Shirts, Shorts and Spurs. Roy Reyland
the cue. He whispered to me, ‘Hit the ball slowly… then run!’
I hit it so slowly, sending the cue ball trundling towards the black, and we both turned and ran! I ran all the way down the concourse of the West Stand, and you could hear these snooker balls bouncing along the floor; they were launching the whole lot after us!
Tommy Heffernan used to head snooker balls for money. The Irish centre half would bet cash that he could head a snooker ball, and would make extra cash on the side. Little things, when you look back, were actually quite dangerous, but often just as funny. One day, Colin was cutting the grass, sat on the big lawnmower. A few apprentices and me hatched a plan to grab him off the mower, for a laugh. Then we stripped him completely naked! Every piece of clothing he had on was divided up and raised up the flagpoles on opposite sides of the ground! Shoes, pants, the lot.
Colin being Colin, he took the joke, got straight back on the mower and, with it being a lovely sunny afternoon, carried on cutting the grass, as naked as the day he was born. But that’s not the end of the story. In those days, the directors’ box was sealed off by metal shutters that could only be opened from the inside. And with the sun coming out, the directors decided to come out for much-needed fresh air. What they all saw was the sight of Colin, sat completely naked on the mower, bold as brass, mowing the grass!
Another time, soon after we signed Steve Archibald, the striker and his glamorous wife were standing in the goalmouth, having photographs taken by the press. It was a great shot, but it was somewhat ruined when Colin White ‘accidentally’ turned the sprinkler on behind the goal, soaking the pair of them. Archie was not best pleased, to say the least!
They were fun times, and our escapades brought us all together as a team. I enjoyed mucking in with the apprentices, and many of them went on to become first-team stars. I was forging relationships with players that were about to become big names, and I was about to get a promotion myself…
The Spurs kit man at the time was called Johnny Wallis, and he was the most miserable and cantankerous old man you could wish to meet. I remember the first time I ever walked into the kit room – which was a corner room tucked away in the car park – Johnny and Cecil Poynton, the physio, were wearing long white coats as they cleaned the boots and bleached the shirts. They looked like Doctor Death and his mate! Players used to have to beg Johnny for a sock, yet when you got to know him he had a remarkable sense of humour, and what’s more he had earned the utmost respect from players and staff alike. And for that reason, I liked him. So, when Spurs manager Keith Burkinshaw pulled me aside one afternoon and asked me if I’d like to help out Johnny, I said, ‘Sure.’
Johnny Wallis had been a player in the war years, and had shrapnel in his calf. So he retired and became the old-fashioned trainer, or ‘sponge man’. Later he took over as kit man, doing the job for 30 years and becoming part of the furniture at White Hart Lane. But at the time I had no idea that I would later become his successor and that, between us, just two men would have looked after those famous white shirts for nearly 60 years.
Becoming Johnny’s understudy quickly seemed like hard work. But the boss had told me to help him out, so I knew I had to get stuck in. Johnny was 5’5” with a bald head and glasses and was a very clinical man. Now, I thought I had OCD with my autograph books and obsessive Subbuteo matches, but Johnny was absolutely meticulous and I think I caught the worst, or best, of it from him.
But there was more to come. ‘It’s all getting a bit much for him,’ Keith told me one afternoon, and, to be fair, Johnny must have been in his sixties.
With Spurs growing as a club, there were suddenly more teams, more away kits and bigger squads. Tottenham Hotspur was becoming a big operation. So on a Monday, after the weekend’s games, I’d help Johnny sort all the boots and dirty kit. I soon got into the swing of things and, on a Friday, I’d learn to pack the kit for the reserve team’s game. Johnny showed me how we dealt with ordering kit from the manufacturer, which was then made by Le Coq Sportif.
This was the centenary year, and the shirt had a huge crest, with two-tone white stripes. It was beautiful. The shorts were silky, and I remember how Glenn used to wear them very short, while the leisurewear was nothing short of enviable. Johnny introduced me to the system, and told me in no uncertain terms what he expected of me. And as well as the ropes, I also learned that, if I could achieve just half the respect and admiration of Johnny Wallis, I’d be doing well. I joyously embedded myself in the world of football strips, lists and ordering systems.
In those days, the kit man used to be in control of the youth players, and that meant supervising them cleaning toilets and scrubbing boots. It was harder back then. You used to have a ‘top man’ – the lead youth player – who looked after the rest. One such player was loveable goalkeeper Tony Parks, subject of my earlier prank with the ‘polystyrene’ brick. He’d report to Johnny and say, ‘The away team dressing room’s spotless, home team and referees rooms are sparkling,’ and Johnny would say, ‘Are you sure, Tony?’ Sometimes you’d let them go home for the day, other times you’d go and check or make them do it again, even if it was right – you know, just to see how they react to a bit of discipline.
One particular time, Tony went up to Johnny and said, ‘I’m done, it’s all clean.’
Tony had on a beautiful white shirt, and was clearly ready to go home after a hard day’s training and cleaning. Johnny ran his finger across the top of the dressing-room door, looked at his finger and ran it right down the middle of Tony’s shirt, leaving a horrendous black line of grease. ‘Do it again,’ he sighed. And Tony simply turned on his heels and started cleaning the dressing room all over again, without muttering a word of complaint. Was Johnny too tough, or was it character building? Well, soon afterwards Tony Parks became Spurs’ hero against Anderlecht in the 1984 UEFA Cup Final, saving two penalties to win us the trophy. He was just 21.
I too, was doing a lot of growing up. My job had changed from being a novelty to suddenly being a reality. I had a job to do now. Two in fact, because I did a season combining my ground-staff duties and the reserve-team kit duties. I recall Bill Nick saying to me, ‘You’ll be all right here, you might not always see eye-to-eye with Johnny, but look, learn and listen.’ I soon started as a full-time assistant kit man and started travelling to the reserve games. In those days, when the first team were away, the reserves played at White Hart Lane. I don’t know what havoc that caused with the pitch, but you’d get anything up to 3,000 supporters along, and, when we played Arsenal, you could expect up to 10,000 fans there. It was electric.
Doug Livermore, the famous Scouse star, was in charge of the reserve team when I became kit man. He’d played for Liverpool, and against Spurs for Norwich in the League Cup Final. Spurs beat them 2–1. Doug came to Spurs as a coach and he was brilliant. I always thought he was Mr Nice Guy – and he was – but one day I saw him really lose his rag and I quickly learned that you shouldn’t judge someone too soon. I remember thinking, ‘I never want to cross Doug.’
Once, the reserves played Millwall away at the Old Den, and it was a great game, with the ball flying from end to end and goals aplenty. Spurs were on the attack when suddenly a fella tapped me on the shoulder in the dugout, and said, ‘I want to play for Spurs.’
Now, you’d occasionally get some idiot who thinks you can just ask for a game, but, when I turned round, I saw the biggest man mountain I had ever seen! He was about six-foot-six tall and wide, one of the scariest Millwall thugs! And he wanted to play for Spurs! I tapped Dougie, because I wasn’t getting involved in this one. I said, ‘Doug, there’s a fella here who wants to speak to you.’
He replied, ‘Yeah, yeah, Roy, I’m busy.’
But the bloke was still pestering me, so I said, ‘Doug, he really wants to play for Spurs.’
Doug