Read Online Catch A Falling Star by Neil Young, Dante Friend - Free Book Online Page A

absolutely shitting it! I’ll prove it to you when you run out. Look over at him and see if he is looking at you.” Well I did and he was looking at me and immediately you think: “Malcolm’s right.” Of course he could just have been looking at me to check whether I was as handsome in real life as I was in the papers but Mal had planted the seed and I believed that Reaney was already a beaten full-back.
    At that time Malcolm, as a coach, was probably in the top three in the world. He had charisma and charm, especially with the ladies!
    I think Malcolm knew I needed a confidence boost because I wasn’t a naturally confident person. I had all the skills necessary, more so than most, but you need that extra bit of confidence as well. Summerbee had it, Lee had it, Doyley certainly had it and they all went on to play for
England
. Plenty of other players like me did not and I wonder if that was the difference between getting a full cap and not. Then again Belly wasn’t particularly confident off the pitch, that’s true enough, but he was absolute class on it, he oozed quality – they couldn’t fail to pick him. For those on the margins of international honours like me, perhaps the X factor was missing.
    The first time I saw Malcolm lost for words was when we were playing against
Newcastle
at
Maine Road
. It was a two-against-two counter-attack from the halfway line with Belly and I against two of their defenders.
    I must have run half the length of the pitch with the ball and I could hear Malcolm shouting: “Give It Him! Give It Him!” from the dug out. He must have said this ten times and in the end I thought: “Fuck you,” and I let fly with a rasping shot. In it went, the back of the net shook and I turned round to him, put two fingers up and stared back at him! That’s one of the few times I ever saw him quiet – he was gobsmacked.
    When Joe and Malcolm took over at
Maine Road
they changed a whole host of things and one of them was the routine for derby matches. Previously the arrangements were to simply sit in the dressing room before a match and wait until
3pm
. Now they’d have us out doing ball work, especially at Old Trafford, in front of a capacity crowd at
2.30pm
so we could get a feel for the atmosphere so we wouldn’t feel intimidated or overawed.
    Our travelling fans used to love going to Old Trafford in those days – we had such a good record there. No matter where we went you always saw blue and white colours in the ground. There is nothing better than seeing your fans in the crowd when you are playing away, especially at Old Trafford.
    We used to love taking on United in the derby matches. The atmosphere would be electric as both teams would be fighting for honours on the pitch but we were the best of friends off it, often doing charity work together. One time we even played a cricket match at the real Old Trafford, the cricket ground, and there must have been 20,000 people there. We thrashed them at cricket too, even though Bestie played – don’t think he was much use with a bat!
    I must mention here that Sir Matt Busby was one of the best managers ever. He paid me a great honour on the way back from the Cup Final in 1969. He was sat with Joe and Malcolm on the train home and they were all talking about the game. Matt turned to me and said: “Well son, I wish you played for us,” which made me feel very proud indeed.
    They had some great players too: Law, Best, Charlton, Stiles, Crerand , Foulkes … but we were becoming the top team in
Manchester
again.
    We were a better team all round. I wouldn’t say individually we were better but we were a better team, there is a difference - we didn’t rely on one or two players to win us the matches. In a way, United got all the headlines and it still used to bother us from time to time. Say we lost a game 4-3 the headline in the paper would be: “City Hammered 4-3,” yet if United lost a game 4-3 the headline would be something