Fixing Sixty Six

by Tim Flower

  The latter proved an intriguing item. For inside it, along with a handful of negatives, were three rectangular black and white photos and a greeting card of an Austenesque girl at a writing desk with a kitten at her feet. The first photo was in a different format to the other two and showed a troubled-looking man in a baggy referees outfit, who vaguely resembled Joseph Stalin. The next was of Harry sitting on a bench, in what I guessed was the garden at Number 10. The third was the most interesting. It showed the same bench; but perched on the edge, in place of Harry, was an attractive young woman with dark hair, laughing at the camera. I suspected it was Rita: when I read the greeting card, I was sure of it.

  On the front of the card, above the twee picture, were cursively printed the words, “Just want to say…”. Inside was handwritten:

  Thanks for being wonderful.

  You were so sweet and understanding.

  It’s an evening I will never forget!

  R xx

  Not wanting Harry to find me rifling through his belongings, I hurriedly repacked the box. However, as I was putting it back under the bench, I heard, ‘What’s in there is between me and my blunt nib.’

  I looked up with a start, scraping my head on the edge of the bench top in the process. Harry was standing in the doorway, pointing at the box with his pipe. I felt like a schoolgirl caught smoking behind the bike sheds. ‘Then it’s a good job I agree to your proposal,’ I replied.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Then we’d better get on with it. Despite your snooping, there’s plenty you still don’t know.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  NINETEEN SIXTY SIX: Monday, 11th July

  In the ten days running up to the long-awaited start of the 1966 World Cup Finals, I had two jobs to do.

  The first was to complete my Mirror guide to the tournament: the “special project” that had covered my absences from the paper. I thought it should include an objective assessment of each team’s chances of winning the World Cup. Hugh Cudlipp had other ideas.

  ‘You’re writing for Britain’s biggest selling newspaper, not the Encyclopaedia fucking Britannia,’ he exclaimed when he saw the galley proofs. ‘We should be setting the stage for Britain’s finest post-war hour; exciting our readers, telling them that, with the likes of Jimmy Greaves and Jackie Charlton, we have the team to finish the job.’

  The impact of his Churchillian rhetoric was somewhat undermined by his confusing Bobby Charlton - England’s thunderous shooting centre forward - with his brother Jackie, a tall, ungainly, centre half, who was not unfairly nicknamed “Giraffe”. But I wasn’t going to argue with the Chairman. So out went the facts and informed analysis and in went four thousand words enthusing about the England squad, under the headline “THE WORLD AT THEIR FEET”. This got the Chairman’s seal of approval.

  My other task was to report separately, and for different purposes, to Forsyth and Daily Mirror readers, on the preparations of each of England’s Group One opponents. Despite involving a considerable amount of spying, this proved relatively straightforward and a lot less controversial.

  My reporting on the Mexican team, to both Forsyth and Mirror readers, couldn’t have been more convenient. The training pitch they had been given was just a few hundred yards from my home, at non-league Finchley FC. The Mexicans were less enamoured with it. They complained that it was hard and bumpy, and nothing like Wembley.

  France were also easy to keep tabs on. They only arrived in England - at the Homestead Court Hotel in Welwyn Garden City - shortly before the tournament started, having played a practice match against Vale of Leithen. The French team’s purpose in playing the tiny East Scottish non-league club, on a pitch that - compared to Wembley - would have resembled a cabbage patch, was far from clear. However, it suited me. Their detour and Mexico’s proximity enabled me to readily obey Forsyth’s command to concentrate most of my effort on shadowing Uruguay, England’s main group threat.

  In view of Forsyth’s agitation about Latins trespassing on the Wembley pitch, I had made a point of following Uruguay on their travels. On 5th July, just six days before their match against England, they did indeed have a training session on the world-famous turf: the twenty-minute one they were officially allowed. I suspected Forsyth had communicated his concerns about foreign trespassers to the stadium’s authorities. Twenty minutes to the second after the Uruguayans had begun their training, Wembley’s groundsmen started dismantling the goalposts, making further practice impossible.

  It was fortunate that my work wasn’t too stressful because at home tension had reached Rhodesian proportions and the threat of Nell following Ian Smith’s lead and unilaterally declaring independence had become very real. I stayed out of the house as much as I could: going to the pub after work and at weekends and living on a diet of cod and chips. Not that this proved to be a solution. Nell criticised my absence and was suspicious about where and with whom I had been. It was like being an adulterer, but without the sex.

  On the eve of the World Cup Finals, Nell had me babysit whilst she attended an evening reception at the Kensington Close Hotel to welcome the tournament referees. This was the start of her temporary, part-time job as an interpreter for several of them. As she was leaving the house, I made the mistake of showing some interest by asking whether she would be working at the opening match, between England and Uruguay.

  ‘I told you: we don’t attend the matches,’ she said, giving me her “you never listen to a word I say” look. ‘Once they’re on the pitch, they just have to communicate with their fellow officials and the players the best they can.’

  No doubt she had told me, and I had mentally blue-pencilled it. ‘What do you do then?’

  She sighed. ‘Ken Aston, the Referees Liaison Officer, holds a briefing for the officials at the hotel each morning and it’s my job to make sure the Russian, French and Italian ones know what’s going on, what they need to do and not do etcetera.’

  ‘So you’ll be back for lunch then?’

  ‘No,’ she said, as if it was a really dumb question. ‘We have lunch together afterwards.’

  ‘Why?’

  Instead of answering, she scowled at me, stormed out the front door and slammed it closed so hard our metal letterbox cover flew off and hit me where it hurts most. I vowed not to show an interest again in what she was doing.

  That evening, I watched a World Cup preview programme, during which Jimmy Hill gave a simplified explanation of the offside law, “mainly for lady viewers”. It could have been Sunday Night at the London Palladium: it was the funniest TV I had seen for a while. It was a good job Nell was out hobnobbing with the law’s enforcers, I thought: if she had seen it, she would have gone mental.

  The following evening I was at Wembley, reporting on the biggest occasion at the Empire Stadium since the first FA Cup Final was held there forty-three years earlier. With the stadium’s publicity officer declaring it a sellout, the Evening Standard reminded disappointed fans that they could, for the first time, watch England’s World Cup games live on TV. So, on what was a fine Monday evening, I expected to see an excited crowd thronging Empire Way, eagerly anticipating the tournament’s opening ceremony and the host’s first match. I was surprised and rather disappointed, therefore, to find the approach to the stadium only comfortably populated and hear a tout offering a two-guinea ticket for a quid.

  Inside the stadium, the scene was similar. As much as a quarter of the seating and terracing was vacant. Over three hundred thousand fans had invaded the stadium for the 1923 Cup Final. Why had only a fraction of that number, I wondered, come to see their national team start the first World Cup campaign on home soil?

  So, far from creating the “cauldron of nationalistic fervour” that Forsyth had demanded following our experience in Glasgow, the atmosphere that greeted the two teams as they emerged from the stadium’s famous tunnel was nothing more than enthusiastic. After the game kicked off and the pattern of it emerged - Uruguay
resolutely defending their goal and showing little intention of scoring one - even that waned, as spectators became restless and frustrated. In fact, when England’s Nobby Stiles stopped a promising Uruguay attack by flooring his opponent with what looked like a forearm smash, the crowd seemed almost sympathetic to the stricken foreigner, despite the referee having treated it as a fair challenge.

  For the first time since the war, England failed to score at Wembley and the match ended in a depressing 0-0 draw. Those spectators who hadn’t immediately left the stadium in disgust and disappointment, showed their disapproval by booing and jeering. Whether this was a response to Uruguay’s undoubtedly negative approach to the game or England’s worryingly pedestrian performance - or both - was unclear. Either way, it was extraordinary and, for any England supporter, distinctly troubling.

  Afterwards, I joined the scrum of international press to receive a typescript interview with Alf Ramsey. In it, he expressed disappointment with the result, but satisfaction with the team’s performance and said he remained confident that England would win the tournament.

  I subsequently heard my Fleet Street counterparts phone in stories from the long, narrow press room that ran under the North Stand, describing how the Uruguayans had cynically thwarted England. They seemed to share Ramsey’s belief that the nation would prevail nonetheless; the bookies, however, didn’t. Before the match, the odds on the hosts raising the Cup at the end of the month had been 7-2. Afterwards, Ladbrokes were offering 6-1, with the odds on Uruguay tumbling from 40-1 to 25-1.

  I disagreed too. To my mind, that night’s performance had vindicated my long held view that Ramsey’s teams lacked attacking width and creative flair and the rigid tactics and strict discipline he imposed stifled such footballing finesse as they did possess. That was the flavour of my colour piece to accompany Ken Jones’ match report. As I was soon to discover, it wasn’t to the “top floor’s” taste.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Tuesday, 12th July 1966

  When at breakfast the following morning I opened my copy of the Mirror, I couldn’t see one word of the story I had laboriously dictated over the telephone to our new and very green, copytaker. This produced such a wave of anger and frustration, I was still riding it when I wrenched open the entrance doors to the paper’s red-banded tower premises.

  As usual, Jack, my editor, was stoically working at his desk, the top of which was entirely concealed by two telephones, spent teacups, a steadily filling ashtray and a thick layer of assorted paper from which a nine inch metal spike protruded. When he looked up and saw me standing forthright in front of him, he grimaced and dragged the back of his hand across his high forehead.

  ‘Sorry, Harry. It wasn’t my decision,’ he said, before I had uttered a word.

  ‘What happened, Jack? Where’s my World Cup piece?’

  To avoid my stare, he shifted some paper around on his desk. ‘I didn’t spike it: I had no problem with it.’

  I assumed from this that the Editor-in-Chief, Lee Howard, had got involved. Whilst I liked Jack and thought he did a sound, solid job, I sometimes wished he showed more backbone and stood up for what he thought was right. ‘I need to take it up with Lee, do I?’

  ‘You can do,’ Jack said defensively. ‘But it won’t do you any good. It came from the top floor.’

  By the “top floor”, he meant where the management, including Hugh Cudlipp, had their offices and the proprietor, Cecil King, his suite.

  On my first day in Fleet Street, Bill Connor (the distinguished Mirror columnist who wrote under the byline “Cassandra” and had recently been elevated to Sir William Connor) had given me firm advice about submitting copy: “Never let the bastards tangle with it,” he said.

  Fuelled by these words - and a few lunchtime pints in the Mucky Duck - I decided I would go up to the top floor and confront Cudlipp on his return from lunch. At ten past three, the doors to the executive lift opened, and he emerged in a manner reminiscent of Groucho Marx: a large cigar leading a strong chin, nose and forehead, followed by an animated body in a sharp suit.

  ‘Mr Cudlipp, I was — ’ That was as far as I got.

  ‘Harry,’ he mumbled, pausing mid-stride. He took the cigar from his mouth and, in his just detectable South Wales lilt, said softly, ‘I hear you didn’t like our performance in last night’s match.’

  For a moment, I couldn’t decide how best to respond. The “our” could only have referred to England; yet Cudlipp was born in Cardiff. Then assuming that, like Forsyth, for the twenty days of the World Cup, he was treating England as the whole nation’s representative, I replied, ‘Eh... yes. It wasn’t what we wanted to see, was it?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been my choice, no. But you know what Harry, our readers aren’t interested in your or my perspective: only Andy Capp’s. They want us to tell them what he would have seen had he been there. Do you understand?’

  Andy Capp was the fictional, working class anti-hero of Reg Smythe’s Mirror cartoons. I was inclined to point out that Reg always drew Andy with his cap over his eyes. But I thought better of it.

  ‘I do. And I thought that’s what I gave them - what I always give them.’

  ‘Andy Capp is a patriot, Harry. He would have proudly seen Her Majesty The Queen open the first World Cup on home soil and Bobby Moore, chest out, leading our brave boys into what proved to be a brutal battle.’ Perhaps conscious he was sounding more like Richard Dimbleby than Andy Capp, he then changed his tone. ‘A battle against dirty foreign bastards, who weren’t even trying to play football. That’s what your copy should have said.’ He looked at me reproachfully. ‘Well, not the bastards bit. But it didn’t, did it Harry?’

  I shook my head, whilst thinking Cudlipp sounded more like he was recruiting for the Armed Forces than reporting on a football match.

  ‘But you’ll get it right next time, won’t you?’ He gave me a forced grin and patted the top of my arm firmly. As he disappeared into his office, he added, ‘We’re relying on you, Harry. Don’t fuck it up.’

  When I got back to my desk, there was an urgent message on it. It read: “Rita rang. Fox wants to meet at 4pm today”.

  I had only forty-five minutes to change into my wedding attire, finish my latest report for Forsyth and get myself to Downing Street.

  Despite taking a taxi, I didn’t arrive at Number 10 until ten past four. Only Brenda was in her and Rita’s office; as usual, she was sitting at her desk typing dictation.

  When she saw me, she whipped off her headset and said, ‘You have missed her, Mr… Harry. She’s gone to collect Mr Forsyth’s shirts from the laundry before it closes.’ She pushed a buff cardboard folder in my direction. ‘She asked me to give you this.’

  The folder was neatly labelled, “HM’s papers for LAF meeting: 12th July 1966”. Opening it, I discovered a small bundle of England v Uruguay match reports, pasted onto sheets of foolscap paper and fastened with a treasury tag. I also saw, clipped to the inside of the folder, a handwritten note. I was still half-engaged with the reports, when I read what it said: “Waiting for you in the toilet! R.”

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ I cried. ‘He’s waiting for me!’

  Brenda looked disapproving. ‘No: just Mr Forsyth,’ she said, with a hint of satisfaction.

  I hurtled down the stairs to the gents on the ground floor. As I paused outside the door, to check my tie and otherwise compose myself, I heard a familiar, down-to-earth voice coming from within. I knew it was a senior politician, but I couldn’t think which one.

  ‘We have to devalue the pound, Ludo,’ the voice said urgently. ‘We can’t resist it any longer.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, Jim.’ Forsyth, in contrast, sounded cool and calm. ‘Devaluation would be seen as an admission of failure by the Government. And by you, as Chancellor, in particular.’

  Of course, I thought: he’s speaking to Callaghan, the budget man.

  ‘I’ve talked to Harold,’ Forsyth continued. ‘He’s confident of getting
a deal in Washington to avoid all that. We just need to keep our nerve.’

  ‘You don’t seem to appreciate the mess we’re in. The economy is in crisis.’

  ‘I understand that, Jim. I don’t want us to make it a whole lot messier by sending the pound the way of the Hungarian Pengo.’

  Callaghan didn’t respond. All I heard was a snort and the rumble of the roller towel.

  As I took a tentative hold of the door handle, thinking this might be the right time to make my presence known, a strident voice behind me said, ‘Is that little fucker still in there?’

  I released the handle as if it had been electrified and jumped back, almost colliding with Mrs Williams who had materialised at my rear. ‘Do you mean Mr Forsyth?’ I said in a panic. I immediately appreciated I had just applied her vulgar epithet to the PM’s trusted adviser. Nonetheless, I couldn’t stop myself continuing, ‘Because the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in there as well.’

  ‘Oh, he’s trying to bully Sunny Jim, is he?’ she said with a smirk. ‘That’s a pissing contest I don’t need to witness.’ She strode off and disappeared into the room next door.

  In a second attempt to keep my appointment with Forsyth, I turned the handle and pushed the door at the precise moment the Chancellor of the Exchequer pulled it open to leave. I stumbled headlong into his midriff, as if I were attempting a rugby tackle.

  It was an incident worthy of inclusion in a “Carry On” film - although James Callaghan was no Charles Hawtrey. He was at least an inch taller than me with the build of a drill sergeant. So I was more than a little relieved when, instead of balling me out or ordering me to clean the gents with my toothbrush, the keeper of the public purse merely said, ‘Steady the Buffs’ and left.