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

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СКАЧАТЬ around other players. In short, he had become a rather brash, presumptuous young man. And, now he was available again, that could only spell problems with the other Leeds professionals and officials. The next few years at Elland Road were to be filled with so many clashes that it frequently looked like Jack would be forced to leave the club.

      Albert Nightingale, the Leeds striker in this period, told me: ‘I know he was only starting his career but he was terribly confident about himself, even arrogant. He used to give real stick to the players around him if anything went wrong, even to me – and I was in the forward line. Big Jack did not care what he said to anyone, he was that cocky. He would not speak to you properly. If you were having a bad game, he would lose his head and start swearing at you. He would bad-mouth players on the pitch, and that would lead to a lot of rows. Nobody liked him really. His head was too big for his shoulders. Because he was always shouting at them, people found it difficult to play with him. And, though he was a strong character, he was only a 50–50 footballer, decent in the air but not much skill on the ground. He was mean as well, never spent two ha’pennies. It was a joke in the team, the way he never put his hand in his pocket. But Big Jack took it all in his stride.’ John Charles, the star of that Leeds team, was frequently infuriated with Jack’s attitude. On one occasion, Leeds were playing Fulham and John Charles was playing centre-forward. With just 10 minutes left and Leeds 1–0 up, Buckley decided to bring Charles back to strengthen the defence. ‘Fuck off back up the field,’ said Jack when the Welshman arrived. Charles was so annoyed that, in the bath afterwards, he grabbed Jack and pushed him right under the water. ‘That will bloody show him,’ he said. Another time, when Jack questioned an instruction, Charles pinned him against the wall and said, ‘Listen, I’ll give you a bloody hammering next time.’

      Bobby Forrest, who also played with Jack and became a good friend, recalls: ‘He was always outspoken. He never worried about having a go at anyone, never held anything back. He let you know if he thought you’d done wrong. With his quick temper, he encouraged mickey-taking. Because he had a long neck, some of us nicknamed him “Turkey”. I remember we played up at Sunderland on Boxing Day and we stayed in a hotel in Seaburn the night before. Jack was, typically, the last one down to the dining room that evening, and while we were waiting for him, I had gone into the kitchen, where there was a turkey with its head chopped off. So I grabbed the head and put it on Jack’s plate. When he came in and saw this, he was absolutely furious. He really lost his temper. All the lads started laughing so he picked it up and threw it at me. But I ducked and it went crashing into a table behind, where a couple were quietly having their Christmas dinner.’

      Bobby Forrest also remembers what Jack was like as a footballer in the 1950s: ‘In his later career, he was so strong in the air, but in his first years, it was very different. It was striking the number of times in practice that he would try to head the ball and it would just shoot straight up instead of in the direction he wanted. There was no way, when I first saw him, that I would have ever thought he might one day become an England player.’ But, unlike some, Bobby was fond of Jack. ‘For all his confidence and hardness on the field, there was never an edge to him. He was just one of the lads, good for a laugh.’ Jimmy Dunn, the Scottish-born defender, speaks of both Jack’s resilience and his interest in money-making schemes, what Jack has always called his ‘little earners’. ‘Jack would stand no bloody nonsense. He could be bloody hard and was never intimidated by anyone at all. He was tough, confident, a strong devil. I got quite close to him. During the summer, when we reported for training and the team were building up a sweat in the hot weather, Jack and I would buy several litres of pop from over the road, then charge each player tuppence for a drink.’

      Jack himself admits that, on his return from National Service, he could be a pain, though he put a lot of the blame on the organization of Leeds. He told the author Rick Broadbent: ‘I thought I knew a thing or two because I’d been away and I’d suggest things; but they’d just say, “Stop moaning and get on with it – this is how we do it.” The thing is, we didn’t have any coaching in Leeds in those days. A day’s training would consist of turning up, running the long side of the pitch and walking the short side. For variety, they’d say turn around and go the other way. Then we’d go to the tarmac car park and play seven-a-side. Nobody taught you anything and nobody learned anything. It was ridiculous and I got bloody fed up with it.’ The point about training is reinforced by Albert Nightingale: ‘Did we ever go through manoeuvres or tactics? Did we heck. We never practised anything in training.’

      In such an atmosphere, it was predictable that Jack should clash with his managers. He regarded Raich Carter as a poor coach, and was not afraid to say so. ‘We never had any team talks and we never had a run-down on the opposition. Leeds was not what I would call a professional club in those days,’ he wrote later. To be fair to Jack, most other Leeds players shared this low opinion of Carter, who was unable to relate to his squad. Team captain Tommy Burden, for instance, left the club in 1954 following a bitter fallout with Carter. In a dressing-room row after a defeat by Bury, Burden was furious that Carter blamed the Leeds keeper for a goal conceded from a free-kick. ‘I said to him, “You’re the one who’s bloody well to blame.” I always felt that Raich suffered from thinking that there were no players any better than him.’ John Charles said of Carter: ‘He was very opinionated. He had the view, “I do it this way, so you do it this way.” He loved himself. He would take the credit for what you’d done.’

      Even in the face of such failings, Raich Carter had a strong enough side to win promotion from the Second Division in the 1955/56 season. But within a year, he had been forced to sell John Charles, the player around whom this success had been built. Transferred to Juventus for a world record fee of £65,000 in April 1957, Charles benefited hugely from the move, gaining an international reputation, a trio of Italian championship medals and the award of European Footballer of the Year. Jack Charlton also benefited for, with Charles gone, his place as centre-half now seemed secure. The transfer, however, was highly damaging to Leeds. Without the dominant figure of Charles in defence or attack, the club struggled in the First Division. Carter complained that he was not allowed to use the revenue from the deal to rebuild his side with new players, but by December 1958, the board had lost faith in him and he was sacked.

      Bill Lambton, the man who replaced Carter, commanded even less authority amongst the players. A former goalkeeper with Nottingham Forest, Exeter City and Doncaster Rovers, he had been appointed by Raich Carter in 1957 as part of the Elland Road backup staff. Almost as soon as he took over, his inadequacy as a manager was brutally exposed. His unorthodox training routines were regarded as absurd, his tactical advice negligible. Jack said later with typical honesty: ‘Lambton wasn’t a player, he wasn’t a coach, he wasn’t anything.’ One of Lambton’s bizarre ideas was to ask the players to wear running spikes during five-a-side matches. ‘It was so silly. No-one would go near anyone else. I couldn’t see the purpose,’ recalls Bobby Forrest. During a practice session on a windy day, the players complained that the balls had been pumped up too hard, making them difficult to kick. Lambton came on to the pitch and announced: ‘Nonsense. Good players should be able to kick balls like that in their bare feet and not hurt themselves.’

      ‘Well, go on then, show us,’ said Jack.

      This the manager did, taking off his boots and hitting the balls in his bare feet. Though he refused to admit his pain, he winced with every kick and had to limp away at the end of the session. Jack despised Lambton at this moment for his stupidity and stubbornness. For Jimmy Dunn, this sort of foolish behaviour was typical of the manager: ‘He was so bad it was comic. I could not believe he was made manager. I don’t know how he got the job. He knew nothing about tactics, nothing about playing, nothing about football. I had no respect for him. No-one did.’

      Jack clashed with Lambton off the field as well. At a team dinner in a Nottingham hotel, Jack created a scene when he was asked by the waiter which starter he had chosen from the set menu. Jack, feeling particularly hungry, said he would have both melon and soup. Lambton heard the request and exploded. ‘You’re not having both. Nobody has both.’

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ