Fixing Sixty Six

by Tim Flower

  I hurriedly read the translation. Sure enough, the Brazilian coach had complained about the German referee - and in even more serious terms than the South American officials.

  ‘Tschenscher should have been stronger in Brazil’s first game, I accept. But this accuses the English and German FAs and what they call “their friends at FIFA” of conspiring to prevent Brazil qualifying for the quarter-finals. It’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Is it, Harry? When both country’s prospects of winning the World Cup depend on Brazil being knocked out? When FIFA, run by Rous, appoints English referees for two of Brazil’s games and a West German for the other? Do you really think that’s just an unfortunate coincidence?’

  Admittedly, I thought, this didn’t look good; but it didn’t prove anything. ‘Oh, come on, this isn’t about fixing some tinpot tournament in South America. This is the FIFA World Cup - in England - for God’s sake.’

  ‘The Germans fixed the Olympic football in Berlin in ‘thirty-six, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, okay. But — ’

  ‘And Mussolini fixed the ‘thirty-four World Cup in Italy.’

  ‘How can you say that? Italy were the best team in nineteen-thirty-four.’

  ‘That we’ll never know. Because, for each of their matches, Il Duce,’ Nell spat Mussolini’s nickname with vehement contempt, ‘chose the referee and rewarded him if Italy won.’

  ‘I’ve never heard that before. Anyway, we’re talking here about a democratic government, not some fascist dictator.’

  ‘Actually, we’re talking about powerful men wanting it their own way.’

  I couldn’t tell whether Nell actually believed in the merits of the Brazilian’s complaint or her attitude to it was being driven by Latin solidarity or her instinctive mistrust of Germans. Whichever it was, I remained sceptical.

  ‘What did Rous say in his response?’ I asked, confident he would have viewed the contents of Feola’s letter as nothing more than hysterical whinings of a sore loser.

  Without hesitation, Nell replied, ‘That the complaint was without substance.’ She turned to our daughter. ‘Come on, Alison. Put that comic away, we need to go.’

  ‘There we are. I thought so.’

  Nell snatched the letter back from me, picked up her bag and led Alison by the hand towards the door. As they were about to disappear downstairs, she paused and said, without looking back, ‘But then - to quote Mandy Rice-Davies - he would say that, wouldn’t he?’

  A prankster pulling the communication cord seriously delayed my train to Liverpool. By the time I arrived at Birkenhead Park station, I was not only late for meeting Ma but visiting time was half over. So I half-ran, half-trotted past the once grand, now down-at-heal, municipal park - where a Spitfire had crash-landed during the war - to the red brick Victorian hospital that was nestled between contemporary terraced housing.

  It was an impressive building, set back from the road behind a generous front garden, with elevated double front doors, which you reached by ascending a wide flight of stone steps. The entrance reminded me of Forsyth’s club; but that was where the similarity ended. Inside, instead of ornate tiles, marble columns and plaster decorations, there were bare, parquet floors and plain, jade-green painted walls. With little in the way of soft furnishings, the nursing and clerical staff’s shrill voices and the hard, mechanical sounds of their work resonated through the tall, fluorescent-lit corridors. And, naturally, instead of having an air of power, privilege and complacency, the whole place stank of hospital.

  I hurriedly followed the signs to Bevan Ward, knowing that Da would approve of being associated with the left-wing, Labour politician who had made hospital treatment available to all. Having got lost and been shooed out of, what proved to be, the maternity ward, a Hattie Jacques double directed me down a dispiritingly long corridor that ended at a pair of unmarked doors.

  I cautiously pushed one of them open and was encouraged to see that the ranks of beds lining the huge, barrack-like room were this time occupied by men. The ward was guarded by a spinsterish looking Sister, wearing a starched white cap and apron, who was studying paperwork at a rigorously tidy desk.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said tentatively. ‘I’m Harry Mullaly. I’m here to see my father, Michael Mullaly.’

  Without looking up, she replied, ‘He already has a visitor.’

  ‘I know. That will be my mother. We arranged to see him together, but my train from London was delayed.’ I hoped that indicating the distance I had travelled to visit would elicit some sympathy or consideration. But no.

  ‘Patients can only have one visitor at a time. Anyway, no visits can begin after twenty to four.’

  I looked up at the large, institutional clock on the wall above her head. The big hand wasn’t quite bisecting the eight. If this had been Lord’s, the umpires would have allowed another over to be bowled before the scheduled three-forty tea break. ‘It’s only twenty-one minutes to. And, if you let my mother know I’m here, I’m sure she would be happy to swap with me.’

  The Sister reluctantly checked her breast watch and then turned to the clock for a second opinion. Obviously disappointed that neither were quite registering twenty to four, she sighed heavily and strutted off down the ward. Not wanting to risk her returning with a new objection to my visit, I surreptitiously followed a few paces behind. She stopped at the foot of the third bed from the end, on the window side.

  I was fortunate she gave this indication as to Da’s whereabouts because otherwise I’m not sure I would have picked him out of the parade of bedridden men in regulation striped pyjamas. His worn, weathered face was unusually flushed and drawn; his normally extra-large upper body wasn’t close to filling the hospital’s winceyette shirt; and his comb-over was in disarray - like Bobby Charlton’s after a rigorous match.

  He was fidgeting with top of the bedsheet, and I noticed the ends of his nicotine-stained fingers were red and bulging. Most disturbing of all, though, were his eyes. They were small and scared. I had never seen Da look frightened before.

  ‘If you want to see your son, Mr Mullaly, your wife will need to leave now,’ the Sister said, without a hint of compassion.

  Ma looked over her shoulder and, seeing me, said, ‘Course he wants to see his son. Come and sit ‘ere luv.’ She heaved herself up off the school-type chair she had been smothering and gave me a suffocating hug. Then, taking one of Da’s trembling hands in hers, she whispered to him, ‘Next time, I’ll brings yer a treat like.’

  ‘Just bring us me ciggies, Ma,’ Da replied, in a wheezy, shallow voice and coughed.

  The Sister snapped, ‘You aren’t allowed those, Mr Mulally, as you well know,’ and hurriedly ushered Ma up the ward towards the exit.

  Da didn’t seem to want to chat. Each time I tried to initiate light conversation he thwarted me with a monosyllabic response or a pathetic attempt to cadge a cigarette. So I cut to the chase.

  ‘Have they discovered what the problem is, Da?’

  But he wasn’t any more forthcoming about that. ‘I knows the problem, lad: I’m in ‘ere like!’ This exclamation made him cough. ‘Gizza pack of Woodies, some proper scran - not this ozzy shite - and a few of them Mackeson like and I’d be dead well.’

  ‘Da, you’re in here, Ma said, because your blood pressure was very high and you were having trouble swallowing. They need to do some tests to find out what caused it.’

  ‘They done that. They took snaps of me chest, like, this morning,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘You mean x-rays?’

  He nodded

  ‘What did they show - do you know?’

  ‘I’m gonna win the pools and marry a tall, dark stranger,’ he sneered.

  ‘Seriously, Da. What did they find?’

  ‘Search me. They wanna do a lorra other tests and whatnot. Then some dead important blokes‘ll gizz us their expert opinion, like. So we may know by Crimbo.’ He started coughing again.

  The Sister announced that visiting time was over. I wasn’t d
isappointed: Da was clearly in no mood for visitors. ‘She’s called time, Da. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Off back to the Big Smoke, are yer?’

  ‘No, I’m staying with Ma tonight. I bought a ticket for the Brazil match at Goodison.’

  ‘What for? To see blammos diving on the ground like they was shot?’ Blammos was what Da called the coloureds.

  ‘I want to see Pele. I’ve never watched him live. It may be my last chance - if he plays, that is.’

  ‘Will be yer last chance, yer mean. Brazil are as good as out.’

  The Sister was herding visitors towards the exit. She called out, ‘Come on Mr Mulally, time’s up. Mr Mulally Senior needs to get some rest.’

  Da seemed to take this as a signal to perk up. ‘With no Brazil, we’ve got the World Cup in the bag, like. Yer can gizz us that bluey now, if you want.’

  To reassure the Sister I was leaving, I stood up and put my chair neatly against the wall beside the bed, where I had noticed others had put theirs. ‘Steady on, Da. Ramsey is still using one winger. Anyway, we haven’t qualified for the knock-out stages yet.’

  ‘We will, lad. We will. And I’ve put me money where me mouth is - and I ain’t talking about our bet.’

  My heart sunk. Although I never liked hearing about Da’s betting, at least when he was working I could console myself that he earned a decent wage and could afford to give some to the bookies. But all the time he was in hospital he would earn nothing. He wouldn’t even get National Assistance because he refused to claim it.

  ‘How much have you bet, Da?’ I asked, conscious of sounding like a disapproving aunt.

  He smirked. ‘It ain’t a bet. I bought us ten bob tickets for the semi-final at Goodison, ‘cause I knows England ’ll be in it. If you’re not goin’ to be in the press box like, pretending you’re working, you can come with if you want.’

  ‘Thanks, Da. If I suddenly find myself on the dole, I’ll let you know.’

  Sadly, his purchase proved to be a losing gamble. But not for a reason anyone could have expected.

  After being expelled from Bevan Ward, I went in search of a room with a TV in it and occupants who favoured watching BBC1’s live coverage of the Uruguay v Mexico match, over the children’s programmes on the other side. Fortunately, a very helpful, coloured nurse came to my assistance. When I explained that I was visiting my sick father when I should have been at Wembley reporting on the match, she led me to a day room where a local TV rental company had installed a brand new set especially so that patients could watch the World Cup.

  Sitting with a cup of tea in front of the large screen TV, in some ways I was better placed to report on the match than I would have been had I watched from Wembley’s press box. During the World Cup, the BBC were, for the first time, trialling the use of an action-replay machine, which they had borrowed from an American broadcaster. This allowed viewers to see all the key incidents in the match again in slow-motion. Its use during the BBC’s coverage of the opening match had been such a novelty for British viewers, some had telephoned Broadcasting House to ask if the purportedly live transmission was in fact pre-recorded.

  It enabled me to produce a more insightful report on Mexico’s brave, but ultimately vain, attempt to qualify for the quarter-finals than I could have written had I actually been in the stadium. What’s more, I didn’t have to queue to phone it in. So, by six-thirty that evening, I was on my way to Goodison Park with a clear conscience.

  I took the train to Kirkdale, passing the newly built Logan Towers, the world’s tallest prefabricated building and, literally, concrete evidence of Liverpool leading the way in modern, high-rise living. Although it would be better living there, I thought, than in the slums it had replaced, I didn’t envy the residents: I couldn’t imagine how a cell in the sky, with no outside space, could ever feel like home.

  Walking up to the ground, I could see that, in contrast to London residents, local Liverpudlians were treating England’s hosting of the World Cup as a cause for celebration. Whole streets of Victorian terraced homes had been decorated and dressed in the team colours of the visiting countries. Even some kerbstones had been painted in the bright yellow, green and blue of Brazil, and Portugal’s red and emerald green. Other houses had been decked out in red, white and blue, anticipating that England would be playing at the local stadium in the semi-final. They brightened up what was otherwise a drab scene on a cool, grey afternoon.

  My ticket (donated by an ex-colleague at the Echo) was for the Bullens Road stand. This ran the length of the pitch’s east side and was bookended by two of the giant floodlight pylons that marked the ground’s four corners. By the time I had reached the standing area, called the “Paddock”, and wriggled my way into a decent pitchside position, the ground was full and the teams were already parading out of the tunnel.

  Whilst the official programme showed Pele as playing, I was aware this would have been printed before the FA knew whether he would recover from Zhechev’s violent assault on him. So I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I saw that Brazil’s number 10 was poised on the centre circle ready for the kick-off.

  I instantly recognised the referee who was about to set the match in motion, as my friend George McCabe. Whereas most referees carried their whistle in one hand, attached to a wristband, George hung his around his neck on a long, white bootlace and kept it in his mouth as he followed the action around the pitch. He had explained to me he did this so he could blow it the instant he needed to.

  George was far from ‘whistle happy’ though. In fact, he refereed like a sports master in charge of an under-15s match. He didn’t stop the game unless he had to; offenders generally received nothing more than a stern look of disapproval from him; and the fallen were jollied back onto their feet with kind words, Yorkshire humour and a sympathetic stroke of the head. He used the ultimate sanction, of dismissing a player from the field, only in the most egregious of circumstances.

  I had first met George when reporting on a Liverpool game against his beloved Sheffield United at Bramall Lane three years earlier. I had ended up drinking with him until closing time in the nearby Cricketer’s Arms, missing the last train home and sleeping that night on the settee in his lounge. Ever since then, if we were at the same match, we would meet afterwards for a drink. So I had left word at the officials’ dressing room that I was in the ground and suggested we met there once he had finished his duties.

  It was only after the match had kicked off that I learnt from the match programme that an Englishman and a Welshman were running the lines for George; therefore, it was an all British team of officials. In the light of Nell’s thinly veiled accusations about the refereeing of Brazil’s games, this made me feel distinctly uneasy. So I told myself not to think about how the match was being officiated and just enjoy seeing live the most talented footballer the world had ever seen.

  This enjoyment was very short lived. From Pele’s first touch of the ball, it was obvious he hadn’t recovered from the assault he suffered in Brazil’s first match. When I had watched him on TV, his play had always been exceptional, often dazzling and sometimes almost “Roy of the Rovers” like. But live that afternoon, he appeared cautious, constrained, even fearful of the consequences were he to perform flat out.

  Anyway, it became soon apparent that even a handicapped Pele wouldn’t be allowed to play. When he burst between two defenders, heading for Portugal’s penalty area, one of them kicked him into the air and the other kneed him on the way down. Amerigo, the Brazil’s shaven-headed trainer - wearing a chilly looking, white short-sleeved shirt, green and yellow tracksuit bottoms and a bulging utility belt - sprinted onto the pitch. Like a second at a boxing match, he managed to revive the stricken Pele so the one-sided fight could continue.

  Twenty minutes later (by which time Brazil had sloppily conceded two goals), Amerigo was back on the pitch, on this occasion accompanied by the team doctor. Pele had again been threatening Portugal’s goal. Their defender, Morais, had scythed
him down, only to see him bounce back up, still in possession of the ball. So he had immediately followed up this foul with another, a viscous hack which took the Brazilian’s right leg from beneath him, ensuring that this time he stayed down. It was brutally effective. Amerigo and the doctor had to lift Pele under his shoulders and carry him to the side of the pitch for treatment, his right leg hanging like meat from a hook.

  When, in their recent match against West Germany, Argentina’s José Albrecht had committed a less egregious foul, the Yugoslavian referee had sent him off; he had been suspended for one match; his manager had been reprimanded; and the whole Argentinian team received a FIFA warning about their future conduct. Since Morais’ foul play was undoubtedly more violent and cynical that Albrecht’s, I was certain that even “Generous George” would give him his marching orders. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the Bobbies on duty had come on the pitch and arrested Morais for GBH.

  But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The police remained behind the touchline and the Portuguese on the pitch. And George didn’t so much as reprimand him.

  Nell’s allegations that morning again invaded my conscience. I repelled them by reminding myself that George, whilst undeniably lenient, was a scrupulously fair man, who would have made the right decision based on what he saw and his reading of the Laws of the Game. Over our drink that evening, he would no doubt put my mind to rest.

  Pele eventually limped back on to loud applause of the Goodison crowd, despite the locals - in true British fashion - having largely supported Portugal, as the underdogs. It was soon obvious, however, that his heavily bandaged right leg had been rendered useless. He could only hobble about the pitch and kick with his left. It was as painful to watch as it must have been for Pele to play. Morais had crippled Brazil’s star forward and, by so doing, had all but ensured that, with his team two goals to the good, the reigning World Champions would be eliminated from the tournament.