Sport

Schoolboy Football (Written in 2006 by old Gregorian Tom Clare)

“I’m sure that all of us have at some time in our lives aspired to play the game of football at the highest level. Becoming a professional player is never easy and very few of us ever reach such a pinnacle in our playing lives. However, most of us achieve an acceptable standard, depending on the level of our ability, and at the end of the day, look back on our playing days with great fondness and pleasure. Nothing compares with the joy of actually playing the game of football, enjoying the successes that playing in a good team brings, and most of all, being young, fit and healthy.

I was brought up in the years of the immediate aftermath of the last World War. Playing facilities were virtually non-existent in most localities, and a trip to the park invariably meant either a very long walk or bus expense that in those years parents could ill afford. We didn’t have the distractions from playing outdoors then, that the kids have today. Television was very much in its infancy and computers were unheard of to the Joe in the street. The height of the week’s entertainment for us kids was a trip to the ABC Minors Saturday morning matinee at either the Apollo Cinema at Ardwick Green or the old Grosvenor picture house on the corner of All Saints. Other than that, most of our leisure time was spent outdoors playing football, and in the summer, cricket.

During the 1950s, and even well into the 1960s, there were still a lot of areas in the city of Manchester that had suffered from bomb damage during the war, and those areas had not been rebuilt upon. This legacy was what we called ‘crofts’. These were areas of land where buildings had been bombed and after the war was over had been levelled off, covered with cinders and left. It was on these areas of waste ground where, every day of every week, you would see games of football being played, not only by youngsters but by adults as well. I can recall that in front of the Dunlop’s and John Noble’s factories, which were situated on Brook Street in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, there was a large expanse of waste ground before you got to my school, which was St. Augustine’s on York Street. Every working day, when the lunchtime siren went at mid-day, the male workers would come out from those factories during their lunchtime, put coats down on the ground to mark the goals, and play football. Those games were as competitive as you could get, got quite heated, and many was the time that arguments would break out and be settled bare fisted there and then! It was the same all over the city, and in almost every city throughout Britain.

As kids, we would play for every waking hour we could get. Even during the winter, when the nights were cold, dark and foggy, we played until the bewitching hour and the call came from our parents that it was time to come in. We would move the game from the ‘croft’ and into the streets themselves. In those days, the streets were lit by gas lamps. The lamp posts were fifty yards apart from each other in length and the area between them became our ‘pitch’. The goal was the space between the lamp post and the wall – normally about six feet in width. Most of the time the ball that we used was a tennis ball, and you had to be able to look after yourself when you had possession! Time on the ball was precious because everybody was competitive, they wanted the ball off you, and it was always very physical. You learned to control the ball with both feet, dribble, twist and turn, shield the ball, dummy, tackle, play wall passes, and time your leaps to head the ball. At the end of the day, knee and elbow scrapes were commonplace, as were cut lips and bloodied noses – but oh boy! the sheer enjoyment of playing in those games! It was nearly always ‘City against United’ – the opposing teams would be dictated by whichever club you supported. Your kit was your everyday clothing, and your footwear your everyday shoes! Some kids had the luxury of owning gym shoes, or ‘galoshes’ as we called them back then, but for most of us, it was a luxury that was few and far between. At the end of each day, after the bewitching hour call from your parents, it was a hot bath in the old tin tub in front of the living room fire! Most houses in the area where I lived had no electricity, so good old Mum would have prepared the bath, ready for your entry into the house. She would also be the first aid woman tending to all the cuts, scrapes and bruises that inevitably came with playing the game! After your bath, and a light supper, it was off to bed to dream of your footballing heroes, and it was never very long before you were off into the world of your dreams.

In 1956, I was lucky enough to pass the 11 plus exam and, sorrowfully, left St Augustine’s to attend St. Gregory’s High School which was situated at the top end of Ardwick Green, close to the old Manchester Hippodrome and Apollo Cinema. It was a prestigious school and well known for its football teams. Boys from all over the city wanted to go there. My father and mother gave me the biggest incentive to get into the school team that year – they promised me a new pair of football boots if I was successful. The school trials were played over the course of three evenings at Greenbank Playing Fields in Levenshulme. It was evident from playing in these games that the kids were of a much higher standard than what I had been used to playing with at St Augustine’s. The first game of the season was imminent for my age group, and we all used to crowd around the notice board in the old school playground, waiting for the team sheets to appear. The magical moment came and there it was – my name in the space marked for goalkeeper. Oh my! How the adrenalin ran through me, and at lunchtime, I ran all the way home to tell my mother! The first game was against St. Malachy’s from Collyhurst, and to be played at Monsall Rec, a brute of a ground, all red shale, and was situated on Monsall Street in Miles Platting. I can recall the night before the game even today! I arrived home from school in the afternoon and my mother told me that I could not go out and had to wait until my father arrived home from his work. Naturally, at that age, I was ‘peeved’, to say the least. However, at 6.00pm on the dot, in he came and, without saying a word, handed me a brown paper parcel. Imagine my joy, when on tearing the paper off so hurriedly, there in my hands was the first pair of Adidas boots that I ever possessed! They were actually brown in colour with three stripes on each side; compared to my old boots, they were like carpet slippers! Even at that age, I knew the sacrifices that my parents had made to purchase those boots for me, and believe me, did I treasure and look after them. We beat St. Malachy’s by 5-2, and this was an entirely new experience for me – playing in a really good team! As the season progressed, we swept all before us in our age group.

In the March of 1957, Manchester United were going for something that had never been heard of in those days – ‘the treble’. But so was another team – St. Gregory’s U12s! We’d won both our evening and Saturday leagues with ease, but you never received any medals for those feats back then. However, we had reached the semi-final of our knock-out competition and had been drawn to play St. Patrick’s (the famous old school that produced Nobby Stiles and Brian Kidd) at Newton Heath Loco. Now to appear at ‘The Loco’, as we used to call it, was akin to the professional playing at Wembley! It was an enclosed ground situated in Newton Heath, and had a small stand which also housed the dressing rooms. Good crowds came to watch schoolboy football then, and you can imagine the thrill for 12-year-old boys to emerge from a dressing room, down the steps and out onto this wonderful Mecca of a ground!  The goals also had goal nets, something we had never been used to having. St. Pat’s had a great reputation for playing football, and their master was a certain Laurie Cassidy, who had dualled a career in school teaching with playing for Manchester United! There was no quarter given in this game and both teams went at each other with a vengeance. Early in the game I can recall making a terrible mistake which cost us a goal. The ball was crossed from way out on the right-hand side, more in hope than anything else, and I got too far underneath it and allowed it to pass over my head and into the net. We equalised just before half-time and went in all square. Immediately after the restart, St. Pat’s got a penalty for a silly handball by our full-back, Tom Massey. My Grandad had taught me a theory about facing penalty kicks and I used it all the way through my playing days, and it was one which was quite successful for me. It had to do with the way the penalty-taker addressed his run-up to the ball. I guessed right and saved the kick, atoning for my earlier, costly mistake. As the second half ebbed away, our superiority began to show and we scored twice to win through to the Final by 3-1. When I arrived home and told my parents, they were delighted at the prospect of their young son winning his first competitive football medal.

The Final was again at Newton Heath Loco and the other finalists were a school named Spurley Hey from the Gorton area, and again, a school with a big reputation for football. There was a larger than normal crowd on the evening that the Final was played, as immediately after our game Manchester Boys were playing Salford Boys. We had to change in an adjoining room off from the main dressing rooms. Again, there was the thrill of running out onto the field in front of so many spectators, but my biggest thrill was yet to come. St Gregory’s didn’t play as well as we could do that evening and we lost the final by 4-2, and although I had played well enough myself, the disappointment inside me was immense. The winners collected their trophy and medals first, and the presentation was made by none other than Mark Jones, the Manchester United centre half who was so sadly to lose his life just 10 months later at Munich. Next were the losers, and it was some consolation as I was handed my medal – a silver shield shaped object in a blue case, with Mark Jones ruffling my hair and saying in that deep Yorkshire voice: ‘Well done young ‘un.’ The biggest thrill though came seconds later as I stood there with my team mates, and a voice from behind me whispered in my ear: ‘Let’s feel your medal, son.’ I spun around, and there stood my father and his dog, a black Labrador named Buffer. You see, my father was blind and had never attended a match that I had played in. He had wanted to be present as his son played in his first Cup Final, and Mum had made sure that he was there. They never told me that they would be watching so the thrill of having my dad there completely sent the disappointment of losing the Final spiralling out of my system. He kept that medal until the day he died in 1984, and although I was to go on and win many more medals throughout my own playing days, that little piece of silver still holds pride of place in the cabinet today and is my most treasured possession!”

Manchester Boys, 1956-57

A. Smart (St Gregory’s) played on the Manchester team, which was captained by Norbert (“Nobby”) Stiles (St Patrick’s).

Nobby Stiles and St Gregory’s

Stiles, who also played for England Schoolboys, later signed for Manchester United and became a very successful player, winning two league championships, the European Cup, and the World Cup with England. In his autobiography in 2003, Stiles wrote: “Maybe I should say that I didn’t get quite everything I wanted in my eager boyhood. I wanted to go to St Gregory’s, a big Catholic grammar school where they played on grass…The first two in the class went through to St Greg’s. I came third.” As a result, he remained at St Patrick’s which was an all-age school. St Gregory’s, of course, was not a grammar school at that time, nor did it have its own playing fields. However, its teams did play football on grass – at Greenbank Park off Mount Road in Levenshulme, and with not a little success.

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