The Three Degrees

by Paul Rees

  Educated at Eton and then Trinity College, Oxford, Thorpe was born to be a high-flyer and a pillar of the establishment. His rise appeared inevitable and unfettered, but in the background there had lurked persistent rumours about his sexuality. In 1961, when his political career was still in its infancy, Thorpe had struck up a friendship with a former petty thief and male model named Norman Scott. When Thorpe broke this off, Scott filed a police report in which he claimed to have had a homosexual relationship – at that time an illegal act in Britain – with the politician.

  Since Scott appeared to be a habitual liar, no charges were brought against Thorpe, and in 1967 he was elected Liberal leader. However, Scott continued to haunt the shadows of his career. During the ensuing years, a series of payments were made to Scott through a fellow West Country Liberal MP of Thorpe’s, Peter Bessell. Thorpe intimated to Bessell and other close friends that he was being blackmailed. Scott later alleged that it was his silence that was being bought.

  This chapter of the story came to an outlandish climax in October 1975. Scott was then living near to Thorpe’s constituency home in north Devon and was contacted by an Andrew Newton, a former airline pilot masquerading as an MI5 agent. Newton persuaded Scott into his car one evening and drove him and his Great Dane dog onto Exmoor. Pulling a gun, Newton forced Scott from the vehicle and shot his dog dead at the roadside. In his evidence to police, Scott claimed Newton had then attempted to shoot him, but the gun had jammed and he was able to flee on foot across the moor.

  The resulting two-year police investigation first connected Newton to a pair of businessmen, George Deakin and John Le Mesurier. From them the trail led to David Holmes, then the Deputy Treasurer of the Liberal Party and a good friend of Thorpe’s. Police concluded that these three men, acting at Thorpe’s behest, had hired Newton to kill Scott. Thorpe’s political career was in ruins and yet he continued to conduct himself as though men of his standing would ultimately not be failed by the British judicial system.

  ‘Thorpe always had this raffish look,’ says David May, a reporter who covered the story for the Sunday Times and later co-wrote a book about the case. ‘He really was an upper-class Edwardian gentleman and to me seemed like he’d stepped out of another, earlier era. I met him a few times and he was charming and a very sophisticated political operator.

  ‘As journalists, at the time we were obsessed with finding the British equivalent of Watergate. We all wanted to be Woodward and Bernstein, and the Thorpe case seemed to have pretty much everything one could want for in a sensational political story: allegations of illegal sex and the political and financial corruption in covering it up, personal betrayals and a byzantine incitement to murder conspiracy, the only victim of which was Norman Scott’s dog, Rinka.’

  The week Thorpe went to court, another story just as representative of the period slipped by almost unnoticed. This was a rallying cry from the National Council for Civil Liberties against proposals then being put forward by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir David McNee. McNee wanted his officers to be granted sweeping powers of stop and search. Bald statistics later confirmed that no one was likely to feel the brunt of this measure more than a young black man living in an area such as Handsworth.

  Such were the unsettling and oppressive currents stirring the British air in the August of 1978. To be sure, there seemed an ill wind blowing. It was one that even penetrated the bubble inside which the game of football often appeared to take place. As the new season approached, the Express & Star reported that police in the West Midlands were drawing up undercover plans to combat the growing menace of football hooliganism in the region.

  The World Cup had given Ron Atkinson a new crop of characters to adopt during the pre-season training games at West Brom. He now swaggered about the place in the guise of the dashing Argentine striker Mario Kempes or Rainer Bonhof, the West German midfield powerhouse. Playing as either man, Atkinson’s big trick was the self-styled ‘lollipop’, which comprised of him throwing his leg over the ball in a dummy feint. The players joked that they could see this coming from the other side of Birmingham.

  Going to China had at least served to bond Atkinson and his team tighter together. The spirit that pervaded at these sessions was entirely at odds with the temperature in the rest of the country, as a feeling developed among the players that these were the best of times. This soon enough carried over on to the pitch. In the first week of the new season, West Brom recorded three straight victories in the League: their FA Cup conquerors Ipswich were beaten 2-1, Queen’s Park Rangers 1-0 and Bolton were hammered 4-0 at the Hawthorns.

  The side that gelled through these games was to remain almost unchanged for the next nine months. In goal, there was Tony Godden. Across the back line, Brendon Batson and Derek Statham as full-backs, John Wile and Ally Robertson as centre-halves, as obdurate a defensive four as any in the League. The midfield engine room was comprised of Tony Brown, Bryan Robson and the most underrated player in the team, Len Cantello. Then the three front men, Cyrille Regis, Ally Brown and Laurie Cunningham, each of them the very epitome of Atkinson’s commitment to pace.

  On a good day, such as when tearing into Bolton at full pelt, West Brom began to play with a panache and devil-may-care boldness that seemed better suited to Buenos Aires than the Black Country. In this respect, it was true of Cunningham most of all.

  ‘For those of us who were then fortunate enough to see Laurie play, it was a privilege,’ says Batson. ‘He was a thing of beauty on the pitch, seemed to float across it. A feeling of calm came over the team whenever the ball went out to him, because you knew that invariably he wasn’t going to lose it. I don’t think sometimes you appreciate what you’ve got till it’s gone. Laurie’s time with us was short, but sweet and memorable too.

  ‘Ron knew how to get the best out of his players as well and we respected him for how he did things. A lot of managers don’t want to get close to the team, since it can be used against them. But Ron wasn’t afraid to be part of the group, because both he and we knew that he couldn’t be taken advantage of.’

  ‘Every now and again, you get a team where the mix is just right and it’s a pleasure to be part of it, on and off the pitch,’ furthers Regis. ‘Being in that West Brom side was a joy. Between us, we had chemistry, confidence and a winning mentality. It was like the perfect storm.’

  Cunningham’s family were regular visitors to the Hawthorns for West Brom’s home games. Either his mother and father would come together, or Mavis would bring along his brother, Keith. Atkinson always made sure to make a fuss of them in the players’ lounge after the match, presenting Mavis with flowers and plying each of them with champagne. The two brothers had by then long gone off in separate directions. As Laurie was rising through his sport, Keith had fallen into petty crime and been in and out of jail.

  ‘I was a bit of a terror, put it that way,’ says Keith. ‘The first recollection I have of my brother as a professional footballer is being banged up and hearing from the other cons that he was on TV. I used to collect pictures of him. When the newspapers came in, I’d cut out anything that was about him and stick it in an album I kept in my cell. I don’t think he ever came to visit me. Mom and Dad did, but not him. But then, I didn’t want him to turn up in that situation.

  ‘He seemed to enjoy playing for West Brom, more than he’d later do for Real Madrid. It looked like he’d got quite a few mates up there and if he was getting any stick off anyone then he hid it from me.’

  Something that hadn’t changed from their childhood was that Laurie, then and now, remained accident prone. When he was meant to visit his family in London after one game, he instead ended up in hospital. He’d been waiting with Nicky Brown at Birmingham’s New Street station to board an approaching train, when he stepped in front of an opening carriage door and was knocked out cold.

  In the second week of September, West Brom began their UEFA Cup adventure against Galatasaray of Turkey. The first leg was originally scheduled t
o take place in front of the Turkish side’s fervent home fans in Istanbul. However, as a result of persistent crowd trouble at the club’s Ali Sami Yen stadium, UEFA moved the fixture 200 miles along the Aegean coast to Izmir.

  ‘The hotel in Izmir was the biggest dump you’ve ever seen,’ recalls Atkinson. ‘It didn’t even have a dining room. The night before the match, I wouldn’t let the players go to bed. I took them all out and we had a meal at a pavement café. On the day of the game, we had a swimming gala amongst ourselves. The kind of things you shouldn’t do, but we weren’t able to relax in the hotel.’

  The unorthodox preparation nonethless worked. Albion strolled to a 3-1 victory with Cunningham, Regis and Robson scoring. As they were doing in the League, the side played with a carefree abandon that was rooted in Atkinson’s conviction that they would score more goals than the opposition.

  ‘The traditional thing to do in European games was to sit back in the away leg and try to nick something on the break, whereas we just went at sides,’ he says. ‘On reflection, maybe it was a bit naive.’

  Back in domestic competition, the first true test of the team’s mettle came at the Hawthorns on 23 September when Liverpool were the visitors. Having had the title wrested from them the previous season by Nottingham Forest, Liverpool had by then returned to what they considered to be their rightful place on top of the League. West Brom were snapping at their heels, but had lost their first game of the campaign a week earlier at Derby.

  Albion couldn’t escape their own half for the first thirty minutes of the match. This Liverpool team was as formidable as any to have competed in British football. Taking the reins of the club from the great Bill Shankly in 1974, manager Bob Paisley had built his side on the bedrock of two outstanding Scottish footballers: tenacious midfielder Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish, a striker of true guile. Such as it was, the secret of their success was to keep hold of the ball. In doing so they didn’t so much beat other teams as grind them down, both physically and mentally.

  In their vivid all-red strips, each of the Liverpool players seemed possessed of an assurance that his side would prevail. Next to them, in their navy blue-and-white-striped shirts, their West Brom counterparts looked cowed and uncertain. As the unseasonably warm afternoon wore on, they chased longer shadows. Yet Liverpool couldn’t score and as the first half drew to a close, the West Brom team found a precarious foothold in the game.

  ‘We’d got an absolute battering and as we came in at half-time, Ron could have been negative and gone on about all the things we’d not done,’ says John Wile. ‘But when we sat down he said, “Tell you what, lads, there isn’t a team in Europe that could’ve lived with that lot today. But you’ve survived the best they’ve got and been fantastic.” It was a great piece of management skill.’

  Thanks to Atkinson’s ministering, the Albion team came out for the second half convinced that Liverpool had peaked. The game turned, the home side now driving forward and turning their opponents around. This was one of Cunningham’s good-mood days, and he as much anyone grew in stature. He taunted and teased the Liverpool defence, and he struck the first goal of the game. Regis grabbed a second soon after, but was wrongly ruled offside and it was disallowed.

  In these minutes, it could have appeared that not just one match, but the whole tide of the English game was turning. Liverpool, relentless in their efficiency, first quaked and then wilted in the face of an onslaught of fearless attacking football. And yet, at the death, West Brom gave their win away.

  It happened in a split second. Godden and Wile became embroiled in an argument, the cause of which neither man can recall. The goalkeeper was standing in the middle of his penalty box, eyes blazing, bouncing the ball up and down. He didn’t see Dalglish lurking behind him, and couldn’t react quick enough when the Liverpool man nipped in between him and his captain and stole the ball into the net. It was the decisive blow and the game finished drawn, 1-1.

  For Albion it was a cruel and senseless end to the encounter, but on such fine margins are titles won and lost. Yet Atkinson was now able to gather his men and fire them with the knowledge that they had stood toe to toe with the best team in the land and pushed them to the limit. He would next instil in them a belief that they could go better and further.

  Between 1978 and today, there’s been no great change in the rhythm of a professional footballer’s life. It has remained a routine of training and playing that runs through a nine-month long season. Of course, these days the mechanics of that process are very different. At a top-flight club such as West Brom, the act of preparing players for each season and maintaining them through it is now a forensic science loaded with minutiae on such things as heart rates, refuelling and diet. This doesn’t allow for members of the team to slope off for a cigarette and a fry-up at the end of each session.

  As a result, the game itself has become faster and more technical. The rapid proliferation of media has also led to an exponential increase in the amount it is broadcast and reported on and in the attendant interest in it. Yet the most evident and substantive change to the game has been to its economics, and the degree to which at the highest level this has separated those who play football from those who watch it. As well, there has been a marked shift in the demographic of football’s support. It is a general rule that the game in the English Premier League of today is played by very rich young men to an audience that is at least comfortably middle class.

  In this respect, the football of the late-1970s is wholly unrecognisable. It wasn’t then gentrified or brand managed. In some regards it was a simpler, purer game, and in others an uglier one too. Clubs such as West Brom retained a position at the hub of their communities. Often as not, these were the areas of the country most affected by Britain’s economic woes. As at most other clubs, the great majority of those who stood on the terraces at West Brom worked in the factories and plants of the town and its surrounding areas. Right then, these were places and people that were commonly clinging on for survival.

  Money was tight and the time had passed when people could afford to go to every game. This much was clear that season in the gates at the Hawthorns. More than 33,000 saw the match against Liverpool, whereas less than 22,000 had turned out for Norwich just two weeks earlier. On 29 November, the local derby with Aston Villa attracted a crowd of 35,166. A fortnight after that match, the fixture with Middlesbrough brought in 19,865. The players were better off, but not by an unimaginable distance. When Laurie Cunningham left West Brom in 1979, he was on little more than £100 a week. Supporters alternately envied, admired and even idolised him and his team-mates, but they nonetheless continued to inhabit much the same world as them.

  For home matches, the Albion players parked their cars at a school across the road from the Hawthorns on Halfords Lane. It was a common sight to see one or other of them deep in conversation with a group of supporters on the walk from there to the ground. During the week, the players were just as likely to be spotted out together in a local pub such as the Four in Hand. It was even known for them to frequent the Marksman off Carters Green, one of the town’s roughest boozers. Cyrille Regis was a regular at a quieter pub a mile up the road in Hill Top, the Star & Garter.

  ‘Cyrille was an electrician. He’s a man of the people,’ says John Homer. ‘That was the thing. As a supporter you knew where the players had come from and had an affinity with them. At that time, football still had humanity. The players were of a generation that appreciated how lucky they were to be in the game. Even though the rewards were not as great, they were still getting paid more than my old man was for working in a brickyard in Netherton.’

  Atkinson nurtured this connection between the team and its supporters. He instituted a rota for having the players attend supporters’ club meetings throughout the season, telling them it was part of the job of being a footballer. One of his most well-used mantras was that none of them should forget who paid their wages.

  ‘Players were more respectful of suppo
rters in those days, because we were on a level,’ insists Godden. ‘It was a pretty depressed area, but we’d all of us go along together to the pub opposite the ground on a Saturday night and listen to a bloke on the piano, or a live band. It was all part of joining in with West Bromwich Albion.

  ‘Most of the time, we had Wednesdays off. You only had to go into the dressing room on a Tuesday morning and say it was your turn to go down the Dog and Duck to draw the raffle, and you’d have fifteen of the lads saying they’d come along. Nothing silly, but we’d have a few beers, us and the fans.’

  Outside of this home environment, the same awful, yawning chasm still opened up that seperated Cunningham, Regis and Batson from the others. All of the players expected stick from opposition fans, but the vitriol being directed at the trio was laced with a particular poison. The sound of it was hostile, but also now as familiar to them as radio static.

  This much was true of all of the black players in the English game at the time. Yet their total number was then just fifty or so. In that regard, the collective black presence in the West Brom team made it a magnet for the extremists. At the FA and in the media, the racist abuse continued to go either ignored or unacknowledged. However, it was now so obvious, so prevalent at Albion’s games, that it could be nothing but a fact of life at the club. It even drew the side closer together and gave them a common enemy, albeit one they never did comprehend in the same way.

  ‘How can I say, we talked about it but we also laughed about it,’ says Ally Robertson. ‘The three lads were our mates and we all used to stick together, so it was nothing to us. If they were being called anything, the rest of us would just tell them to try harder to win the game and shut the crowd up.