by Gordon Banks
The culprit turned out to be Nobby Stiles, who eventually took pity on Alan and produced the missing flannels. Bally took it all in good part and Nobby’s prank didn’t upset or faze him at all. The following day, on his England debut, Alan was our best player, and throughout the tour demonstrated skill and technique that matched his phenomenal energy and enthusiasm on the pitch.
From Yugoslavia we travelled north to Nuremburg, where a Terry Paine goal gave us a 1–0 victory over a West German side ranked number three in the world. That game I consider to have been a benchmark for me, both in my career with England and as a goalkeeper. I felt confident from the first whistle, sure of my positioning, handling, distribution and of the way I organized what was a resolute England back line of George Cohen, Ray Wilson, Jack Charlton and Bobby Moore. Those lads were outstanding and this was the game when I first realized I was becoming comfortable and familiar with their individual styles and idiosyncrasies as defenders. In short, we played as a highly effective unit. The days when England took to the pitch with a team of gifted but disparate individuals were over. Against West Germany we had shown that we had all the makings of a very good team.
We concluded what had been a very happy and successful tour with a 2–1 victory over Sweden in Gothenburg. Alan Ball, with his first goal for England, and John Connelly, were our goalscorers on a mudheap of a pitch that during the long Swedish winter doubled up as an ice rink.
Prior to the game there was a scare about Nobby Stiles. Nobby’s poor eyesight was legendary in the game – not to put too fine a point on it, he is half-blind without his contact lenses. As he prepared for the match, he discovered to his horror that though he had remembered to pack his contact lenses, he had forgotten the lens lubricant. It was then that our trainer, Harold Shepherdson, demonstrated just how much attention he paid to detail by producing a small bottle of the vital fluid.
‘I leave nothing to chance,’ said Harold, accepting Nobby’s thanks. ‘In case of emergency, I make sure I have everything every player will need.’
‘You didn’t have a spare pair of pants for Bally though, did you?’ replied Nobby.
(Denis Law tells the story of Manchester United’s victory banquet after the 1968 European Cup final, which for some reason Stiles attended without his spectacles or contact lenses. When he hadn’t returned after fifteen minutes from an excursion to the lavatory, Law and George Best went to look for him. They found Nobby sitting among Rotary Club diners in an adjacent room, oblivious to his mistake!)
Everyone in the England party believed we had had a very successful tour. With the World Cup just a year away, we had made great progress. The team was now beginning to have a settled look about it, and though Alf was still apt to experiment with players, he seemed happy and content with the nucleus of the side. Myself, George Cohen, Ray Wilson, Jack Charlton, Bobby Moore and Alan Ball had figured in all the tour games, while Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves had been absent only owing to injury. Of the players who featured on that tour, only two, Everton’s Derek Temple and Mick Jones of Sheffield United, would not be included in Alf’s final squad for the 1966 World Cup.
Even without Greaves and Charlton we had remained unbeaten, scoring a memorable victory in Germany, yet surprisingly the press were still finding something to criticize. Our continued development as an international team and our good results were not enough to engender wholehearted support in the papers. Winning wasn’t enough, it seemed. We had to win in style. ‘Where was the class? Where was the free-flowing, fluent football that English supporters demand of their national team?’ One ‘old school’ writer professed a lack of enthusiasm for international football. Only the domestic club game mattered. Did he keep these views to himself, I wonder, twelve months later at Wembley?
Stuart Shaw, writing in the popular football weekly Soccer Star, described our performances on tour as being ‘as intellectual as a rocket scientist throwing paper darts’. A lesser man might have been disconcerted by such carping, but Alf Ramsey took no notice of it. On the contrary, the manner of our performances instilled in Alf the belief that his team had the makings of world champions come 1966.
I didn’t enjoy the best of starts to the 1965–66 season. While playing for Leicester in a pre-season friendly against Northampton Town I went down at the feet of Town’s Joe Kiernan and broke my wrist. It was accidental, but the injury put me in plaster and I missed the first nine games of the season (City’s reserve keeper, George Heyes, deputized). Matt Gillies yet again proved himself to be one of the most astute managers in the First Division in signing quality players at bargain prices, when he picked up Jackie Sinclair, a skilful winger from Dunfermline, for just £25,000. Jackie was very quick and, like Mike Stringfellow, liked to come inside and look for goal. Naturally two-footed, he was happy to operate on either flank and did so to good effect during his two years at Leicester. With his boundless energy and ability to make and score goals he was very popular with City fans, but when Leicester’s fortunes began to fade, he was snapped up by Newcastle United with whom he went on to win a Fairs Cup winners’ medal in the Geordies’ victory over Ujpest Dozsa of Hungary.
Jackie Sinclair was a favourite of the City faithful, but the other Matt Gillies signing of the summer of ’65 proved even more popular. Derek Dougan is a footballing enigma. Quite simply, there has never been a player like him, nor one so forthright in their views and opinions on the game. After making a name for himself in the late fifties with Portsmouth, Blackburn Rovers and Aston Villa, Derek had dropped into the Third Division with Peterborough United. Like Trevor Ford before him, Derek had no qualms about voicing his opinions on football and its establishment figures. He was a radical and original thinker whose caustic wit and sharp brain made many a manager think twice (at least) about taking him on. The fact that he was playing his football in the Third Division was in all probability due to his reputation as a troublemaker. Managers feared the influence in the dressing room of this radical, offbeat, direct, caustic but above all honest character. Why on earth Matt Gillies signed him, I don’t know. What I do know is that Derek was a stylish and formidable player who, in his time at Leicester, channelled his undoubted intelligence on to the field of play to the great benefit of the team and the constant delight of the supporters. Did I say stylish? What with his Zapata-style moustache and one of the first shaven heads in British football – a sensation at Aston Villa in the early sixties – he definitely had a style of his own.
We often hear today about players having ‘cult status’. Derek Dougan was one of the originals. Many people thought his best days were behind him when he came to Filbert Street, but he was to prove them wrong. In his two years at Leicester and subsequent eight years at Wolverhampton Wanderers he was to play the best football of his career, maturing into an intelligent and unselfish striker of the highest calibre. He scored 222 League goals in a career that, in the early days certainly, had more than its share of ups and downs. He also represented Northern Ireland on forty-three occasions and would, in my opinion, have been the perfect manager for the national team. As far as I know, he was never offered the post, nor did he ever apply. Perhaps he felt that the people who ran Ulster football at the time wouldn’t be comfortable with his brusque, honest style. He was certainly unafraid of confrontation. In his many hard tussles with the era’s uncompromising centre halves he would always say, ‘I’ll see you at the far post’ – a phrase that filled them with trepidation and often resulted in yet another headed goal for the Doog.
Dougan made his debut for Leicester in our 3–1 defeat at Liverpool on the opening day of the 1965–66 season, but gave ample evidence of his quality as a player. He was a windmill of a striker whose talent and swirling personality were to leave their mark not only at Leicester City but on football in general. He did a good job for us, though his views were as forthright as ever: ‘I was bought cheaply,’ he said, ‘and in comparison with my contract at Peterborough, paid cheaply.’ Not surprisingly, Derek was also a force i
n the Professional Footballers’ Association.
The Doog was never slow when it came to offering advice to his team mates. One Friday morning our centre half Ian King received a message to report to the manager’s office. In our previous match we had lost 2–0 at Nottingham Forest, a match in which Ian had not enjoyed the best of games. He was worried Matt Gillies was going to pull one of his manoeuvres, whereby he would talk to a player about his recent performances and work the conversation so that the player talked himself out of a place in the side.
‘When he asks me how I played against Forest, I’ll have to be honest and say “Not very well”,’ said Ian, ‘then Matt’ll say, “If you know you’re not playing well, then you’re out.”’
The Doog told Ian not to worry.
‘When the boss asks how you think you’ve been playing lately, bluff it out,’ he advised. ‘Say to Matt, “I’ve been great. Haven’t you been watching me, boss? Forest’s centre forward Frank Wignall never got a touch. I played him out of the game. I’m playing well, really well. Everybody is saying so. Why are you asking how I’ve been playing lately?” That way, Matt will be on the defensive. You’ll plant seeds of doubt in his mind and he’ll not feel justified in leaving you out of the team.’
Ian set off for Matt’s office in a very positive mood, determined to bluff it out and maintain his place in the side. Sure enough, during their meeting, Matt asked Ian how he thought he had been playing of late.
‘I’ve been great,’ said I an. ‘Haven’t you been watching me, boss? Frank Wignall never got a touch. I played him out of the game. I’m playing well. Really well.’
‘I know,’ said Matt, ‘but do you think you can play much better than you have been playing lately?’ (Check.)
‘Yes,’ replied Ian, without thinking.
‘Then you’re out,’ said Matt. (Checkmate.)
Following my injury I returned to the Leicester team in late September for a League Cup tie at Manchester City. It was to be an unhappy return, our 3–1 defeat putting an end to our hopes at the first time of asking. (Manchester City also put an end to our FA Cup hopes that year.) Our league form was once again inconsistent. We enjoyed some memorable results, including a 5–1 win at St James’s Park over in-form Newcastle United and five-goal victories over West Ham, also away from home, and Fulham. Having been beaten 5–0 at home by Manchester United, we then went and won 2–1 at Old Trafford, a series of results that summed up perfectly our topsy-turvy season. We played well in fits and starts, but all too often flattered to deceive. In the end our final league placing of seventh was respectable enough, but the overall feeling among the Leicester players was that it should have been better. Matt Gillies had added to our ranks full back Peter Rodrigues, a £45,000 signing from Cardiff City, and the club’s youth policy also saw David Nish and Rodney Fern elevated to the first team, but the consistency (both in performance and team selection) was never there.
Against Manchester United we had a strange record over the years, especially at home. We seemed to play really well against United, only to suffer defeat. In 1964–65 we played United off the park at Filbert Street but had to be satisfied with a 2–2 draw. And when the two sides met at Filbert Street in 1965–66, we were the only team in it, yet we lost 5–0. Rarely has a team had so much possession and besieged the opposition’s goal for so long only to incur a heavy defeat. Our tally of thirty-six corners and twenty-four shots on goal is an indication of just how much pressure we put on United that day. We hit the woodwork three times without finding the net. United had five efforts at goal and scored from every one! We started the game in much the same way as we were to continue, piling the pressure on the United defence. Yet suddenly we found ourselves 2–0 down; first, from Best’s centre, the United centre forward David Herd rose to head the ball past me and into the net. Ten minutes later, following another sustained period of pressure from us, there was a repetition. Best again broke free on the left and Herd raced into the penalty area to meet his cross and plant a firm header past me. I had touched the ball three times in the match and on two of those occasions it was to pick it out of the net. What United gave us, of course, was a lesson in finishing. Our mistakes were severely punished, but we didn’t capitalize on theirs.
The margin of error in top-flight football is very small and nowhere more so than in goalkeeping. Unlike outfield players, a single error of judgement on a goalkeeper’s part almost invariably leads to a goal conceded. That is why I worked constantly at my game. I had established myself as a First Division goalkeeper and as England’s number one, but I never stopped practising and developing my craft as a goalkeeper, particularly my positional sense and anticipation.
While on international duty I had noticed a marked difference between British and foreign goalkeeping styles. The British keepers tended to be physically strong and dominated the whole of their penalty box. As I have described earlier, I had become very technically minded, whereas the continental goalkeepers I came across tended to stay on their own line more and rely on agility and reflexes. My style was to organize my defence so that I didn’t have to make a save at all. When a shot did come in I hoped that my positioning would make it easy to save, thus minimizing the chance of a mistake.
Yet crowds love the spectacular save while quietly taking for granted the efficient work that results from correct positioning. A prime example of this came in the England–Poland game played at Goodison Park in January 1966. During the first half Roger Hunt turned his marker, then hit a dipping shot towards the centre of goal. The Polish goalkeeper, Szeja, jumped up and with one hand tipped the ball over the bar. The Goodison Park crowd, appreciative of Szeja’s acrobatic effort, gave him generous applause. Minutes later I was involved in a similar situation when the Polish forward, Sadek, tried his luck from similar distance. Having anticipated Sadek’s effort and got into position, I simply jumped and plucked the ball from under the crossbar. With the ball safely clutched to my chest there was almost silence throughout the ground. The Pole, in his flamboyance, had conceded a corner, whereas I had made what looked like a routine save – and retained possession.
Yes, goalkeeping can be a thankless task. But the fact that at times the fans might not have appreciated what I was trying to do never bothered me. Thankfully, though, one man did: Alf Ramsey.
11. The Class of ’66
I was relieved to finish the 1965–66 league season without picking up an injury. I gave nothing less than 100 per cent effort and application during the run-in, but the impending World Cup was always at the back of my mind. Leicester finished the season on a high note, beating West Ham United 2–1 in a highly entertaining game at Filbert Street. In the West Ham team that day was Bobby Moore, whom I was expecting to play alongside in the World Cup. Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters were also in that Hammers team. Geoff then had only a handful of England caps and Martin was thought of as a squad player, albeit one with considerable potential. Little did I realize the crucial roles both were about to play in the destiny of the World Cup.
In April of that year Geoff had won only his second cap, against Scotland in a cracking Home International match. We’d prepared for the Scotland match by training at Somerset Park, home of Ayr United, while staying at a nearby hotel. On the morning of the match I was given a foretaste of what was to come when bidding farewell to one of the hotel porters. He had been attentive and helpful throughout our stay and good value for the five-bob tip I’d given him.
‘Thanks for everything. Enjoy the game,’ I said.
‘Awa’n boil ye heid! I hope we pulverize ye!’ he replied, adding in the most polite of voices, ‘Oh,’n’ thank ye for the gratuity, Mr Banks.’
Though there was still an hour and a half to go before kick-off, the roads leading to Hampden Park were a seething mass of tartan-clad humanity. As the England team bus made its painfully slow progress towards the ground, some just leered at us, many jeered but a good proportion hurled insults and crashed their fists against the side of the b
us. John Connelly was beginning to feel very uneasy but Bobby Moore allayed his fears.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bobby told him, ‘it’s just the traditional Clydeside shipbuilders’ welcome for the England team.’
In the sixties shipbuilding still dominated life in Glasgow. The shipyards, open to the sky, began at Greenock, from where they embraced the Clyde for miles. I can still hear the evocative sound of the Clyde at full tempo: an army of hammers echoing in the empty bellies of hulls, the fiendish chatter of riveters at work, the sudden squeal of metal tortured in a spray of bonfire-night sparks that died of cold as they fell. Ships could be seen lolling in cradles from Greenock to the very heart of Glasgow. Some were just keels, like whale skeletons; others, gaunt hulls of rusty red smeared with rectangles of airforce-blue paint. I saw vast oil tankers, seemingly miles long, almost ready for the bottle of champagne and then years in the Persian Gulf ahead of them. These were the shipyards of Billy Connolly and the labour activist Jimmy Reid, boiler-suit blue and testosterone driven. Come half five of an afternoon, out would spew the cloth-capped sprinters racing for the idling crocodile of Corporation buses.
As we probed our way towards Hampden it appeared as if all those Clydeside shipyard workers were on their way to the match, as well as a good many from Glasgow’s other artisans. They numbered in excess of 135,000 and at no time did I spot the friendly face of an England supporter.