by Gordon Banks
English football, however, had not so much declined as stood still in an era when the football of other nations had developed considerably. When comparing England with Brazil, Italy or Germany, or Arsenal and Wolves with Real Madrid or Barcelona, it was easy to conclude the quality of football in England had declined. It hadn’t. For some years our game had been allowed to stagnate while that of other nations had taken great strides along new paths of exploration. But in 1960–61 English football began the process of catching up. The benefits of the FA’s coaching school began to filter through in the early sixties, and that, combined with the long-overdue introduction of a properly structured youth policy, played no small part in England winning the World Cup just a few years later.
One of that summer’s innovations was an apprenticeship system for young players. Previously, a lad of fifteen signed on as a member of his club’s office or groundstaff. While he wanted to concentrate on training and playing for his club’s junior teams, the bulk of the apprentice’s time was spent either in clerical work or odd maintenance jobs around the ground. Now, while the new two-year apprenticeships would still involve menial tasks such as sweeping the terraces, cleaning the boots of senior professionals and swilling out the changing rooms, there was a commitment that football was to come first.
At the end of his apprenticeship a young player’s development would be assessed and, ultimately, the manager would decide whether he was to be offered full-time professional terms, or released. There was (and remains today) a high fall-out rate among young players, but it was believed that having had two years’ learning about football in a professional environment, a young player released by a top club could find employment with a club in a lower-division outfit. At worst, he could become a part-time professional or an amateur, but the skills gained in his apprenticeship would benefit football at the grass-roots level.
That summer the Football League announced another innovation to English football, the League Cup. While generally thought to have been the brainchild of Alan Hardaker, the gruff, stoic secretary of the Football League, the original suggestion for a secondary cup competition, for league clubs only, had come from the FA Secretary, later President of FIFA, Sir Stanley Rous. Rous’s original idea was for a pre-season competition in which teams would initially compete in groups. He found few supporters among football’s hierarchy for his idea but it was refined by Alan Hardaker and the League Cup came into being, to a lukewarm reception.
Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday and West Bromwich Albion chose not to compete in the inaugural competition. The imbalance in the number of competing teams meant a number of clubs received byes in the first round in order to form a thirty-two tie second round. Another unpopular feature was that there would be no one-off final at Wembley, but a two-legged final on the finalists’ grounds. The League Cup had been devalued in the eyes of the supporters and media before it even got under way.
Alan Hardaker dubbed it the ‘People’s Cup’, meaning presumably a cup free of the pomp and circumstance and bereft of the dignitaries and establishment freeloaders so much in evidence at the FA Cup Final. But it was missing the charm of football tradition, the ivy-covered venerableness of the FA Cup, the romance and drama of a non-league David laying low a Football League Goliath.
Clubs soon found that League Cup attendances were well below what they normally had for league games. In time, however, the League Cup grew in popularity and those clubs that had stood aloof soon joined up when they realized that there was money to be made and that winning afforded entry to European competition. From the start I was all in favour of the League Cup. In time it would repay my enthusiasm with a treasure chest of golden memories.
In the close season Matt Gillies had added two new players to the squad: George Meek, a winger from Leeds United, and George Heyes, an understudy goalkeeper from Rochdale. Both Johnny Anderson and Dave MacLaren had been sold, further boosting my confidence that the boss had every faith in me as first-choice goalkeeper, and, moreover, that I had now truly established myself as the Leicester number one. Johnny and Dave were competent goalkeepers and the fact they had moved elsewhere to find regular first-team football took a little pressure off me. Competition for places concentrates the mind wonderfully, but the fact that Ino longer had two able, experienced keepers breathing down my neck lessened my anxiety that one little mistake in a game could cost me my place. I could concentrate totally on my personal game and try to implement some of the goalkeeping techniques I had developed in training.
Once again Matt Gillies was unable to entice top players to Leicester. He tried and failed to sign the Arsenal centre forward David Herd and Pat Crerand from Celtic, both of whom were to opt for Manchester United, and Dundee’s Alan Gilzean, who eventually moved to Spurs. Matt obviously felt that we needed a goalscoring centre forward to replace Derek Hines. Derek was a prolific scorer who joined the club in 1947. He played and scored in the first ever England youth international, a 4–2 win against Scotland in 1947, and in the fifties had formed a terrific front-line partnership at Leicester with the legendary Arthur Rowley. Derek was skilful at running off the ball to create opportunities for team mates, a clinical finisher with a league tally of 116 goals in 299 appearances.
Derek Hines played in the first four games but it soon became apparent that, at nearly thirty, he wasn’t going to lead the line in the long term. Indeed, at the beginning of September Derek was replaced from the reserves by the stylish, skilful Ken Leek, whose speed off the mark was breathtaking and who did a terrific job for us up front.
Our opening game of the season bore certain similarities to my debut for the club. It took place at Filbert Street, the opposition were Blackpool and the score was 1–1. We followed that with a fine 3–1 win at Chelsea courtesy of two goals from left winger Gordon Wills and one from Jimmy Walsh, who had taken over from Len Chalmers as captain. On the return train journey the team were in optimistic mood.
But we lost our next game at Everton 3–1 and went down in the following three, two of which were at home to Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers. Things weren’t right and Gillies began to ring the changes: Ken Leek came in for Derek Hines, Ian King for Len Chalmers at right back, Frank McLintock for Ian White at right half and Howard Riley replaced George Meek at outside right. By the time we arrived at Old Trafford to take on Manchester United on 10 September the team had a very different look to it from the one that had started the season just a few weeks earlier.
Manchester United were a team in transition. The aftermath of the Munich air disaster still lingered and United were still forced to field young players of promise earlier than their manager, Matt Busby, would probably have liked. We felt we could take advantage of Frank Haydock and Jimmy Nicholson, United’s two young wing halves. Our captain, Jimmy Walsh, suggested he and Albert Cheesebrough, as our inside forwards, should push on to Haydock and Nicholson and put them under pressure.
With the likes of goalkeeper Harry Gregg, Maurice Setters, Bill Foulkes, Bobby Charlton, Johnny Giles, Albert Quixall and Dennis Viollet, Manchester United boasted real quality to counterbalance the inexperience. Johnny Giles put United ahead, but Jimmy Walsh proved his point when he equalized for us after forcing Jimmy Nicholson into a mistake in the second half. The game ended 1–1. We had put an end to a sequence of four successive defeats but, more significantly, our performance at Old Trafford was the first indication that the manager’s wholesale team changes were beginning to bear fruit.
We lost only four of our next thirteen league games and come December, were handily placed in Division One. That, however, was nowhere near good enough in a season totally dominated by one club. Tottenham Hotspur enjoyed a dream start to the season, winning a record 11 consecutive games, scoring 36 goals in the process. They didn’t drop a point until their draw with Manchester City in mid-October, and remained unbeaten until 12 November when their only real rivals to give them a run for the money in the championship, Sheffield Wednesday, beat them
2–1 at Hillsborough. Spurs were magnificent in every respect. Their game plan of all-out attack set several more new records: winning 31 of their 42 league games, registering 16 victories away from home (including eight in a row), and equalling Arsenal’s Division One record points haul of 66 set in 1930–31.
We met Spurs at Filbert Street in mid-September and ran them very close, losing by the odd goal in three. I saw this as another benchmark to our season: Spurs were steamrollering most teams, home and away, but Les Allen and Cliff Jones of Spurs told us after the game that we had given them their most difficult game to date. It is true that professional footballers only say you have played well when they have beaten you. Rarely, if ever, do players compliment opponents when they have lost. However, I felt the comments from Les Allen and Cliff Jones were sincere rather than patronizing. We had indeed given Spurs a good run for their money, which, for all their excellence, was still £20 maximum per man, per week, less tax – the same as the least talented players in the Fourth Division could hope to earn.
When we travelled to White Hart Lane for the return fixture in February, Spurs were top of Division One and well clear of their nearest challengers, Sheffield Wednesday and Burnley. We were sixth, but arrived in London on the back of a six-game unbeaten league and cup run that had seen us beat Everton 4–1 and Manchester United 6–0.
The victories over Everton and Manchester United were ample evidence of how much Leicester were improving as a team. In the previous season I had conceded six against Everton. A year later for us to beat Everton comfortably, then follow that result by hitting Manchester United for six, made me realize just how far we had come. Not only could we compete with the best, we could, on occasion, now beat them handsomely. The acid test for that belief was to be our game against Spurs at White Hart Lane.
We left Leicester station late on Friday morning on the London-bound express. I had long since given up my interest in trainspotting though I have to say, even as a player, I would look out of a carriage window with interest whenever we passed a railway shed or an idling steam engine in a siding. Steam engines appeared to me to have more character and individuality than the diesels that, at the time, were beginning to replace them. I quite enjoyed travelling by train to away games, because I always associated rail journeys with childhood days out or holiday treats with the family.
On arriving at the grandest of London termini, St Pancras, with the adjacent neo-Gothic masterpiece of the Midland Grand Hotel, the Leicester team were besieged by young, exclusively male, autograph hunters brandishing either a flip-top autograph book, each page a different vivid colour, or a sugar-paper scrap-book containing strange-coloured team line-ups and portraits clipped from Football Monthly, Soccer Star and, most garish of all, Reynold’s News. We were only too happy to sign every book thrust at us by those autograph hunters, who stood in all weathers hoping to add to their collections of precious signatures. Today, the autographs of our top players are more difficult to come by. The stars are protected from fans by security staff and marketing people anxious to guard the image rights of these highly valued commodities. Players such as David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Michael Owen, while happy to offer their signature for genuine collectors of autographs, have to be wary of people posing as fans who seek to sell signed memorabilia for their own gain. Another sad reflection of the way football has changed its relationship with its fans. As a member of England’s 1966 World Cup team, I’m often asked to sign match programmes, photographs, replica shirts and the like. I never refuse, though I try to differentiate between the genuine fan and the person out to make a quick buck. I ask to whom I can dedicate the autograph – the ‘on the make’ brigade find it difficult to sell on items bearing a dedicated signature, while genuine fans are only too happy to have autographs personally dedicated.
Thinking back to that match against Spurs reminds me of the routine we followed on away matches. When in London Leicester always stayed at the Russell Hotel where we would be allocated our rooms. Iroomed with our left back, Richie Norman, with whom I got on very well and whose tremendous sense of humour lightened what could often be the tedious hours before a game. Once we had unpacked we always went for a walk to stretch our legs, usually a leisurely stroll around the garden in the centre of Russell Square, then back again to the ornately Victorian hotel. After our evening meal the players chose either to colonize a corner in the wood-panelled King’s Bar to play cards – but not drink – or go to the cinema. I always opted for a film. The card school only played for matches, or a maximum stake of tuppence, but it was serious stuff and continued until bedtime at half ten. After breakfast we read the morning newspapers and Matt Gillies would hold a short team meeting in which nothing too tactical or technical was ever discussed, other than a mention of the perceived weaknesses of our opponents and the best way of exploiting them.
At noon we sat down to our pre-match meal. Before our big game against high-flying Tottenham I ate what was then my normal pre-match lunch: a large steak with a side order of toast, followed by a bowl of rice pudding! In 1961 steak was still considered the ideal way for a professional footballer to stoke up with protein. No one knew that the stomach can take up to 36 hours fully to digest a large steak. Far from boosting strength and endurance, it must have sat like lead in the stomach throughout a game. To follow that with a large bowl of rice pudding appears now to be pure recklessness. But that’s exactly what we did. It was believed the high sugar content of the rice pudding would boost our energy levels. Looking back, it’s a miracle any of us could get up from our chairs, never mind possess the ability to sprint up and down a football pitch for ninety minutes.
Today a footballer’s diet is strictly monitored, especially before a game when players will sit down to a selection of easily digestible dishes such as breakfast cereal, scrambled egg, pasta, green salad, boiled fish or chicken. When he arrived at Highbury in 1996, Arsenal manager Arśne Wenger, revolutionized the diets of his players: nothing fried, everything boiled, mainly pasta and definitely no alcohol at any time. I wonder what he would have made of our pre-match meal of steak and rice pudding, followed, in the case of Richie Norman and one or two others, by a fag. I suppose the fact that we were never outrun or overwhelmed by any opponents just goes to show that all the other teams of that era were on a similar dietary regime.
Considering what we were eating, it is amazing to think that football was evolving into a much speedier game. Sharpness and speed off the mark were vital and in Terry Dyson, Les Allen and Cliff Jones, Spurs possessed three of the quickest players around at that time. We set about denying those three possession, believing that if we cut off their supply of the ball, in the main from Danny Blanchflower, John White and Dave Mackay, we stood a good chance of nullifying what the press had dubbed ‘the unstoppable force’. That worked, up to a point. Spurs scored twice through Danny Blanchflower (penalty) and Les Allen, but our own forwards, prompted by Frank McLintock and Colin Appleton who teamed up magnificently with Jimmy Walsh in midfield, gave the Spurs defence a torrid time. Jimmy Walsh scored twice and a Ken Leek goal gave us a memorable 3–2 victory. It was only Spurs’ third defeat of the season and their first at home. We were ecstatic. We had beaten the best team in Britain in their own back yard. Leicester City had come of age as a team.
We knew we’d never catch Spurs in the League Championship, but our victory fuelled high hopes that we could go on and lift England’s other prestigious trophy – the FA Cup. We had already beaten Oxford United, then a non-league side, 3–1, then Bristol City 5–1 in a replayed game that had been abandoned when a torrential downpour swamped the Filbert Street pitch, and were due to face Birmingham City in round five. Between our victory at Spurs and the FA Cup tie with the Blues, we convincingly defeated Newcastle United 5–3 at Filbert Street. Our confidence was sky high, but Birmingham proved difficult opponents. Before a crowd of 54,000 at St Andrews Howard Riley gave us the lead only for me to be beaten by a penalty from Birmingham’s centre forward Jimmy Ha
rris. In the replay we squeezed out a 2–1 win in front of a capacity crowd of 41,916.
In the quarter-final we drew Barnsley, who at the time were a mid-table Third Division outfit. The Barnsley manager, Johnny Steele, had told the press his side ‘would not roll over and die’. They certainly didn’t.
By now City supporters had Cup fever raging through their veins and 39,000 of them turned up expecting the malady would intensify as we swept lowly Barnsley aside. Ah, the glorious uncertainty of football, especially the FA Cup!
After a great deal of huff and puff on our part, the game at Filbert Street ended goalless. And so to Oakwell for the replay, an equally close affair. Barnsley at this time did not have floodlights and the game took place on a Wednesday afternoon. There must have been a lot of miners whose grandmothers had passed away earlier that week because a near-record Barnsley crowd of 39,250 packed into Oakwell on a weekday afternoon. They witnessed the Third Division side again belie their humble status by hustling and harassing us and taking the game into extra time. Howard Riley scored for us, Ken Oliver for Barnsley, but a typical piece of opportunism from Ken Leek was finally enough to vanquish the home side.
It had been a typical, gutsy cup tie in which no quarter was asked or given. When a team from a lower division met one from the top flight in the FA Cup, invariably their game plan was to graft and worry away like terriers at their supposed superiors. The pace of the game in the First Division tended not to be fast as in the lower divisions, where the football was very much of the hurly-burly variety, as one would expect, somewhat less skilful than in the top flight and certainly less methodical in the build-up to attack. By hustling and harassing a First Division side, a team from a lower division hoped to disrupt the normal style of their opponents. Barnsley employed this tactic against us and I have to say our normal style of play was indeed thrown out of kilter, though our extra quality did get us through in the end.