by Paul Lake
During the week his room was used as an administration office but on a match day it was his social club. The liquor ran freely, the cigarette smoke was thick enough to chew on and the banter among the hubbub of ex-players and backroom staff was always lively. Ken was a friendly host who made the fathers and sons feel ten feet tall, addressing the dads by their first names (mine could never quite get over being called ‘Ted’ by the great Ken Barnes), and memorising everything about the youngsters, from which school we attended to which pop groups we liked.
As I sipped my glass of Coke and dipped into some Big D nuts, he’d often quiz me about the game we’d just witnessed.
‘So, who d’you think played well for us today, Paul,’ he’d ask in his broad Brummie accent, ‘and who’s not worth paying in Smarties?’
My response would be typically on the nervous side – my mild stammer didn’t help, coupled with the fact that people like Denis Law and Bobby Johnstone were often sitting within earshot – but Ken would diplomatically find something to agree with even if my observations were a bit feeble. He’d then offer his own outspoken critique to everyone in the room, panning or praising the Blues depending on that day’s performance. He was refreshingly frank and was usually bang on the mark.
Ken was just one of the many genial people who made those match days so special for Dad and I. As we walked to and from his room we’d be met with a sea of friendly faces, handshakes and kind comments (‘I watched you play for Blue Star this morning, Paul – you did great, son …’; ‘Good to see you again, Ted, I hear your Mike’s doing the business at Curzon Ashton …’). And, while Maine Road in the mid-1980s may have struggled to compete with Anfield’s trophy cabinet or Old Trafford’s perceived glamour, the club’s homely and unpretentious atmosphere really appealed to me. For a quite ordinary, straightforward kind of kid without, I hope, any airs or graces, City seemed the right place to be. I don’t think that any of the flashier clubs would have been on a similar wavelength, and deep down I knew I’d found my spiritual home.
I was chuffed to bits when the club offered me a coveted YTS traineeship in July 1985.
‘How you are off the pitch is how you are on the pitch, son,’ was Skip’s nugget of advice as I kicked off a thrilling new chapter in my life. For the next two years I received the princely sum of £26.50 per week, so there was no chance of me enticing Miss World with a king-sized bed strewn with banknotes, George Best-style. My wages wouldn’t have covered even the pillowcase. Because I was still living at home, Mum and Dad were entitled to a weekly payment of £65, which paid for the big shop at the Co-op.
The average day in the life of a Maine Road trainee would comprise a morning training session at Platt Lane, after which we’d perform traditional boot-boy duties for City’s senior players. I was tasked with scrubbing the studs belonging to goalies Alex Williams and Eric Nixon, as well as the outfield trio of David Phillips, Gordon Davies and Sammy McIlroy. All five treated me pretty well, unlike some of the first-team pranksters, who revelled in sending other trainees to the club secretary to ask for a long stand, or to the kitchens to ask for a flask of hot steam, or to the chairman to ask for a Guinness allowance. Tee-bloody-hee.
Our afternoon chores would range from mopping floors and scrubbing walls to scouring baths or cleaning toilets. Plunging my arm down a slimy Maine Road u-bend was never a barrel of laughs – especially if the first team had been for a vindaloo at the Punjab Palace the night before.
Woe betide any apprentice who dodged his duties, however.
‘Hey, Glyn, have you seen the f***in’ dust on that?’ Skip would screech at his trusty sidekick, brandishing a slightly blackened fingertip that he’d run across a skirting board that we had supposedly cleaned.
‘Whitey, Lakey, Brighty – get your f***in’ spikes on. Twelve laps of the pitch – now.’
‘You lads’ll never learn,’ Glyn would always say, suppressing a grin and shaking his head as he led us back out through the tunnel for our latest dose of punishment.
Glyn Pardoe was a celebrated former City full-back (the club’s youngest ever debutant, in fact) and was still skilful enough to be first pick in our Friday morning five-a-sides. He also happened to be a gem of a bloke, possessing a gentle nature which counteracted the prickliness of his fellow coach. If I was ever at the wrong end of one of Skip’s ear-bashings, Glyn would sidle over, put his arm around my shoulder and say something soothing like, ‘Y’see, Lakey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, pal.’ He had a tendency to speak in clichés, did Glyn, but his carefully chosen words usually got through to us.
After training (and prior to passing my driving test) I’d catch the number 53 bus from Moss Side to Belle Vue. I’d then wait for the connecting 204, 216 or 226 back home to Haughton Green and, as it approached, I would always lean back, craning my neck to see if Dad was sitting on the top deck. Whenever his car conked out – as was often the case – he’d have to get the bus back from his workplace at Manchester Building College. Occasionally we’d time it just right and were able to travel home together. Catching the 216 was always an added bonus because it took a longer route through suburban east Manchester, giving us extra talk-time.
It was probably the only chance Dad and I got to speak at length to each other away from the hurly burly of family life – our Saturday afternoon trips to Maine Road petered out when I became a full-time trainee – and I’d really look forward to our homeward-bound catch-ups. Our conversation would inevitably turn to football, and I would always listen intently to his tips and observations, his fag ash sprinkling onto my knee as he animatedly sketched team formations in the air.
‘If you’re playing centre-half, always hit your full-backs first, son. They’ve got more time to pass because it’s not as tight, and your wide midfield players can sit off and keep their shape, can’t they?’
‘Yeah, you’re right, Dad.’
‘And here’s another thing. Why try to dribble past two and put the ball in the box if there’s an easier pass to make earlier on? Let the ball do the work.’
Occasionally, though, the enormity of my City potential would hit home, and Dad’s emotions would get the better of him.
‘Always do your best, son,’ he’d say, looking me straight in the eye. ‘Sometimes it’ll work, sometimes it won’t, sometimes you’ll fall flat on your arse, but don’t ever stop trying, will you, eh?’
‘As if, Dad …’ I’d groan.
‘It’s just that you’ve got the opportunity for such a good life, Paul. I mean, who knows where all this could end?’
And then he’d quickly turn his face towards the window so that I couldn’t see his eyes misting up.
‘Grab your kitbag, son, it’s nearly our stop,’ he’d say hurriedly. ‘We’ll bloody well miss it one day, all this bleedin’ nattering …’
Destiny Calling
FOR MOST OF my childhood, Dad was something of a football neutral. He was quite happy for both Manchester teams to do well and, until I joined forces with City, never really nailed his colours to any particular mast.
It was actually our milkman, Albert Gains, who turned me into a City fan. Mr Gains was a partisan Blue and the proud owner of two season tickets and, well aware that the Lake kids on Bowker Avenue loved kicking a ball about, asked Mum one morning whether Mike or I fancied accompanying him to the occasional match. She knew damned well what our response would be.
My first taste of Maine Road was a midweek game in September 1975, a floodlit 1–0 victory over Stoke City in which Rodney Marsh prodded in the winner. After the final whistle I couldn’t get home fast enough to tell Mum and Dad about all the amazing sights and sounds – the sea of sky blue scarves and the chants from the Kippax just blew me away – and within a few days I’d plastered my side of the bedroom with City posters nicked from Mike’s Shoot! magazines. It didn’t take long for my school books to become defaced with MCFC doodles and squad lists, and I’d regularly find myself drifting away in the classroom, my concentra
tion waning as I replayed a variety of goals and moves in my head while Mrs Hampson droned on in the background.
I’d love to say that Albert and I travelled to the match in a milk float bearing clanking crates of gold tops, but we didn’t. We actually went in an orange Datsun Cherry, our journey taking us to Moss Side along the busy Manchester Road. Being a creature of habit, Albert would always park up in the same cul-de-sac just off Claremont Road, where he’d be accosted by a gang of teenage skinheads demanding 50p to ‘mind your car please, mister’ (a euphemism for ‘you’ll find a brick on your back seat if you don’t cough up, Grandad’). Handing over the small change, Albert would smile weakly and ask the lads to take good care of the car, knowing full well that, come kick-off, they’d probably be feeding his coins into a fag machine or exchanging them for a can of Kestrel.
Our short walk to the ground would take us through a maze of mossy alleyways (we often had to slalom around the overflowing bins and old mattresses) and along roads fringed with red-brick terraces. Some front gates were guarded by forbidding-looking Moss Side matriarchs who, with arms folded and brows furrowed, would attempt to ward off fans from littering their yards with cans and chip trays. We’d pass blokes sporting Paul Calf mullets loitering on street corners, flogging knock-off City souvenirs while nervously looking over their shoulders for any looming policemen. I always knew when the Old Bill was in the vicinity because these lads would suddenly stuff their dodgy wares into a holdall before vaulting over a wall and crouching in a backyard until the coast was clear. I revelled in all these cops ’n’ robbers capers.
As Albert and I approached the stadium, we’d be hit by the familiar Maine Road whiff of sweaty hot dogs and steaming horse dung. My excitement would really start to mount when we joined the throng of City fans that congregated on the forecourt. With my cherished blue-white-and-maroon-striped scarf knotted round my wrist, I’d watch wide-eyed as thousands of supporters poured in from the passageways and alleyways, converging in that communal hum of anticipation that always prevailed before a home game. Some fans would head straight to the turnstiles leading to the Kippax, Platt Lane, Main or North Stands, and others would join the queue snaking towards the souvenir shop. A couple of hundred more would amass in front of the main entrance, trying to catch a glimpse of a player or a VIP supporter like Bernard Manning or Eddie Large being ushered through the security cordon. You had to tell jokes and dodge salads to qualify as a celebrity City fan in those days.
The presence of a huge BBC or Granada outside broadcast lorry parked on the forecourt would always create a buzz of excitement, too.
‘Looks like we’re on telly tonight, Paul,’ Albert would observe. ‘All the more reason for not making fools of ourselves, eh?’
He and I would then proceed to weave our way to the Main Stand entrance – me gripping on to his coat-tails so I didn’t get lost in the crowd – before presenting our season ticket books to the fella at the turnstile who tore out the stubs and let us through. We’d then make a beeline for our seats in H Block, parking ourselves on the plump velour cushions that Albert always brought along. As I grazed on a bag of Sports Mixtures I’d pore over the City programme, trying my luck with the football quiz, guessing the time of the ‘Golden Goal’ and predicting the scores from the Division One fixtures listed alphabetically on the back page. My heart would race when the tinny tannoy blared out the opening bars of ‘The Boys in Blue’, the rousing anthem (penned by 10cc’s Godley and Crème) that heralded the City lads’ entrance.
City … Manchester City
We are the lads who are playing to win,
City … the Boys in Blue will never give in
It was cheesy as hell, but I loved it.
As both teams stretched and limbered up on the pitch I scrutinised their kits, studying the material and design with the critical eye of a Savile Row tailor. My favourite all-time City strip was the classic sky blue Umbro shirt with the pointy white collar, coupled with second-skin white shorts. It was modelled to great effect by one of my big heroes, Dennis Tueart, as he bombed down the right flank, leaving defenders flailing in his wake. Tueart also wore white tie-ups with a number 7 motif and v-shapes cut out of them which to me were a real fashion statement at the time. I once attempted to make my own pair of Tueart-style tie-ups at home, mutilating a couple of Dad’s handkerchiefs with a pair of blunt nail scissors, and getting a rap on the knuckles when I got found out.
I can still visualise Dennis the menace sporting that fantastic kit when he deftly head-butted George Potter during an ill-tempered FA Cup tie against Hartlepool in January 1976. When the inevitable red card was brandished, us Blues’ fans – already full of the joys of a 6–0 triumph – applauded our star winger off the pitch. Potter was red-carded too, becoming one of the first players in history to have been sent off while unconscious. I seem to recall reading the back pages of Dad’s Daily Mirror the next day, featuring a contrite Dennis visiting a dazed-looking George in hospital.
Maine Road was a people-watcher’s paradise for a youngster, especially one like me with a limited concentration span. If the game ever entered a drab spell there’d always be plenty of distractions to keep me occupied, like counting the cigarette lighters sparking up in the Platt Lane end or watching the pigeons roost beneath the Kippax Stand roof. I was also fascinated by Peter Swales’s head. Our seats weren’t far from the directors’ box and I’d often find myself gawping at the City chairman’s black, matted hairdo, trying to fathom out whether or not it was a wig.
‘Paul, will you stop flamin’ staring?’ Albert would hiss, poking me in the ribs. ‘It’s rude.’ I could never help myself, though.
Helen the Bell was always a great diversion. A sturdy blonde bombshell in her 60s, with a gravity-defying beehive, Helen Turner was a Maine Road icon. She’d sit directly behind the goal in the front row of the North Stand decked out in sky blue and brandishing a huge town-crier’s bell which she’d clang incessantly during lulls in play, often rousing an occasionally jaded crowd into a chant of ‘c’mon City, c’mon City …’
I went through much of my childhood thinking she was Joe Corrigan’s mum, only because he always used to hop over the hoardings and give her a big kiss before kick-off, as she presented him with his match day sprig of heather.
‘Ah, Big Joe’s dead kind to his mum, isn’t he?’ I once blurted out, only for Albert to put me straight and shatter my illusions.
‘She’s not his mum, Paul, just his biggest fan,’ he smiled.
The resident City goalies, Corrigan and Keith McRae, were well accustomed to Helen’s bell, but witnessing the opposing keeper’s reaction to her deafening ding-dongs was a great source of delight to me, especially if it was their first visit to Maine Road. Some of these goalies would almost leap out of their shorts when she let rip, and I’m sure she must have helped the Blues’ cause on many an occasion by unnerving a keeper or two. Helen the Bell is sadly no longer with us, and for that the club is an emptier place. If slightly quieter.
Another Maine Road ‘attraction’ was the allegedly state-of-the-art electronic scoreboard that spanned the underside of the North Stand roof. It was perceived as really hi-tech when it was first unveiled in the early 1970s, but when all the fuss had died down it was quite obvious that it was, well, a bit crap really. Half of its bulbs blew within a month, and it could accommodate only one meagre row of flickering text. It was so woefully slow that I always imagined it being operated behind the scenes by some doddery old pensioner with jam-jar glasses and a rug on his knee, typing one-fingered on a word processor.
Even the most basic scoreboard announcement or advertisement would have to be broken up into four or five stuttering screenings: ‘Come to … (long pause) Ashfords Furniture … (very long pause) for all your … (extremely long pause) home requirements.’ Or ‘Could Gary Smith … (pause) please phone home … (pause) because your wife has gone … (scoreboard freezes for five minutes) into labour.’ Baby Smith would have probably been born and sig
ned up to the Junior Blues by the time Daddy had got the message.
During the interval, we’d extract the other half-time scores from the bloke in front of us who spent the entire match with a transistor radio glued to his ear. He seemed more bothered about relaying goal flashes to the rest of H Block than any on-pitch action (‘Latchford’s just got another one … Everton 2–0 up now …’). I often used to wonder to myself why, come three o’clock, he didn’t just stay at home, watch Frank Bough’s Grandstand teleprinter, yell out the latest scores to his missus and save himself a tenner each Saturday. But the results service he provided was about 50 times faster than our slothful scoreboard and allowed me to pencil the scores in neatly in the match programme.
Like many fans of a certain age, Albert liked to leave ten minutes before the end of the match to ‘beat the traffic’. I used to find this really infuriating, but it wasn’t my place to argue with my kindly benefactor as he packed his cushions and his flask into his holdall before briskly ushering me up the stone steps and out of the stadium. I’d trudge back down Claremont Road, my heart sinking if I heard one of those uproarious cheers that signified a late City goal, something that was especially hard to bear if I’d just had to sit through a tedious 0–0 for 80 minutes.
Often it was a collective groan that would emanate from the ground as City conceded a soft goal in the game’s dying moments. Before long, hordes of pissed-off fans would swarm past us, shaking their heads and muttering stuff about never paying to watch that shower of shite ever again. Sensing the possibility of supporter road rage, Albert would be ever more eager to get the hell out of Moss Side and would start doing one of those Peter Kay-style Dad-jogs until we reached the Datsun. And, after checking that various car parts were still intact, he’d yank out the choke and start the journey back to Denton, always in good time for the comforting da-da-da-dah, da-da-da-dah, da daddly da da daaah of Radio 2’s Sports Report.