Chelsea FC in the Swinging '60s

by Greg Tesser

  So, once more Huddy was to be a spectator. As he himself said, ‘When I woke up on the morning of 29 April 1970, I felt like a failed suicide.’ Whether his subtle skills would have influenced the outcome of the first encounter is open to debate. Des Lynham once said of him that ‘he was a superb tactician’, and my opinion is that with Hudson in the team, Chelsea could have prevailed in game one.

  Returning to my hotel, I was already drunk, but as yet not a trace of alcohol had even kissed my lips. Mind you, I was hoarse, what with shouting and having puffed and dragged upon a shop-load of fags, but the world had suddenly changed its hue; it was now a universe of pure happiness and joy. All I needed was a quick wash, and then join up with a few of the guys to paint the town red – or should I say blue.

  I met up with Ossie and Eddie McCreadie, and after a few drinks we set off for one of Manchester’s premier night clubs. It was a smoky place, and as you can imagine, our small party was on this cloud of euphoria – in fact we were like bipolar people on a massive high. What the club looked like was secondary to us, as we just inhaled the whole experience like some huge drag on some super-duper joint.

  Memory banks play tricks. I am sure the club in question was part owned by George Best; he was certainly in attendance. Later, I was to ghost a few Peter Osgood articles for the great man’s yearbook.

  By this time, we had downed a few more glasses, and I found myself in deep conversation with McCreadie, another real cool dude who smoked Rothmans cigarettes with the refinement of Noel Coward. He wore chic Buddy Holly-style spectacles, and later sported a pencil-thin Viva Zapata moustache – as I say, he was the King of Cool.

  He was also an extremely thoughtful guy, and how he put up with my know-it-all views on such things as player bonuses for winning the FA Cup and other such financial aspects of a player’s wage structure, I’ll never know.

  What I was saying to him smacked of the kind of greed so rampant in the modern game. He disagreed with me (quite rightly, looking back) when I blurted out that ‘the money you get is not enough’. Looking at the money-side of football circa 1970, it has to be remembered that for the first time in this country, the elite players – the crème de la crème – were being paid, by the standards of the day, top dollar. And to someone like Eddie, who had joined the club in 1962 for a paltry transfer fee of £5,000 from East Stirlingshire, some trendy-looking London smart-arse telling him he wasn’t being paid enough must have rankled with him. However, to his credit he remained silent and diplomatically changed the subject.

  Scotsman McCreadie gained 23 caps for his native Scotland, and was an innovative full-back, blessed with express pace and tackles that would have modern coaches and managers jumping around in their dugouts in extreme agitation. His wild back-flick of a kick on the head of fellow Scotsman Billy Bremner in the final was more West Side Story, all George Chakiris or Russ Tamblyn, in its execution – you could almost say Kung Fu – than standard FA coaching book. Looking at it now it undoubtedly highlighted McCreadie’s undoubted commitment to the cause, but it also illustrated how times have changed. In 2013 it would have resulted in a spot-kick, possibly even a red card, but forty-three years ago referee Jennings just waved play on!

  Ossie was always extremely effusive when talking to me about the Scotsman with the craggy good looks. Later he was to say to me that in his opinion it was Eddie Mac, during the days of Tommy ‘Doc’, who had developed into the first authentic overlapping full-back in England.

  After over 400 appearances, he retired in 1973, and joined the Stamford Bridge coaching staff. Two years later, in April 1975, he was appointed manager, just at the time when the club’s fortunes were at rock bottom. Relegation to Division Two was an absolute certainty, and the club was riddled with debt. Eddie, always a firm believer in youth, rebuilt the side and made some brave decisions along the way, the most controversial being taking the captaincy away from his old Cup final-winning skipper ‘Chopper’ Harris, then aged thirty-one, and handing it to a precocious teenager, eighteen-year-old Ray Wilkins.

  This McCreadie-created outfit, brimful of young talent complemented by some veterans of the club’s halcyon years, reclaimed their top-flight status in 1977. Then came one of those bizarre incidents bordering on the surreal that have dominated so much of the club’s history since its inception in 1905.

  Boss McCreadie requested a company car, which was fair enough, you would think, considering what he had achieved in so short a time. The way it all panned out was convoluted in the extreme, but the bare bones are these: Eddie’s request for a car was initially turned down by chairman Brian Mears, but later Mears backed down and offered the manager a brand-new Rover. It is said that Eddie craved a Merc, but the club turned this down flat.

  Now it all depends on whom you believe in this whole sorry saga, but a friend of the flying Scotsman – with friends like these who needs enemies – has gone on record as saying: ‘It was Eddie’s fault, really. They offered him the new Rover, which was the car of the year, but he was holding out for a Mercedes.’ Talk about trivial. Anyway, Eddie had obviously had enough and decamped to the USA to sign for the Memphis Rogues.

  Just a little aside here linking Joe Meek, The Tornados and Eddie McCreadie: in 1963, Heinz Burt – who died of a stroke aged just fifty-seven in 2000 – an integral member of The Tornados, who had a stormy and some say sexually-charged relationship with enigmatic Meek, released a single, ‘Just like Eddie’. It was a tribute to the late rocker Eddie Cochran, and with McCreadie’s overlapping charges now seducing Blues fans en masse, a chorus or two of this ditty could be heard emanating from the terraces whenever Eddie was on fire.

  More and more drinks were downed, and we somehow found our way back to the hotel where all kinds of eccentric happenings were going on, most notably Till Death Us Do Part scriptwriter Johnny Speight somehow ending up in a bath clutching a bottle of whisky. How he ever got there I never did manage to find out! It is said that Johnny, who died in 1998, was a follower of Fulham, but on this famous night there was just one club for him: it was based at Stamford Bridge, not Craven Cottage.

  By this time I was so intoxicated that I felt like I was part of the audience at a theatre; all these events were taking place, but I was looking on from the outside. 1 a.m. clicked over to 2 a.m. and I found myself chatting and drinking with a guy called David Morgan, one of the senior directors of I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet; the wafts from my breath must have been like a gale of brandy fumes.

  Ossie had gone off somehow – later he told me he had met up with some woman; a blonde. ‘She was a nice girl,’ he told me – but I was more than content to just gas away with Morgan, who, like everyone at Lord Kitchener, was an ardent Chelsea fan.

  Morgan looked arty; in fact if I had been asked to describe him in some witness-type statement for the police, I would have said, ‘He looks like a well-nourished version of Vincent Van Gogh’.

  Who will ever know exactly when I and the others at last slid between the sheets to try to get at least the odd hour or two of sleep. By this time it was all so mad that thanks to Ossie, I was given a room at the Piccadilly (I’d sort out my bag at the other hotel later). None of this mattered one jot.

  There is one thing about being young and a pill-popper, and that is you have no fear. Hitting the mattress, I was soon in touch with the god of dreams, Morpheus. I slept for maybe two hours at most. I awoke, my tongue feeling like a plumber’s handkerchief, took a couple of pills, gulped some water and dressed. No shaving, no teeth cleaning – yuck! Then down to breakfast for a big, greasy fry-up paid for by Chelsea FC.

  Sauntering into the dining room I was met with a few half-hearted hellos and smiles by several of the players. I joined Marvin Hinton and Ron Harris at their table, and having placed my order – for by now the pills had kicked in and I was as ravenous as a kid at Christmas – I poured some coffee and proceeded to chat to my fellow eaters ten-to-the-dozen.

  Seated opposite us was Daily Mail football journo Jeff Powell
. I was and never have been a lover of the Mail – in my circle these days it has been given the appropriate nickname of ‘the Hate Mail’. But during those ‘Make Love not War’ years, the paper had some of the foremost sports writers in the business. Apart from Powell, there was Ian Wooldridge and Brian James, and I will forever be thankful for the support the paper gave me in our campaign to persuade Ramsey to select Ossie.

  Time was precious that April morning as the plan was that we were to catch an early train back to Euston, but that didn’t prevent me from going through the whole gamut of the hotel’s breakfast menu at breakneck speed.

  Mention the name of Marvin Hinton to any supporter of a certain age, and he or she will tell you that ‘Lou’, as he was called, was surely the best central defender never to be capped by England. Signed by Tommy Docherty in 1963 from Charlton Athletic for £30,000, he always looked in control on the park, and in many ways he was the perfect foil to some of the 1970 team’s ‘wild men’.

  ‘Lou’ Hinton was a quiet man – the sort of guy you’d want in a crisis; the sort of guy able to keep his cool at all times. A soft word here and there would be enough to quell any potentially damaging situations.

  On a personal note, I was once ‘protected’ by him at a nightclub, following a lavish dinner at the Meridiana’ Restaurant on the Fulham Road, to celebrate Chelsea’s FA Cup success.

  The dinner had been organised by one of the Lord Kitchener directors, and it proved to be a riotous occasion. There was a colossal cake, shaped like Stamford Bridge Stadium, complete with goalposts and club colours – it was absolutely immense.

  The champagne flowed like water and even though all manner of luxurious goodies were available, our Lord Kitchener high-flyer, who had arrived in a brand-new Bentley, ordered eggs, bacon and chips!

  Unfortunately, owing to his England commitments – he was in Ramsey’s World Cup 22 – Ossie was not there. But there was a good sprinkling of first-team squad stars including Alan Birchenall and the urbane Hinton.

  After we had gorged on the fodder and drunk enough bubbly to sink a few ships, we staggered to some nightclub in Chelsea where I continued my liquid intake by ordering champagne cocktail after champagne cocktail. By this time I was beginning to behave like a bit of an idiot, and when I started to demand that the DJ play some tracks from the Sergeant Pepper album and in particular ‘A Day In The Life’, that great homage to counter-culture, I was being boorish in the extreme.

  This boorishness reached its peak when I began mourning the passing of the 1960s and announced to the assembled throng that things ‘would deteriorate from now on. All your dreams, all your ideals have now gone!’

  By this time, ‘Lou’, realising I was tanked-up to the gills, told me in that soft voice of his just to calm down. It was amazing how the tone of his voice did the trick. In a matter of moments, I was ‘normal’ once more, and having apologised profusely – Hinton merely said ‘don’t worry’ in that soft voice – it was all over.

  Well, this is how he was on the pitch, and even though his involvement in the replay was of the cameo variety – just eight minutes before the end of extra time when he replaced Ossie – his performances were always efficient. And on more than one occasion his stability, and in those days when a centre-half was more often than not a big lump, his technical ability with the ball and the quality of his passing were almost continental in ethos. The old adage of ‘if in doubt, kick it out’ was never on the Marvin Hinton agenda.

  Having demolished this gargantuan breakfast, it was now time to make our way to the station. I say ‘our’ way because I was to join the whole Chelsea party in the train back to the Smoke.

  I managed somehow to collect my bag from the other hotel, and there we were on the platform, hunched and hungover and definitely a bit puffy round the eyes – like some mass group of serial partygoers. Personally, I was feeling just like Dorian Gray on a bad day. Thank goodness I didn’t look at myself in a mirror!

  Once aboard – and here I was ensconced with all the players – manager Dave Sexton attempted to adopt a more human face. In fact he even smiled at me. It was of the patronising variety, and I almost read into it that he forgave me for not shaving; and that he forgave me for the length of my hair; and that he forgave me for my Viva Zapata moustache; and that he wouldn’t normally forgive me for this lack of discipline, but that today was a special day, and because of it, ‘anything goes’.

  Sexton was a religious man. A devout Roman Catholic and devotee of the Jesuit philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, he had been educated at St Ignatius College, a Jesuit Comprehensive School for boys in Stamford Hill North London; ironically an area of the capital more associated with Judaism than Roman Catholicism, which, in my opinion explained much of his overall persona: severe and unforgiving.

  The college has produced a list of famous alumni, most notably former Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Heenan, film director Alfred ‘Psycho’ Hitchcock, former BBC News Diplomatic Editor Brian Hanrahan (his famous words whilst standing on the deck of HMS Hermes during the Falklands War – ‘I am not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back’ – has gone down in journalistic folklore), and legendary record producer Sir George Martin, whose list of credits reads like a pop music Hall of Fame. His recordings of the music of The Beatles resulted him being widely known as the fifth Beatle.

  So Dave Sexton, professional footballer and coach extraordinaire, who died last November, aged eighty-two, could quite rightly be added to this distinguished company. The son of former professional boxer Archie Sexton, he was a cerebral man, who was never, in my opinion, able or indeed capable of either relating to or understanding this new breed of pro that he had in his ranks.

  Another aspect of life he abhorred was publicity. Think of Jose Mourinho, then imagine the complete opposite to the suave Portguese, and you have in your mind’s eye Dave Sexton.

  Sexton believed in discipline and established values. He was modest almost to a fault, but there was one thing he lacked – humanity. Professional footballers are people, often very young people. Even as long ago as the late 1960s and early ’70s, players were beginning to make big money. As never before, they were beginning to mix with an eclectic range of humanity: people from screen, stage and the world of rock music; even the aristocracy. Unfortunately, Dave could not or would not buy into this – a great shame, for I feel that had he made even a small effort to understand the character of the likes of Cooke and Hudson and Osgood, that magnificent Chelsea side could and indeed would have gone on to even greater things.

  As Alan Hudson later told me: ‘Dave just did not understand Os even though he ‘understood’ his talent. I could have sat down with Dave and given him the low-down on his main man – that is, if he bought me lunch and allowed me a glass of wine or two. I jest. After all, it is a little like Fletch in Porridge: he would tell you more about his cell-mate Godber than anyone else in the entire world – he knew his every move. Well, although I did not know every move that Osgood made, because we weren’t under HMP rules, I knew a darn sight more than the man who should have.’

  Later Sexton was to remark, following a complete breakdown in his relationship with what he regarded as a recalcitrant Osgood, which eventually resulted in his transfer to Southampton for £275,000 that ‘maybe it would have been best if Ossie and I had sorted it quickly between four walls of a locked room. But it wouldn’t possibly have remained private with Ossie. He doesn’t know when to be a good lad or Jack the lad.’

  As a coach, Dave was one of the most sophisticated of his generation. As a player, he is best described as a journeyman professional, his career taking in a variety of clubs from West Ham in the early 1950s to Crystal Palace in 1959.

  His first managerial appointment was at Leyton Orient in 1965, and after having coached at Stamford Bridge, he replaced the sometimes combustible, but always flamboyant Docherty two years later, remaining boss until 1974.

  QP
R was his next port of call where, having signed a couple of Chelsea old boys, Hollins and Webb, he took the Loftus Road club to within a point of the First Division crown in 1976.

  Next stop was Old Trafford. Once more he stepped into Docherty’s shoes, following the sacking of the colourful Scot for his an affair with the wife of club physiotherapist, Laurie Brown.

  Losing one FA Cup final to Arsenal and finishing second in the top flight was a poor return for a club of United’s aspirations and pedigree, so in 1981 he was on the move again – to Coventry City, a position he retained for two years. This was his final club appointment. However, from 1977–90 he coached the England U-21 side, taking on the role full-time from 1994–96.

  Whenever I encountered him, I felt a bit like a schoolboy in the presence of a headmaster with a particularly fearsome reputation. I never relaxed in his company, and even though on more than one occasion he was pleasant and even smiled, something that he obviously didn’t find easy, I always got the impression that in his eyes I was someone who was too interested in having a good time to be of real benefit to any of his players.

  My rock PR background gave me this awareness of the value of publicity. But with Sexton, all publicity angles were bad angles. How he would cope with the modern obsession with the media, and the acres of managerial pronouncements that we read in our papers at the breakfast table and online, would make an interesting debate. In my humble opinion, he would be out of his depth. But having made all these points, he was as relaxed as I had ever seen him as we sped through the countryside on this excellent state-owned British Railways train to Euston Station and the waiting hordes of ecstatic fans.