It must have been tremendous pressure, and sometimes you could see that he was under great stress. On one of our better days, when we beat Manchester City in the FA Cup at Old Trafford – after Wilf had had to face the psychological warfare that Malcolm Allison waged so skilfully in the media, knowing that a bad result might have devastating effects on the faith of both the club and the fans in his ability – his relief filled the dressing room. He was the latest football man inhabiting that perilous ground between success and failure, but no one had done it, at that point in English football, under such a harsh spotlight.
The change, overnight, in Wilf’s position could not have been more demanding – and, emotionally speaking, nor could the circumstances of his demotion in December 1970. After home defeats by Manchester City and Arsenal, with the gate dropping to a mere 33,182 for the second game, and then the League Cup semi-final defeat by Aston Villa who were then in the Third Division, the Old Man decided that, however reluctantly, he had to come back to full management. It was a cruel situation for Wilf, but sentiment runs only so far in football. We were eighteenth in the league and confronted by an old nightmare which had previously come in the days after Munich – our first post-war relegation.
While Sir Matt gathered the shell-shocked troops together for a meeting in which he said we were fighting for our own futures as well as the club’s, Wilf returned to his role as second-team coach. Later he went to work in Greece for a few years, followed by managing York briefly and then serving Bury in various capacities including coach and trainer, caretaker manager and physiotherapist.
You could only guess at the depth of his sadness when he went off to make a new life away from that place which had dominated all his professional thoughts and hopes for so long. All you could do was shake his hand, thank him for his friendship and hope that in time the hurt would pass.
Faced by the humiliating possibility of demotion, and no doubt reassured to some extent by the mystical aura that still surrounded the Old Man, we rallied to eighth place by the end of the season, winning eleven of our last eighteen games.
The last stand of Sir Matt Busby as a working manager started with a 2–1 win at Stamford Bridge, where we overcame the deficit caused when Alan Hudson – who with team-mates like Peter Osgood and Charlie Cooke was painting an extremely bright future for Chelsea – scored early in the second half. Denis Law was fouled in the box, Willie Morgan converted the penalty, and then, with just a few minutes left, one of the young contenders, Alan Gowling, ran through for the winner. The Old Man was back, said the headlines, and all the old confidence had been restored to Manchester United. It was a pretty thought, but among the players there was no illusion that Matt Busby was doing anything more than holding the line at Old Trafford as a new search for his successor was launched.
The holding part, at least, was a successful operation and for the Old Man’s last match in charge of the team – the final league game at, of all places, Maine Road – we managed to produce one of our most committed performances of a difficult season. We won 4–3, and for me the scoring line-up still reads like some attempt to recreate a more glittering past: Charlton, Law and Best (2). It was a terrific game, with Francis Lee at the heart of City’s fight back after we took a 3–0 lead, and on the way home, amid all the other emotions, I had the satisfaction of feeling that, on his last day as the manager of Manchester United, Matt Busby had almost certainly been reminded of what his work would always represent most strikingly: a willingness to nourish talented players, to give them freedom to express all their ability.
Poignantly, ironically, call it what you like, the outstanding performance of the day came from George Best. He ran, he dribbled, he dipped into his great reserves of genius. On that day at Maine Road, George was once again announcing that he was George – untamable, both on and off the field. He was such a great player that maybe it was inevitable that the growing crisis of his career, and his life, should coincide with the one facing the football club he had lifted so high and so brilliantly.
23
THE BAND CAN’T PLAY FOREVER
ONE OF THE charges against Frank O’Farrell, who, like Wilf McGuinness, would be in command for just eighteen months, was that he was excessively suspicious of what he considered the powerfully lingering influence of the Old Man – that instead of embracing the experience and the help of the manager who had created the meaning of Manchester United, he was too keen to draw a line under all that had gone before.
Something else Frank and Wilf had in common was their basic decency; they were good men under pressure that in both cases proved too much, although both argued that they were sacked before they had had enough time and freedom of action to meet the challenge that faced them.
Again my reaction had to be that it was circumstances that worked so damagingly against Frank, as they had against Wilf, rather than any great flaw in his knowledge of the game – or of footballers.
My own approach, even as captain, had been to attend to my own business and try to provide leadership on the training field and the pitch by example. I always attempted to steer wide of the politics of the club, something that O’Farrell later insisted wasn’t so in the case of some senior players like Denis Law, Pat Crerand and Alex Stepney.
Also, apart from arguing that the Old Man’s retention of his office at the top of the stairs sent out the message that he was still in charge, Frank said he felt undermined by stories that somebody still referred to as the Boss or the Old Man regularly played golf with players who should now be operating under the sole influence of the new manager. It was almost as though O’Farrell saw the mere presence of Sir Matt as some kind of reproach to himself.
There was also the problem that took a sharp turn for the worse at the end of O’Farrell’s first season, one that started so promisingly with a rush to the top of the league, before a run of seven straight defeats shattered the idea that the manager had found an instant solution to our problems. The big blow came when George Best took off for Spain, insisting that he was quitting the game. He told a horde of reporters on the beach at Marbella that he was drinking a bottle of vodka a day. Whether that was true or not – and you had to pray that it wasn’t – the damage to O’Farrell’s authority was heavy. The key to his job was always going to be dealing with George successfully, and here, after a season which had promised much until a late tailspin dropped us into eighth place in the league, was a huge setback.
The manager urged George to remember that there would be a day when he wouldn’t have the choice between playing the game maybe better than anyone else in the world and doing something else at which he could never hope to be brilliant. For the moment he was young and handsome and was surrounded by people who enjoyed the light of celebrity he created. It wouldn’t always be like this.
O’Farrell’s wise words didn’t bite home and he was disappointed when George failed to join the team for the opening of a summer tour in Israel. There, our troubles were put into perspective when we reflected that only slightly different flight scheduling would have put us in Tel Aviv’s Lod airport when three members of the Japanese Red Army terrorist group took automatic weapons and hand grenades out of violin cases and started firing indiscriminately, killing twenty-six and injuring many more. It was a powerful reminder that sometimes whatever happens within the margins of a football field, or in a club, has to be taken with a certain shrug of resignation. But even with our perspective on life once again properly realigned, there was no escaping the fact that as footballers we were facing some of our most difficult days.
This was proved true quickly enough. We failed to win in our first nine games and the shadow of relegation fell upon us again. O’Farrell complained about the level of press criticism, talking about the ‘violence of the typewriter’, but then I thought this was probably inevitable. When you were Manchester United, one of the last gifts you could expect was patience. Confidence had drained away with the confirmation that the fears first provoked in the sec
ond half of the previous season – when, among some bad defeats, we suffered the humiliation of conceding five goals to Leeds United at Elland Road – could not be easily banished.
Frank had been able to push through a couple of excellent signings in Martin Buchan from Aberdeen and Ian Storey-Moore from Nottingham Forest. Unfortunately, such encouragement was nullified by the latter’s injury problems – and the fact that the manager was plainly running out of time at about the same rate suffered by Wilf McGuinness. His third significant signing, the free-scoring Ted MacDougall, who was bought from Bournemouth for £200,000, had scarcely found his way around the corridors of Old Trafford when the axe fell. It came after another five-goal defeat, this time to Crystal Palace. It was Christmas time but no one was humming ‘Jingle Bells’.
It seemed that a little bit of desperation was creeping into a lot of bones and these, I have to say, included my own, which were now thirty-five years old. Certainly there was no doubt I had reached a critical point in my enthusiasm. I no longer felt that surge of expectation which I had always experienced at the dawn of any match I played for Manchester United.
Nobody needed to tell me the extent of the rewards that had come to me, which at this time included a testimonial match against Celtic which raised £45,000, three times more than I had earned in any one season of my career. I had known the best and the worst of days, and was now living through some tough ones; but the job still had to be done, at the very least until the end of this draining season. No doubt Frank O’Farrell would have welcomed the opportunity to do the same but, instead, he went away in anguish that the great opportunity of his career had come and gone. Later, he wrote a book – unpublished for reasons to do with clauses inserted into his severance agreement with United – which was to have been entitled ‘A Nice Day for an Execution’.
It was certainly a time when everyone at Old Trafford, including the Old Man, was obliged to examine their performance and their roles in the descent into crisis. Bill Foulkes had decided that it was time to retire. Denis Law would shortly move to his former club Manchester City. Nobby Stiles had already gone.
Once again, I found it impossible to attach individual blame, or at least to apportion too much specific responsibility. Many of the players thought Frank was too remote and there was no doubt about the fact that in one respect his regime was completely different from the Busby way. The Old Man was always approachable. Often he would come down to the training field in his track suit, and always you had the sense that he was weighing the atmosphere and the state of commitment and belief. Frank was more formal. Almost all our day-by-day contact was with the coach Malcolm Musgrove and though he was always agreeable, and full of ideas and commitments, some of the players thought this wasn’t enough. We needed more involvement from the new boss.
Once, Frank made an attempt to break the cycle. He gathered the players together and said, ‘Well, you tell me what is wrong.’ Some of the senior players threw their hats in the ring, and the consensus was that there was no doubt the squad needed strengthening if we were to maintain our place in the game, but then the arguments trailed off, and nothing had changed. Our confidence continued to slip away.
Naturally, the arrival of Tommy Docherty was another reason to make me think about how much time I had left as a player. Though he would always treat me with great consideration, he was something of a change from the manager I had known all my professional life. However, if the Old Man had decided that Docherty and his hard driving, and sometimes quite noisy assistant Tommy Cavanagh would bring the style that we needed in our situation, I was ready to go along. But for how long was quite another matter.
The question was really about me, and the strength of my own feelings as to how long I wanted to play, rather than what was going on elsewhere in the club.
In our day-to-day working relationship there was no point of friction between the manager and me, and I think that was seen on every occasion I needed to seek his help. I didn’t want any special treatment from Tommy, and he was good to me in the sense that he never even hinted that I was coming from the direction of someone who expected any privileges. ‘Aye, come back in a day or two,’ he would say when I asked him for the odd leave of absence, perhaps to do something like a personal appearance for a friend. This may seem like a relatively trivial matter, but it is on such details that relationships between a manager and a player can go awry. Tommy seemed to accept that I knew more about my need for good fitness than anyone else, and that I wouldn’t let a couple of days off here and there have any negative impact. I appreciated that.
Earlier in his career – and as time went on at Old Trafford it would be displayed again – ‘The Doc’ had shown a more abrasive side of his nature, and when he left United after his five-year stint there would be some familiar swirls of controversy. He lost a libel action taken against Willie Morgan, and his relationship with Mary Brown, the wife of team physiotherapist Laurie, was the sensationally reported prelude to a typically stormy exit. However, these were developments that would come when I was gone. Whatever else was said about Tommy Docherty, there was no question about the fact he knew the game – and how to fight.
For me, though, the most valuable product of his long experience as a player and manager at the top level of club and international football was his understanding of how it was for a player who had to get the timing right in one of the most painful decisions of his life. The truth was, I had found it harder than I could ever have imagined getting to the point of advising Docherty that I had decided it was finally time to walk away. The manager was using all his wiles, his tough professional instincts, to postpone relegation for a year, but for me it was getting progressively difficult on the field. Some days I walked off the pitch thinking, ‘I’m not sure how long I can go on.’ But then there were some frightening questions: what do I do next? How have I prepared for the days after I retire? And even: how do you go about quitting? How do you turn your back on all those things which have shaped your life?
I didn’t consciously pull back in my effort, but sometimes I did have the terrible sense that I was running for the sake of it; all the old optimism, the innate belief that I had the means to shape the outcome of any match, was dwindling. I was reaching the point when Saturday morning was no longer the greatest part of the week: the time when you woke up full of questions about the day’s opposition, and how you and your team-mates would perform. With a couple of months to go to the end of the season, I finally realised that I was playing my last games for Manchester United. We were playing Birmingham City and I couldn’t remember ever running so hard and so long, not even under the whip of Jimmy Murphy. I chased and I chased, but there was nothing there for me, not even one of those sweet moments which had always lifted me. We lost the match and, I do not think it is too dramatic to say, I lost that last belief that, for a while at least, I could still be a United player – which meant of course that I could no longer be a player at all. I just couldn’t imagine playing for any other team.
I spoke to Norma, and she confirmed what I already knew when she said, ‘Bobby, only you can really decide. You know better than anyone else how you truly feel.’
I went to Tommy Docherty and told him I had reached a decision. I said he was the first to know, and as this was something I had never done before, I didn’t quite know how to go about it. He said he would inform the board. At no time did he attempt to persuade me to stay on. Maybe he thought that the club were heading for days which demanded a fresh start and a new team with new influences, and that at this stage of my career I was just too strongly associated with the old days. Whatever his reasons, it didn’t matter, because in certain situations I can be decisive, and this was one of them. Deep down I was perturbed, even a little scared about what awaited me, but I also knew that, like every player before me, I had a duty to represent only the best of myself on and off the field. If I felt something vital had gone out of my game, and my feelings for it, I had no option but to leave.
Inevitably, the news got out. This meant that the last weeks of the season amounted to a farewell tour. Everyone was very kind, very generous. Wherever I went, someone seemed to have a present for me. My last home game, against Sheffield United, was inevitably poignant and, unavoidably I suppose, I replayed in my mind some of the warmest, most thrilling days of my football life.
I remembered it all, right back to the nervousness I felt in that first game against Charlton, lining up with men who were demi-gods before they became friends, the thrill of scoring my first goal, the wave of pleasure and satisfaction that came when men like Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy patted me on the back and said, ‘Well done, son, you’ll be all right.’ I was all right – but the band can’t play for ever, and now the music was drawing to a close.
The memories accompanied every step of the way to that moment I pulled on the red shirt for the last time. It was in Verona on a warm night of early summer. Someone said that it was appropriate I played my last game for United in Shakespeare’s City of Gentlemen. I took pride in that, because, whatever my effect in football, whether I won or lost, I always hoped that I would bring no discredit to the game that had given me my life. Of all the lessons he taught, I always believed that was the most important one delivered by the Old Man. Whatever you did, however well, however desperately, the important thing was that you never damaged the game, never threatened its place in the affections of those who paid their money to see something that took them away from the difficulties and strains of everyday life.
My Manchester United Years: The Autobiography Page 28