Jack and Bobby: A story of brothers in conflict. Leo McKinstry

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СКАЧАТЬ When I became a manager, I never insulted young boys that way.’ But Jack, in a rare submission to officialdom, knuckled down, still haunted by the fear that if he did not stick at it, he would be forced to return to Ashington. As he wrote in his autobiography, ‘There was shame for the lads who were rejected. That was the fear that drove me during my first two years at Leeds. I did not regard myself as anything special when it came to playing football, otherwise I would have jumped at the first offer from Leeds and never gone near the mines. But now I had been given a second chance, I was determined that, come hell or high water, I’d take it.’

      He worked just as hard on the pitch, training rigorously five days a week and playing for both the youth and third teams. Sometimes, he would even turn out twice on the same day. Such was his enthusiasm that he was willing to act as linesman if the appointed official failed to show. The thirds provided a particularly tough learning environment, because they played in the Yorkshire League, which was basically a miners’ competition. ‘I was just 16, playing against hard, fully mature men, big strong buggers who clattered into you with no quarter asked or given.’ It was the hardest league he was ever to experience in his life, and Jack says it was the making of him.

      In his later years, Jack became well known for his relaxed approach to life, enjoying a pint and a cigarette most evenings. But in this mood of youthful determination, he shunned such indulgences. Living in a boarding house near Elland Road, run by Mary Crowther and her spinster daughter Laura, he ignored the nightlife of Leeds except for occasional visits to the local cinema. Astonishingly, in his first two years at the club, he went into the city centre just twice. He was good about money, too, sending home £1 out of his limited weekly earnings of just £4 10s a week. Jack was pleased to be living in digs, for it was the first time in his life that he had been able to sleep in a bed on his own. Yet he also found it odd that his mother had not asked either of her two brothers to put him up. After all, one of the supposed advantages of going to Leeds was the family connection, with Cissie having claimed that Jack ‘would be well looked after’ in Leeds.

      Jack’s increasingly impressive performances and hard work paid off. After years of mediocrity, he was developing fast as a player. In his second year at Leeds, he was given occasional appearances in the reserve team, while in a practice match he played at centre-half and was given the job of marking the giant John Charles, the awesome Welsh international who could play up front or at the back. Jack felt he dealt with Charles quite well that day. Meanwhile, the dictatorial and profane Major Buckley, aged 69, had retired from Leeds United, his place taken by Raich Carter, the former Sunderland, Derby and England striker, whose success as a manager never matched his prowess in front of goal. Carter now had Jack’s future in his hands, for League regulations stipulated that, at the age of 17, a member of the ground staff had either to be given a contract or released. Having heard nothing, Jack walked into the secretary’s office on 8 May 1952.

      ‘It’s my 17th birthday today. Are you going to sign me or not?’

      ‘I’m afraid the first team’s in Holland, and Mr Carter has left no instructions,’ replied Arthur Crowther. Jack was now worried, feeling that the dreaded journey back to Ashington now beckoned. But the next day, he was summoned to see Raich Carter. To his immense relief, Jack was offered terms as a professional, a £10 signing-on fee, plus £14 a week, the maximum wage, more than three times the amount he was earning as an apprentice, and the highest wage of any young professional at the club.

      After receiving this good news, Jack went across the road to a newsagent’s shop run by Jim Johnson.

      ‘Well, have you signed yet?’ asked Johnson.

      ‘Just now,’ replied Jack, surprised at the question.

      ‘Thank God for that. I’ve had scouts from other clubs, about a dozen of the buggers, in and out of here all week, wanting to know if you’d signed.’

      ‘What, to know if I’d signed?’ said Jack, astonished at this level of interest.

      ‘You, yes. They’ve been sweating on the highest line, over the road.’

      Jack walked out of the shop, sensing that after all the doubts, he might at last have a real future in the game.

      That feeling was only enhanced when, after a year of further progress with the reserves, he was elevated to the first team on 24 April 1953, the last day of the season. He was not yet 18 and it was only four years since he had been a struggling left-back in the East Northumberland Juniors, yet here he was, making his League debut against Doncaster Rovers, a full month before his more talented younger brother had officially signed for United. Despite his inexperience, Jack received little support from either management or players. He was merely informed that he would be at centre-half while John Charles would play centre-forward. As he recalled, ‘Incredibly, Raich Carter never came near me that day, never told me why he had put me in the team. And when I climbed aboard the first-team bus taking us to Doncaster the next day, I was left completely alone, without as much as a word from my new team-mates. I mean, nobody told me what I was expected to do, no tactical talk, nothing,’ But Jack acquitted himself well against Eddie McMorran, the Doncaster and Northern Ireland centre-forward, who himself was a player at Leeds in the late 1940s. ‘Charlton did not let his side down,’ was the verdict of the Yorkshire Post.

      Soon after his League debut, Jack was called up to do his National Service. Because of his physique, he was selected for the Horse Guards and, during his two years of duty, he was based mainly at Windsor. It was through the army that Jack discovered two of the vices he had been carefully avoiding at Leeds: girls and cigarettes. Jack learnt that Windsor was a Mecca for young women, who came up from London to admire both the sights and the soldiers. For the first time in his life, he went to dances, and with his easy confidence and striking appearance, he was rarely short of female company. ‘I had a girlfriend in Slough and a girlfriend in Maidenhead, but it was never very serious,’ he later explained.

      Smoking was a habit that Jack started during his years as a cavalryman. But he has always been an eccentric sort of a smoker, rarely getting through more than 10 cigarettes a day, unlike the real addict who cannot go long without lighting up. More interestingly, because he often does not have his own packet, he has become notorious in the football world for taking cigarettes off others, usually without their permission. Peter Lorimer, his colleague at Leeds, recalls: ‘The funny thing is that he did not really smoke that much, yet was always cadging fags. He would not mind who he asked, even total strangers. I have seen him on the train just reach over to the fags on another table. If the Queen Mother was sitting next to him, he would ask her if he could borrow one.’ In fact, when he was on guard duty at Windsor, Jack once went to have a cigarette break in the bushes. Finding that he was without any matches, he came out from the foliage to ask a passer-by for a light. To his embarrassment, he was face to face with Prince Philip. Jack ran faster than he usually did at Elland Road.

      Jack later said that his two years of National Service were amongst the happiest of his life, especially because the budding manager in him emerged. In an interview in 1994, Jack said, ‘My spell in the army did me the world of good. When I was with the Guards at Windsor I really began to enjoy myself. I was made captain of the army football team, the first private to be given such an honour in the history of the Guards. For about a year I organized the training and everything we needed. I made sure that I got myself and all the lads the cushy jobs. We had all the time off we needed, no guard duty and a late breakfast everyday. Because we had a couple of other professionals like me, we had a good team and we did bloody well. We flew to Germany and won the Cavalry Cup.’

      Due to the amount of football he played in the army, Jack turned out only occasionally for Leeds reserves when he was on leave, while he made a solitary appearance for the first team – in August 1954 against Lincoln City. But the army had a profound effect on his character. Jack had gone into the Horse Guards as a diligent young apprentice, only too grateful just СКАЧАТЬ