by Tim Flower
‘Brazil and Argentina would prefer to be refereed by South Americans, is that the point?’
I mumbled, ‘Yes, and we’d prefer them to have Northern European referees,’ before being distracted by seeing who would referee the matches involving Brazil. I thrust the document in front of Rita and said, ‘Look here: this is amazing. Ken Dagnall and George McCabe - who are both English - will referee two of Brazil’s games and a West German the other.’
‘That’s amazing?’ she queried.
‘Yes, absolutely. All of them will be refereed according to Northern European standards. It couldn’t be better from our point of view.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Brazil are the favourites. They have the most talented players, including Pele.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard of him,’ Rita said, looking pleased with herself. ‘Isn’t he really good?’
‘He’s the best player in the world. But under the slightest physical challenge, he throws himself to the floor, which prompts South American referees to whistle for a foul.’
‘You mean when it isn’t one?’
‘Exactly. At least not what we’d call a foul here - or anywhere else in Northern Europe for that matter.’
‘Are we due to play Brazil then?’
I could never understand why explaining anything about Football to women was so difficult. ‘No, it’s not that. Brazil aren’t in our Group.’
‘Then why does it matter?’
I took a deep breath. ‘If Brazil don’t make it past the group stage, they can’t defeat England. Our most threatening opponents would be out of the competition.’ I looked at Rita. The penny still hadn’t dropped. ‘All of their three matches are against European teams. Their players are used to tackling hard and being physical, which is the only way that a less talented team like Bulgaria or Hungary can win against Brazil. The likes of Ken Dagnall and George McCabe won’t penalise that style of play, but South American refs would.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Rita said, less than convincingly.
‘That’s not to criticise the refereeing out there: in Brazil and Argentina, refs have been shot for not blowing their whistle.’
Rita’s eyes gaped. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘It’s true. The pitches have moats and trenches around them. A war can break out at football matches there at any time.’
Behind us, a deeper, sterner female voice said, ‘I assume you’re referring to Millwall.’ The office atmosphere switched to tense.
Marcia Williams didn’t give me an opportunity to correct her assumption. In fact, she ignored me completely and addressed Rita. ‘Where’s your Mr Forsyth?’ She said it as if, having searched for him high and low, asking his secretary was a last desperate measure.
With the face of someone lighting an unsteady rocket on bonfire night, Rita replied, ‘He’s at Wimbledon, Mrs Williams.’
Up she went. ‘WIMBLEDON! What the fuck’s he doing there: playing with the ball boys?’
‘He’s in the Royal Box, representing the PM and Mrs Wilson.’
‘Both of them?’
‘No. Just the PM. But Harry - Mr Miller - is going as well. So they can have a meeting.’
After giving me a disparaging glance, Mrs Williams barked towards her secretary, ‘Brenda, type a memo, will you?’
Until that moment, Brenda had been in the land of taped dictation and garibaldi biscuits, oblivious of events on the other side of the office. Upon hearing Mrs Williams address her, she ripped off her earphones, propelling her framed photograph of Mittens and the remains of her late-morning treat across her desk.
Whilst gabbling, ‘A memo. Yes, Mrs Williams. Right away,’ she yanked her work-in-progress from her typewriter, snatched some memorandum forms, interleaved them with carbon paper and briskly wound the resulting sandwich into her machine. Then, sat straight-backed and alert, she announced, ‘When you’re ready, Mrs Williams.’
Her boss wandered towards the window, gazed out of it and dictated the memo to Brenda with a fluency I had to admire.
‘To: Ludovic Forsyth. Subject: Concorde. Mark it, Most Urgent, Strictly Private and Confidential.’
Rita raised her eyebrows at me in concern, which compelled me to interrupt. ‘Excuse me. Mrs Williams?’
She turned towards me and glared.
‘Would you like me to leave you to it? I could get some lunch. I haven’t — ’
‘Stay there, Mr Miller,’ she ordered. ‘I want you to deliver this.’
She resumed dictation. ‘Ludo, I understand you have advised Harold that we have no alternative but to continue with the Concorde project, despite the development cost growing exponentially. I appreciate that, due to that supercilious swine, Julian Amery, we have a binding…’ Mrs Williams paused. ‘No, scratch supercilious swine.’
Brenda stopped dead, swiftly backtracked and over-typed the unwanted words.
‘What have you got?’
Brenda read back the beginning of the sentence. ‘I appreciate that, due to that…’
‘Due to that mendacious swine, Julian Amery, we have a binding agreement with France to share those costs. Nevertheless, given the current economic crisis - with speculators ditching the pound like it’s the peso - we can no longer afford to waste any more public money on what is doomed to be a white elephant. We have no alternative, therefore, but to withdraw from the project.
‘Accordingly, I insist that, as a matter of urgency, you unequivocally endorse the advice I have given Harold this morning that the Government must steadfastly resist all demands from the French that we pay any more towards this…’ Mrs Williams sought inspiration from the ceiling, turned towards Brenda and, with a smirk of satisfaction, spat the words, ‘Cross-Channel COCK-UP!’
She turned to me and said, pointing to what Brenda was tearing from her typewriter, ‘Ensure that Mr Forsyth gets that right away.’
Carrying Mrs William’s vitriolic missive, I took the tube to Southfield’s and from there walked, under an idyllic summer sky, past Wimbledon Park towards the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
Wimbledon on match day was most unlike Wembley. In Empire Way, I would have been amongst an overwhelmingly male, blue-collared swarm, adorned in tribal colours, bellowing belligerent battle cries. In stark contrast, Church Road was populated by promenading members of both sexes: the men dressed in lightweight suits and silk ties, the ladies in summer frocks and fancy hats. All I could hear, above a BBC buzz, were perfectly enunciated complaints about “the socialists” and “hooligans in leather jackets”.
Following the polite procession through the club’s ornate wrought-iron gates, I caught my first sight of Centre Court in full colour. Whilst the three storey, south facade was familiar from black and white television pictures, the vibrant green of its ivy cladding against the polished amber wood of the imposing entrance and the brilliant pinks, blues and yellows of the ladies’ fashions being paraded outside, were nothing short of shocking.
Whilst still dazed by the experience, I spent three shillings on an official programme of “The Lawn Tennis Championships 1966, upon the lawns of the All England Club Wimbledon”, three times the price of the Wembley equivalent. Worst still, having been admitted to Centre Court by uniformed members of the Coldstream Guards and the Royal Navy, I discovered that guests to the Royal Box received a complimentary copy.
Just as my eyes were adjusting to the gloomy light indoors, another uniformed serviceman took me up a short flight of steps into the Box itself, which was basking in bright summer sun. A warm wood balustrade separated it from the other parts of the south stand and, instead of rows of tip-up seats or benches, there were seventy or eighty individual, dark green, Lloyd Loom chairs.
I was led down the left-hand aisle and shown to two vacant seats at the end of the third row from the front, next to a bulky man in large, very dark glasses, who could well have been a member of SMERSH or the KGB. There being no sign of Forsyth, I bagsied the chair nearest the aisle.
With on
ly twenty minutes to go until the Final was due to start, the Box was filling up fast. Surreptitiously looking for anyone famous, I spotted (appropriately, over on the right), next to a lady in what looked like a swimming cap covered in white petals, the Leader of the Opposition, Ted Heath. Then I noticed, sitting almost in front of me, in the row below, was Lord Longford. He was talking to a woman in a frumpy hat and glasses, who I assumed was his wife. However, they were both trumped by an elegant woman in a peach-coloured frock, with a matching skullcap type hat crowned with a bow, taking her seat in the front row. She turned in my direction for her neighbour to light the cigarette she was presenting in a long holder. Brown, gold-rimmed sunglasses could not disguise the world-famous face of Princess Margaret.
The court itself, laid out below, looked like a huge green rectangle of well-worn Wilton. It was divided in half by a taut, white-topped net and demarcated with newly applied chalk lines. In the “out of court” area beneath us, where three line judges would shortly be sitting, a military band played suitably up-tempo marches for the capacity crowd in their summer finery, patiently awaiting the officials, the Dr Barnardo’s ball boys and finally the players to arrive on court.
Whilst I waited for Forsyth to arrive, I skimmed through my high-priced programme. The final was between Spain’s Manolo Santana and America’s Dennis Ralston. Although Santana was seeded higher, Ralston was the favourite. According to the programme, he was better suited to grass; and only one European had won the men’s title since Britain’s own Fred Perry in 1936 and that was a Frenchman twenty years previously.
I was wondering what Forsyth would make of the country’s persistent failure since the war to win its own premier tennis tournament, when a familiar voice behind me said, ‘Make way, Miller.’
I turned to see Forsyth tapping his foot impatiently. Wearing a funereal suit and tie, starched white shirt and black-rimmed Polaroids, he looked like a shrunken spy.
As soon as he had taken his seat, I gave him Marcia Williams’ memo.
‘What’s this?’ he said, turning the brown internal envelope back and forth.
‘It’s from Mrs Williams. She said it was extremely urgent.’
‘Did she now.’ He removed his dark glasses - sedately posting them behind the crisply folded handkerchief in the outside breast pocket of his suit - unfastened the envelope’s metal clasp and removed its contents.
He read the memo, unhurriedly and without comment. When he had finished, he refolded it and ran his finger and thump repeatedly along the crease until it could have cut skin. Eventually he said, waving it in front of me, ‘Do you know what this is about?’ Judging by his tone, he was anticipating I wouldn’t.
‘In actual fact I do. Mrs Williams dictated it in my presence.’
In the spirit of Wimbledon, Forsyth treated my unexpected response as a weak, mid-court return that deserved to be mercilessly dispatched. ‘She dictated this, did she? I thought she’d expelled it through her rectum.’
At the mention of “rectum”, Lord Longford broke off his conversation, turned in our direction and gave us a distinctly disapproving look. I grinned inanely and quickly checked to see who else may have overheard. Fortunately, the seats immediately behind us were still unoccupied; and, assuming he understood English, the vulgarity didn’t seem to have offended the Soviet spy.
‘Concorde is, in actual fact, vitally important. Do you know why, Miller?’
My reply, after a moment’s hesitation, utilised my entire knowledge of the subject. ‘It will cut the flight-time to Australia and other parts of the Commonwealth in half?’
To Forsyth, it was another short return of serve that was sitting up, asking to be smashed. ‘That’s true, but irrelevant.’ Possibly more to avoid being overheard by the KGB, than further affronting Lord Longford, he lowered his voice to a “Strictly Private & Confidential” whisper, before continuing, ‘Britain is in a three horse race, Miller: us against the Americans and the Soviets. And we are way out in front. We led the world by producing the steam engine and industrialising our economy; and - with some help from the Frogs - we will lead it again by producing the first airliner to break the sound barrier.’
‘That would be an achievement,’ I said, whilst thinking it wouldn’t match the hundred mile per hour run by the Flying Scotsman.
‘The Yanks may win the space race, but we’ll win the supersonic one. What’s more, if we abandon the project, as she’s suggesting,’ - he said “she” as if referring to Myra Hindley - ‘we can kiss goodbye to the Common Market. That bastard De Gaulle -’ Forsyth stopped to check whether the bastard was in the Royal Box, before continuing, ‘… is hardly going to say “oui” to a country that has left him with a multi-million pound development bill.’
Just as I was tempted to query whether that would be such a bad thing, the crowd welcomed the players on court. The Spaniard and the American, both in regulation whites, gave modest, self-conscious bows towards the Royal Box, no doubt wondering why they were required to show subservience to the sister of a foreign monarch.
Santana, the shorter and stockier of the two men, with black hair and bad teeth, started the stronger. He had an exquisite touch, his wooden racket a precision instrument with which he could deliver the ball exactly where he wanted. The tall, fair-haired Ralston, on the other hand, appeared nervous and made several unforced errors in losing the first set six games to four.
I had been expecting Forsyth to use the short interval between sets to give me my instructions for the final stage of Operation Jules Britannia. However, as the players stood near the tall, green umpires chair, sipping Robinson’s Barley Water and towelling the sweat off themselves and the leather handles of their rackets, he said nothing. Instead, he casually flicked through the pages of his complimentary programme, whilst stealing surreptitious glances at the KGB man next to him.
Feeling a need to say something, I commented positively on the draw allocating the World Cup officials.
‘Yeahhs,’ said Forsyth nonchalantly, without interrupting his superficial review of the programme. ‘I’m pleased to say, neither the Uruguayan nor the Argentinian representatives were present. Aside from one or two African odds and sods, the only overseers were Sir Stanley and a West German.’ He looked up and gave me a thin grin. ‘And, for a change, the Germans were on our side.’
I initially took him to mean that the West Germans would also prefer their matches officiated by Europeans. But reflecting on what he had said, as the players resumed their positions for the start of the second set, it occurred to me that this would make them competitors for the European officials, rather than allies. Then I thought, since neither nation had any say in the allocation - they were only there as observers - why did it matter anyway?
When play resumed, this time it was Ralston who first broke his opponents serve and quickly powered his way into a four-one lead. This reversal added to the excitement of the match for what I sensed was a largely neutral Centre Court crowd. Neither player could have been considered the underdog (who would have generally attracted otherwise nonpartisan support). And whilst Ralston was fair skinned, English speaking and his nation had been a crucial ally in the war, the many who had holidayed on the Costa Blanca or elsewhere in Spain, were no doubt feeling a soft spot for Santana, particularly as he played with typical Latin flair.
Forsyth was one of the minority who did have an allegiance. ‘I don’t like Santana: he’s a show-off. His fancy touches might please the crowd, but they’ll only get him so far. The American is clearly more disciplined, more resolute; and those are the sort of qualities that win you the day.’
They didn’t win Ralston the second set, however. Santana soon broke back and, after an enthralling battle, finally prevailed eleven games to nine.
‘I think we’ll stretch our legs,’ Forsyth said, insistently and sullenly as the players left the court for a well-earned rest. ‘We will have a cup of tea on the lawn next door.’
After such a long second set, he wasn�
�t the only one who fancied some refreshment. Nevertheless, he secured us a table for four under the shade of a dark green and purple striped umbrella and shooed off anyone who even contemplated occupying the other two chairs. Without consulting me, he accosted a hot and harassed looking waitress and ordered a pot of tea for two and one bowl of strawberries.
Once our tea had arrived, he had dismissed the waitress and consumed most of the ration-size bowl of strawberries, he turned to me and said, in a conspiratorial tone, ‘Now, Miller, you’ve no doubt been wondering why I brought you back early from the tour.’
He was right: I had been. ‘Yes, I did ask Rita - or rather Miss Davies. She said — ’
‘Never mind that. The reporting of the tour is under control.’ I felt a momentary buzz of self-satisfaction. ‘But England’s opponents in Group One are not.’
I knew that FIFA had divided the sixteen finalists into four groups and that each would play the three others in their group, in a kind of mini league. I also knew that, in order to progress to the quarter-finals - where it became a straight knock-out competition - England needed to finish no worse than second in their league. What I didn’t understand was how any of England’s group opponents - Uruguay, Mexico and France - let alone all of them, could possibly be out of control ten days before the tournament had even started.
‘What have the other teams been doing?’
‘Trespassing, Miller - at least some Latins have.’
I remained unenlightened.
I must have looked it, because Forsyth sighed and continued wearily, ‘In order to protect the modest advantage which comes with - but in no way compensates for - the considerable burden of hosting the competition, we - or FIFA, I should say - have limited the other fifteen countries’ access to the Wembley’s unique playing surface.’
‘Have they? I didn’t know.’ I had visions of the surrounding running track having been converted into a moat and machine guns stationed in the twin towers. ‘In what way?’