The very sad passing of Sir Bobby Charlton has quite rightly been mourned by society in general, and in particular the footballing fraternity. As well as scores of touching and heartfelt anecdotes pertaining to the great man’s humble and altruistic character, the airways and social media have been awash with personal reminiscences regarding Sir Bobby’s football career and how it was both an honour and a pleasure to have seen the legend live in the flesh.
Although I was never privileged to have seen Sir Bobby play up close and personal, the days since his sad passing have invoked in me a period of reflection. Sometimes it prevails oneself to put aside club alliances and just be grateful to have been able to witness some of the greats of the game.
It is with this in mind that I have put together some thoughts regarding the players I feel privileged to have seen strutting their stuff in front of me, and those I regret having missed out on.
However, before we get going I feel it is only right that I make a couple of disclaimers clear to you discernable readers. Firstly, through being of ‘a certain age’ my footballing consciousness kicked in back in the mid-seventies and therefore opportunities for recollections of players and teams before this period do not exist, and, secondly, having lived overseas for the past three decades, opportunities to have got up and personal with at least two and possibly three generations of teams and players have, in the main, passed me by.
Anyway, to start. My first season following football was way back in 1974-75 and the first thing that springs to mind about this season was the shortage of players in league football who had won the World Cup with England just eight years earlier. Of the eleven who had snatched the cup from West Germany on that sunny day, only three – Martin Peters, Bobby Moore, and Alan Ball – were still plying their trade in the league, and only Peters and Ball were still in the First Division. In addition, Bobby Charlton was on the verge of making a comeback as player-manager at Preston North End.
So, unfortunately, I have no recollection of ever seeing any of ‘Ramsey’s Heroes’ live in the flesh and that’s a pity. Although my mind might be playing tricks on me (the ‘Mandela Affect’, maybe), I think I have half a memory of watching Bobby Moore play in a seven-a-side kickabout at Wembley before one of Liverpool’s FA Cup Finals back in the 1980s, but I cannot be sure and that hardly counts in any case.
When I first got into football, I remember asking my dad – a Manchester United fan – who was the best player he had ever seen live. I remember expecting him to name Charlton or Best in response, but instead, he surprised me by introducing me to the name of Duncan Edwards. Edwards, as most people know, was one of the tragic victims of the horror that was the Munich Disaster in 1958, and his death, as well as his team-mates’, left a large hole in the English game.
As a Liverpool fan, my first footballing hero was Kevin Keegan, and as a young boy I yearned for the day I would finally get to see him in live action. Unfortunately, this took longer than anticipated, what with Keegan playing much of his club football overseas at Hamburg, and it was 1980 and an England friendly match against Argentina before I was in the same postcode as those legendary curls.
That warm spring evening saw Keegan do battle with an up-and-coming youngster in the Argentina side who would go on to collect a few trinkets and bits and bobs over the next decade and a half. His name was, of course, Diego Maradona and my presence in north London that night was the first of two occasions I would see the little man turn out.
The second was also at Wembley, seven years later when Maradona appeared in a friendly match, starring for ‘The Rest of the World’ against ‘The Football League’.
That second Wembley occasion provided me with the perfect opportunity to tick many greats off my ‘bucket list’ of players I wanted to see in action before it was too late and Old Father Time came along to spoil the party.
Making his only career appearance at Wembley that day was Michel Platini, and also in the ‘Rest’ side were such luminaries as Thomas Berthold and Igor Belanove, and while he obviously did not play in the game, the sides were introduced to the legend that was Pele before the match.
Meanwhile, on the ‘Football League’ side were greats such as Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath, and Liam Brady. The latter of that trio was a player I had long admired and hoped to see in the flesh but hadn’t really had much opportunity to do so until fairly recently. Brady had spent a solid five years or so lighting up the Arsenal midfield before his disappearance overseas to Italian football in 1980.
Starting his Serie A sojourn at Juventus, Brady had spent more than six years overseas at a number of clubs including, Sampdoria, Inter Milan and Ascoli before returning to London, and to West Ham, in March 1987.
Working in London at that time, I made a special pilgrimage to witness Brady in action in an evening game at Upton Park when the Hammers met Bryan Robson’s Manchester United. For my willingness to pay homage to one of the greats of a generation, I was rewarded with witnessing possibly one of the worst matches ever seen at the Boleyn as the respective Uniteds played out a goalless draw that sent me together with the 23,485 fellow spectators to the very brink of insanity.
Anyway, I digress.
In early 1982, I saw my main man, Kevvy Keegily for the second and final time in an England match, and in May of that year, it looked for a while like I was going to get to see the legend that was Johan Cruyff in action, as England prepared for a Wembley friendly against Holland as part of their preparations for the World Cup.
Although he had officially retired from international football as long ago as 1977, rumours abound that Cruyff was considering making a special one-off appearance at Wembley that evening. In the end, however, the Great Man had a change of heart and decided not to bother. A pity.
Around the same time – 1982 – it occurred to me that I had never seen one of Britain’s greatest ever goalkeepers in action, and so, thinking he probably didn’t have that long left in the locker, I persuaded the Old Chap to take in another England game at Wembley and it was there that I got to see the legend that was Pat Jennings for the only time.
As the 1980s moved into the ‘90s, I once again visited Wembley to see England take on Johnny Foreigner, and it was here that as well as being lucky enough to take in the one and only England cap of the legend that is Mike Phelan, I also got to see Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, and Roberto Baggio, as England and Italy played out a goalless draw.
Moving overseas permanently as I did in 1993 has meant that opportunities to see anyone – let alone true legends of the game – in the flesh have been few and far between. For example, I never witnessed any players of the all-conquering Manchester United sides of the first two decades of my time abroad, although I did come close just the once.
Way back in 2009, Salex of Fergie Land was due to bring his cohorts to Jakarta when a string of terrorist atrocities out here put plans on a permanent hold and the tour was cancelled.
A few years later, on a trip back to Blighty, I took in a Liverpool game at Loftus Road and so was able to witness the phenomenon that was Luiz Suarez in his absolute pomp, and Steven Gerrard to a lesser degree. A year or so later Liverpool took on the Indonesian national side here, so the opportunity arose to take in a few more ‘legends’.
Another couple of near-misses have taken place out here in Indonesia with David Beckham and LA Galaxy touching down for a friendly match in 2011, but for some reason lost in the grains of time which I slightly regret now, I didn’t bother attending the game.
And again this year in June when Argentina arrived for a friendly game against Indonesia and the nation went ‘Messi Crazy’. Here I was somewhat tempted to go, but the ridiculous hiking of prices to the equivalent of around £250 for a seat on a wooden bench put a damper on the event, and once again I decided to give it a swerve.
Just as well as it turned out, as Messi ended up being a no-show anyway.
Perhaps the last anecdote is one that I have found to be rather poignant over the years and relates to the only occasion I made it along to see the whirlwind that was Gazza live. It was in the spring of 1990 and after work in the City, I popped along to White Hart Lane to see ‘the boys’ as they closed in on yet another league title. Gazza was just coming into his own as a true force to be reckoned with on the national stage but was not yet sure of his place in the England squad.
Well, that night in north London he was magnificent and it was clear to all present that here was a player, someone who was special and had the potential to one day be ranked amongst the all-time true greats of the game.
Just a few months later, of course, Gazza’s life was to change beyond all recognition, just as mine would.
While I headed off into the sunsets of Bali where I would meet my future wife and have my world turned upside down, Gazza would become the star of the World Cup at Italia ‘90 and be catapulted into the stratosphere and all that was to entail
I’m pretty sure I know which one of us got the better deal in the end.
