovers, an enormous fee for a goalkeeper in those days, had ability, but when the Old Man finally measured the level of it he felt that he needed a bigger, stronger presence, and also someone less erratic, as a contender for the old place of Harry Gregg, who in his best days had always been both ferocious and strong. Alex Stepney, the big Londoner, was quite different from Harry, but he brought the assurance of a natural shot-stopper. He never dominated his area, wouldn’t come out ten yards to catch a ball, but we recognised early that he would do well for us. Not only did he get his hands to the ball at crucial moments, he also held on to it – which is a basic but vital reassurance for any team.
We could not have been stronger at left back. You could have scoured Europe and South America and still not found a full back as quick and as sound as Tony Dunne. When I played, reluctantly, on the left wing, we would always have a chat about ‘taking the runner’, often an overlapping full back. My job was to take the full back if he indeed looked as if he was going to be the runner, and it was something I could also do when playing midfield. Tony’s speed and understanding meant that we were rarely inconvenienced by a sudden break; it was an important part of our increasing strength and it was something I was proud of; something to ease the paranoia I sometimes felt about the level of my contribution off the ball.
It was the speed of Tony Dunne that lingers most strongly in the memory, however. You could lose count of the number of times he overtook a man on the ball. It was something he rarely brought to attack, but then we were not exactly short of options in that area. Like Nobby and Bill Foulkes, Tony was a key underpinning of the ‘team of stars’.
David Sadler would emerge as another important element as the team built towards its ultimate European triumph in 1968. He came to Old Trafford as an outstanding young prospect, a boy from Kent who had been pursued by all the major teams, and it was clear that he was a thoroughbred the moment he arrived at the club. However, David wasn’t the first naturally gifted player to suffer from his own virtuosity. Because of his elegant touch, he came to us as a centre forward, which in my opinion was not his natural position. To me, he was a classic central defender, an intelligent reader of the ball. However, there was no opening in the middle of our defence when he arrived with considerable fanfare. It had been sealed up by Foulkes and Stiles.
Bill Foulkes played for England at right back, but I have to say he never looked completely at home in that position: the cleverness of a good winger tended to undermine his confidence and this would sometimes lead to the kind of lunging which can draw free kicks – or leave the rest of the defence exposed when the commitment to the tackle is made unsuccessfully. What Bill Foulkes was, however, was a natural born pillar at the heart of a defence. He was maybe the hardest physical specimen I ever encountered on a football field. If he happened to clip you with his arm during training it was like being hit by a rock. You would cry out with the force of it, ‘Jesus Christ, Bill!’ Accompanied by the Nobby Stiles radar system, this Bill Foulkes was an immense asset; there was his strength and height and a tremendous love of the battle, which would be absolutely vital to us reaching the European Cup final.
When this happened, it was a moment so crucial to the history of Manchester United that it demands, and will receive, more attention than the passing references in this chapter, but maybe at this point it is relevant to say that it sprang from the perfect understanding Bill Foulkes developed with Nobby Stiles. There was no way Bill could be drawn out of his fortress of central defence, and after Nobby had made one of his seek-and-destroy satellite runs he was obliged to scamper back into the defensive lines. There were two reasons for this. One was his ow
n deep awareness of his function. The other was Foulkes’s piercing yell, ‘Get back here, you little bastard.’ In the middle, Foulkes showed no trace of the uncertainty that sometimes came to him on the flank. He was fast into the tackle, rarely missed anything in the air – you would see opponents wince as they bounced off him – and there was never a moment when he was tempted to try to look good by dwelling on the ball. There would be no flowing pass. Just some basic delivery of the ball accompanied by a grunt of satisfaction.
Foulkes, my World Cup team-mate George Cohen and Tommy Banks of Bolton Wanderers, were a breed of defenders who at that time could bring tears to the eyes of skilful, nippy little forwards. I would have hated to have played against Bill. It would have been something to recall in terms of bruised limbs and battered spirit. You would look at someone like George, and, say, well he’s not a classic international full back, there isn’t a lot of touch there – but he was such a wonderful competitor, fast and hard, another guy you didn’t really want to go near on the field. When clever little wingers like Brian Pilkington of Burnley or Joe Haverty of Arsenal came into 50–50 situations with such men, you could only cringe and feel deep pity.
As the Old Man shaped his last team, he recognised the need for one more piece in the jigsaw. He needed a strong new element in midfield, something of the order of Davie Mackay at Spurs, or the generalship of Johnny Giles, which would emerge later alongside the bite of Billy Bremner at Leeds. He settled for Pat Crerand from Celtic. I heard later that the other contender was the Scottish virtuoso Jimmy Baxter, a player of genius on the field but one whose reputation for ill-discipline off it would have made any manager think twice. It was said that Busby took his dilemma to Denis Law, who knew both players from the Scottish team. Denis recommended Crerand for his brilliant ability to pass the ball long and penetratively, and for his immense competitive instinct.
After accepting the obvious fact that Paddy would never break any speed records, it was clear soon enough that he brought huge value to the team. Around him it seemed a few sparks were always flying. In training, he could be quite ferocious in opinions about who was doing what, and how effectively. He and I were not always doting team-mates (for Crerand there was the unassailable problem that not only was I English, I also played for England), but he did have a warm heart, and with his warring instincts and his passion for Manchester United he became an integral strength of the team. It was also a great help that he could put the ball on a sixpence from fifty yards.
In the build-up through the sixties, it was clear to me that Matt Busby had achieved the last football ambition left to him after he accepted that he had to go on as manager after Munich. It was to rekindle not only success on the field, but a certain kind of playing, a way of saying the game wasn’t solely about winning and losing but also lifting the spirits of all those who watched the game, not just those who were there for partisan reasons. For me this is one of the great differences between the football of the past and the game of today. In the sixties there were still so many who had the spirit of those Arsenal fans that day we beat them at Highbury in such an unforgettable match. The Old Man wanted to cater for that longing to see beautiful football.
He differed from Stan Cullis, a hard and brilliant maker of a formidable, winning team; the Old Man wanted to win, but also wanted to entertain, and of course he had achieved that with the ’48 team which won the cup so brilliantly but had to wait until 1952 to get their hands on the league title. In the sixties, the team of the Big Three – and the Big Four – were racing ahead of that old schedule. The cup fell to us in 1963, the title in 1965. Equally important to the Old Man, and to me I have to say, is that Manchester United were no longer trying to live with their past.
We were making football that apart from winning matches was also lighting up the sky. A glow had come back to the environs of Trafford Park and it had nothing to do with the fire and the smoke and the sulphur of the factories. We had made it clear that once again Manchester United could be a great side.
16
DENIS, GEORGE AND ME
I DO NOT like to think of myself as a boastful person, but sometimes you have to be honest. You have to put aside false modesty. So I have to report that when people started reeling off phrases like ‘the Big Three’, when the names Law, Best and Charlton were linked so frequently and so naturally, it did come to me that I had become part of football history.
This was not something I stepped back to consider later, as a little dust gathered on a shoal of headlines. It was deeply thrilling at the time that it happened, with the excitement of the fans becoming a little more apparent each time we ran on to the field, because for me the records, and the emerging of aristocracy in football, had always been so fascinating from a boyhood watching the great names and keeping company with Wor Jackie Milburn. It was something that would never pall down all the years.
Having put aside the frustrations of playing out on the left wing, where sometimes I used to look at the old clock and swear that it had stopped, I was more confident in my ability than ever before. The results for the team were increasingly solid, and this meant the expectations placed on Denis, George and me had rapidly become more an inspiration than a burden.
We went about our football in contrasting ways, Denis sending sparks and flames up around him, George going on his amazing runs with trickery and courage that just welled out of him, me with my liking for the bold pass and the big, swirling shot. We had one abiding thing in common. We loved to score goals.
About the town and the country you had the growing sense that football fans had a feeling they just had to see us play. If they didn’t, they might miss George finding a full back to his liking, or Denis producing flashes of lightning, or me profiting again from Jimmy Murphy’s advice to hit the ball hard and early when I felt I was in scoring range.
We brought different qualities to the field, separate abilities, but as each game passed they seemed to become a little more complementary. Of course there were times when George disappeared on his own flight of fancy, when somebody like me might scream fruitlessly for him to pass, but then the chances were that when he was in that vein he would do something utterly unforgettable. It is also true, as he claimed from time to time, that I too could be selfish when I had the ball at my feet. It can be a fine dividing line, anyway, between confidence and inspiration and a failure to understand the needs of the team at any particular moment, and for three or four years no doubt the most important point was that all three of us were able to deliver the best of our talent.
What the fans loved most about Denis Law, I believe, was his incredible aggression and self-belief. There were times when he seemed to define urgency on a football field – all that some of his most brilliant interventions lacked were puffs of smoke – and always there was the gleam in his eye, and the courage. They never made a big centre half who could induce in Denis even a flicker of apprehension.
One of the most amazing things I saw was his decision to take on big Ron Yeats – he man described as the ‘New Colossus’ by his Liverpool manager Bill Shankly. Denis scarcely came to the big man’s shoulder, but he was in his face throughout the game, chivvying, needling, always at the point of maximum danger. I remember thinking, ‘This is ridiculous, impossible’, and for anyone else but Denis it certainly would have been. Such a performance would be born of instinct and then, when the physical going became increasingly rough, it would be a point of honour that he stuck to his task. Among his greatest admirers was United’s fierce rival Bill Shankly, who valued all aspects of football talent but held the battling, fighting nature most highly, and it was why he spoke with such reverence of the young, spindly Scot who walked into his life when he was manager of Huddersfield Town. ‘The kid was a phenomenon,’ enthused Shankly.
There was a period around the mid-sixties when Denis was free from injury, and then we saw the full scale of his brilliance. He was an awesome sight as he went into the dangerous places, daring a centre half or a
goalkeeper to blink. He got up to incredible heights and when he did so the defenders knew they couldn’t afford half a mistake. The semblance of a slip was all he needed. The ball would be in the back of the net and his arm would be shooting skywards.
One result was that if I ever found some space on the right or the left, I always knew precisely what I had to do. I had to get the ball to the near post; never the back one because Denis would not be there. If I could get the ball to the near post, Denis was guaranteed to sneak half a yard, and when it happened the result was inevitable.
This was a strength, almost an expression of himself as a player, that Denis retained even to the end of his long and painfully injury-prone career. I remember that, at a very late hour for both of us, we played in a testimonial match for Bill Foulkes. They brought the old guys back for the game and, in the tradition of testimonials, the full back gave me a little room to go down the right side. As I prepared to cross, I saw a red shirt moving towards the near post and I knew it had to be Denis. As I made to centre the ball, I thought, ‘Oh, I remember the ones he used to like.’ I hit it to the near post and there, of course, he was, connecting and sending the ball just an inch wide. The Old Trafford crowd roared in a way it hadn’t done all night. Denis had made them remember some of the best of the past.
My Manchester United Years: The Autobiography Page 19